Yoel Stuart
Yoel Stuart Named 2024 Biota Award Recipient
Yoel E. Stuart, PhD, Associate Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology at Loyola University Chicago, was named a 2024 Biota Award recipient, the Walder Foundation announced on May 7, 2024.
The Biota Awards continue to advance early-career researchers who are working to understand, protect, and restore the unique and diverse ecosystems in Chicago and around the world.
As a recipient, Stuart will receive $300,000 over three years to produce practical solutions addressing biodiversity challenges in the Chicagoland region. Stuart’s project, “Building a mitochondrial genome database of Illinois fish to enhance eDNA surveys to improve conservation outcomes,” aims to create a publicly available environmental DNA (eDNA) reference database of complete mitochondrial genomes for all Illinois fish species.
Stuart’s research to this point has primarily been more research-focused on eco-evolutionary questions, and this award will give him the opportunity to apply on-the-ground research aimed at producing applied conservations outcomes.
“The Biota Award from the Walder Foundation is exciting because it supports local work on important conservation questions that will help as we get a handle on, and try to reverse, the current biodiversity crisis,” stated Stuart.
“This will be an exponential increase in eDNA infrastructure useful to monitor fish species in Illinois, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi Basin, contributing to conservation efforts to find rare species, detect invasive species, and protect species of concern,” said Stuart. "The outcomes of this project will bring research out of the lab to reveal the importance of biodiversity in urban environments and to help protect and conserve biodiversity in the Chicago region.”
The eDNA survey of fish diversity will be translated to public research in a collaboration with the Field Musuem, Friends of the Fox River, and into Stuart’s teachings at Loyola University Chicago.
“I am lucky to be collaborating with the Friends of the Fox River, an organization that educates about, and advocates for, the Fox River with the public,” said Stuart. “Under their lead, we’re going to build several educational events and seminars that use eDNA and metabarcoding as a tool to teach about biodiversity and the many factors that affect it.”
The Stuart Lab at Loyola University Chicago studies the speed and repeatability of evolution.
Stuart and the other 2024 award recipients will be recognized at a celebration in July hosted by the Walder Foundation. To learn more about their research projects, please visit walderfoundation.org/biota-awards.
This is the second consecutive year that a Loyola faculty member was named a Biota Award recipient. Michael Grillo, PhD, from the Department of Biology, earned the award in 2023.
Learn more at Dr. Yoel Stuart and the Biota Awards.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 15 schools, colleges, and institutes. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments and 37 interdisciplinary programs and centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of University-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the University’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”
Yoel E. Stuart, PhD, Associate Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology at Loyola University Chicago, was named a 2024 Biota Award recipient, the Walder Foundation announced on May 7, 2024.
The Biota Awards continue to advance early-career researchers who are working to understand, protect, and restore the unique and diverse ecosystems in Chicago and around the world.
As a recipient, Stuart will receive $300,000 over three years to produce practical solutions addressing biodiversity challenges in the Chicagoland region. Stuart’s project, “Building a mitochondrial genome database of Illinois fish to enhance eDNA surveys to improve conservation outcomes,” aims to create a publicly available environmental DNA (eDNA) reference database of complete mitochondrial genomes for all Illinois fish species.
Stuart’s research to this point has primarily been more research-focused on eco-evolutionary questions, and this award will give him the opportunity to apply on-the-ground research aimed at producing applied conservations outcomes.
“The Biota Award from the Walder Foundation is exciting because it supports local work on important conservation questions that will help as we get a handle on, and try to reverse, the current biodiversity crisis,” stated Stuart.
“This will be an exponential increase in eDNA infrastructure useful to monitor fish species in Illinois, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi Basin, contributing to conservation efforts to find rare species, detect invasive species, and protect species of concern,” said Stuart. "The outcomes of this project will bring research out of the lab to reveal the importance of biodiversity in urban environments and to help protect and conserve biodiversity in the Chicago region.”
The eDNA survey of fish diversity will be translated to public research in a collaboration with the Field Musuem, Friends of the Fox River, and into Stuart’s teachings at Loyola University Chicago.
“I am lucky to be collaborating with the Friends of the Fox River, an organization that educates about, and advocates for, the Fox River with the public,” said Stuart. “Under their lead, we’re going to build several educational events and seminars that use eDNA and metabarcoding as a tool to teach about biodiversity and the many factors that affect it.”
The Stuart Lab at Loyola University Chicago studies the speed and repeatability of evolution.
Stuart and the other 2024 award recipients will be recognized at a celebration in July hosted by the Walder Foundation. To learn more about their research projects, please visit walderfoundation.org/biota-awards.
This is the second consecutive year that a Loyola faculty member was named a Biota Award recipient. Michael Grillo, PhD, from the Department of Biology, earned the award in 2023.
Learn more at Dr. Yoel Stuart and the Biota Awards.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 15 schools, colleges, and institutes. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments and 37 interdisciplinary programs and centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of University-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the University’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”