Roman White Honored at International Research Convention for Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

Roman White, 17, of Fayetteville, was honored as a “Founder’s Fellow” at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Spokane, Washington on Thursday, July 28. The JMIH is a convocation of professionals and researchers in the fields of Ichthyology (the study of fish), and herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians).

Roman has been an avid wildlife enthusiast from a very early age. In addition to the typical house pets in the White family home, Roman caught, studied and practiced appropriate husbandry techniques for turtles, snakes, lizards and other creatures that he could keep and study. As a sophomore in high school, Roman was selected to be a member of the Houston Zoo Crew, a teen leadership program where he learned to “naturalize” or teach zoo patrons about the animals on exhibit and has served as a Zoo Crew member through June of 2022. In 2020, Roman began the process of studying for his Texas Falconry License and was licensed as an apprentice falconer in the fall of 2021. As a member of the Texas Hawking Association, Roman caught and trained his first bird, a red-tailed hawk named “Bumi” to hunt squirrelsand rabbits.In late 2021, Roman applied to and was selected as one of ten high school students from across the nation to participate in the Pre-College Scholars Program with the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR), the world’s largest international herpetological association. From January through May of 2022, Roman attended a series of virtual SSAR meetings with professors, researchers, and other professionals in the field of herpetology to learn more about what it is to be a herpetologist and how the world of wildlife research works. Topics included: “Roundtable with graduate students and faculty on pursuing professional herpetology in college and beyond,” “Herping with a purpose: a roundtable on how to use your interests to make meaningful contributions to herpetology andconservation,” and more.After participating in the SSAR Pre-College Scholars pro-gram, Roman was selected to be one of five Founder’s Fellows to receive a $500 award to be used toward travel expenses associated with the JMIH conference. Attendance at the conference gives the fellows the opportunity to listen to keynote speakers, attend academic symposia, and network with graduate students, professors, and researchers from around the world. After being acknowledged and presented to the general assembly at the plenary meeting onThursday morning, Roman and the other Founding Fellows enjoyed a luncheon and round table discussion with Kraig Adler, Ph.D., Professor of Biology at Cornell University and founder of the SSAR; Kirsten Nicholson, Ph.D. , Professor of Biology and Curator of Natural History at Central Michigan University and President of the SSAR; John Maerz, Ph.D., Professor of Vertebrate Ecology at the University of Georgia and SSAR Pre-College Scholars program director as well as other well published and esteemed herpetologists and former Pre-College Scholars who are now reporting their own research findings at the conference.

When asked about his hopes for the Founding Fellows whoare participating in the JMIH conference, Dr. KraigAdler, who co-founded the SSAR in 1958 as a high school student said “My hope is to provide an opportunity for a really young person who is really excited about something, in this case, herps, but it could be almost anything, just get a kid interested in something…I mean something intellectual, something that would take them out into the field, introduce them to new environments, maybe to different, interesting people; and whether it leads to a career in herpetology – frankly as much as I love herpetology as a calling, it wouldn’t break my heart if (they) decided to be a reproductive biologist or something. But what I would like to hope is that everyone in this room would be a scientist or somewhere in that realm…” Roman will graduate from Columbus High School in May of 2023 and plans to earn a degree in biology with the intention of studying raptors at the Raptor Research Center at Boise State University for his post-graduate work. For more information about the Society of the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, visitwww.ssarherps. org.