All of us here at the Museum want to congratulate Faith Yang for receiving the Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology Outstanding Senior Award for 2020-2021! Faith is currently an Undergraduate Research Assistant with the MWFB and spent all four of her undergrad years with us as an intern.

Beginning her freshman year, Faith demonstrated her passion and enthusiasm for wildlife and anatomy and proved to be a steady, meticulous specimen preparator. By her junior year, her skills had developed such that she was assigned as a chief specimen preparator for the Sacramento Valley Bird Inventory Program. She became expert in the preparation of waterfowl and songbirds, preparing almost 200 specimens. Her flat wings are exemplary, with every feather carefully positioned in its proper place! She even got a chance to work on our first California Condors.

Faith’s leadership skills also developed in her four years with us. She was always open to new experiences. She volunteered for public outreach events like Picnic Day and Biodiversity Museum Day, where she was a preparator on exhibit and engaged with hundreds of visitors, sharing her interest in wildlife anatomy and specimen preparation. Faith thrived in the lab atmosphere and showed confidence and leadership skills when she volunteered to take the lead, coordinating the preparation of dozens of fox specimens received from the UC Davis Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit as part of their Sacramento Valley Red Fox project. Faith organized specimen intake, coordinated preparators, and processed dozens of foxes: no small feat!

Unfortunately, the COVID suspension of research activities on campus occurred when Faith entered her senior year. Despite this challenge, Faith was able to continue to volunteer for the Museum by contributing content for our website. Fortunately, she came back in person to the lab this spring!

We are very excited for Faith, who was accepted to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, where she will begin studies this fall. Congratulations, Faith! We wish you all of the best and hope you can pop back over to our lab to help with future projects. (However, we still don't know what your favorite music is to listen to in the lab... Hint, hint, Faith, we want to rock out with you!)