13316786 10208342705059228 3038628748331467813 oCongratulations to Julie Criscione who was awarded the Currano Scholarship from the Bearded Lady Project and the Paleontological Society.  The Bearded Lady project supports women pursuing a career in field science and aims to ignite conversations about the harmful stereotypes that dictate who can and cannot succeed as a paleontologist. This award was created to help support and encourage women who are interested in pursuing a career in the geosciences. Julie's project, titled "A Morphological and Phylogenetic Analysis of Early Sternorrhynchan Insects from the Late Triassic Cow Branch Formation" is part of her research for her PhD dissertation.  Her work focuses on the Cow Branch Formation (c. 220 Ma) of Virginia/North Carolina.  This formation preserves one of the only assemblages of intact Triassic-age insects; one of the most abundant insects preserved in this deposit is a group of minute hemipteran insects that has yet to be examined in any detail. The goal of her research is to undertake a comprehensive analysis of these insects to determine how many taxa are present and how the group fits into the phylogeny of the insect Order Hemiptera.  Great job Julie!