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HOMETOWN RELEASE: Jacksonville Resident Representing UT Tyler Wins Top Award at National Conference

Patrick Marshall of Jacksonville, a junior at The University of Texas at Tyler, received the Undergraduate Student Achievement in Entomology Award at the 2009 Southwestern Branch of the Entomological Society of America Conference in Stillwater, Okla., Dr. Blake Bextine, UT Tyler assistant professor of biology, announced. 

“Taking three awards at the meeting, including the Undergraduate Student Achievement in Entomology Award won by Patrick Marshall substantiates the contributions to the field of entomology by UT Tyler researchers,” Bextine said.    

Marshall is one of several student researchers in Bextine’s laboratory. He has been sequencing the coat protein of a virus that negatively impacts the glassy-winged sharpshooter insect, which is known to transmit a bacterial pathogen that causes Pierce’s disease in grapevines, Bextine said.

The research is funded through a federal U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to investigate potential management strategies for reducing the impact of the disease on the Texas and U.S. wine grape industry.

“Patrick is a prime example of a student who has been given opportunity and support, and he has done the most with what he was given. I am very proud,” Bextine added.

Marshall, a music performance major with a biology minor, will graduate in May 2010.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler offers excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. Nearly 90 undergraduate and graduate degrees are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of more than 6,000 high-ability students at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine.