Colorado Mesa University’s Johanna Varner, an assistant professor of biology, has earned the 2018 Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The organization is honoring the CMU professor with the award for “infusing her public engagement with multi-directional dialogue, reaching diverse audiences and empowering participants to join in the entire process of science,” AAAS said in their Wednesday announcement.

“I am so, totally, honored by this award! I couldn’t have done any of it without a top-notch cadre of excellent collaborators/mentors/colleagues,” Varner said in a tweet Wednesday morning.

“The biology faculty are very excited to see Johanna Varner recognized nationally as an outstanding scientist that engages in academic and citizen science,” CMU biology department head Carrie McVean said in a statement. “We are very impressed with the work she does both in and outside the classroom as a pika ecology researcher.”

The American scientific non-profit cited Varner’s work at CMU as well as her efforts as co-founder of the Cascades Pika Watch in Oregon.

Varner back in 2013 at the University of Utah collecting ‘vegetation from haypiles’ that pikas build beneath rockslides to store food for winter.”

Much of Varner’s work is centered on Pikas, small mammals found in Western U.S. mountain ranges that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. 

She is currently conducting research with undergraduate CMU students on projects that range from “the remote monitoring of pikas using audio sensors to the study of pika stress hormones.”

Varner is also developing courses at CMU that will blend science through mass media thanks to her experience as a mass media fellow with AAAS in 2015.

Varner earned her bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, eventually receiving her doctorate from the University of Utah in ecology and evolutionary biology.

This is not her only award, Varner earned the EcoService Award from the Ecological Society of America and the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2014.

Varner will be awarded the AAAS accolade, along with a “monetary prize of $5,000, a commemorative plaque, complimentary registration to the AAAS Annual Meeting, and reimbursement for expenses to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting,” officially on Feb. 17 in Austin, Tex.

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