Dr. Joyce Longcore. Photo courtesy of the University of Maine.

This morning I arrived at the office to an email from my doctoral supervisor Dr. Jim Collins at Arizona State University (ASU). The email had been sent to a long list of current and past collaborators of the lab all of whom have worked on or are currently working on research questions related to amphibian decline. The email was to inform us that last night in Washington, Dr. Joyce Longcore, Elaine Lamirande, Dr. Don Nichols and Dr. Allan Pessier, were awarded the 2017 AAAS Golden Goose Award. The award celebrates scientific success stories and Dr. Longcore and the other awardees are the perfect example of a great team doing some wonderful investigative work.

Jim's email was also a reminder to me of how fortunate I was to complete my graduate training at ASU being mentored by Jim. As a member of his team, I also had the ability to interact with a large network of scientists, and graduate students from across the country that were all a part of a large, NSF funded Integrated Research Challenges in Environmental Biology (IRCEB) project focused on amphibian decline (Dr. Longcore was one of those scientists). It serves as an important reminder to me how experiences, conversations, and being treated as a colleague even when you are a graduate student can really shape the experience of graduate students. I have very fond memories of my time at ASU and the wonderful training environment in which I was "raised". Jim Collins, Elizabeth Davidson and the rest of the IRCEB team were all a huge part of that and seeing Dr. Longcore receive such a prestigious award in recognition of her work in the area of amphibian decline was a really wonderful surprise for a Thursday morning.

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