Nicholls biology students awarded by the Louisiana Academy of Sciences

The Nicholls State University Biology Department had several students awarded by the Louisiana Academy of Sciences.

The Louisiana Academy of Sciences is an organization of course scientists from around Louisiana with sciences from all disciplines. This organization gives out awards to students every year.

Quenton Fontenot, head of the biology department, said that they have student categories in which students are judged and ranked by the powerpoint presentations they give. Fontenot also said that this helps motivate the students when their presentations are being judged.

Gabby Gautreaux, Claire Pierce, Chris Oubre, Cameron Belding were undergraduate students who won an award for their oral presentations.

Sarah Soorya was a graduate student who won an award for her oral presentation.

“They’ve done outstanding work. We are very proud of our students here at Nicholls. We do a good job of teaching our students, not just the course material they need to know, but also how to conduct research and a major part of doing research is to be able to communicate it with the world,” Fontenot said.

Fontenot also said that there are a couple of ways that the awards from the Louisiana Academy of Sciences can help the students in their future careers.

“One, the actual activity of putting together a presentation and presenting it in a professional meeting is preparing them to be successful for their future careers because it is important for professionals to be able to communicate with the general public,” Fontenot said.

The second reason Fontenot said that they can put this experience on their resumes and potential employees can see that they know how to communicate.

Fontenot said that he is very proud of his students at Nicholls and that these students deserve the awards for all their hard work.