Honoring Genevieve Comeau
"Genevieve Comeau was an amazing person, an excellent scholar. She was a PhD candidate in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Entomology & Insect Science, who died suddenly and tragically in March of 2019. Like all graduate programs, EIS, as we call ourselves, is a community of scholars with close ties among us: faculty, students, staff, undergrads, postdocs. Genevieve was an extraordinary scholar. At its best, scholarship can bring light to areas of darkness, and Genevieve was really luminous.
Genevieve was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow – this provides three years of salary and tuition and is the most coveted and competitive graduate student fellowships. This award is made to less than 10% of the students that apply. The award goes to students who think critically and synthetically, who write persuasively, and who have shown a record of engagement with the public about science.
Genevieve was also a Carson Scholar. This is a fellowship from the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment, designed to train the next generation of environmental researchers in the art of public communication. Genevieve was fully engaged in this task. We ask our students to submit a report on their progress each year, and this is an excerpt from Genevieve’s in 2018: “I was so excited to finally have results that not only did I present them at my committee meeting in November, but at the 2018 University of Arizona Student Research showcase, a Borderlands Science Café, the UA Grad Slam, as a guest lecturer for Infectious Disease Epidemiology (EIP 660), and at the EIS department retreat. Additionally, I published an op-ed about my research in Terrain Magazine and made a short film that I showed at the Loft First Friday Film Fest.” That’s eight presentations in four different media within a single year.
In 2018, Genevieve was awarded the Carruth Scholarship – this is an annual award for an outstanding graduate student in the EIS program. More than can be conveyed by describing awards, Genevieve was making a valuable contribution to fundamental science as well as to the control of vector borne diseases. She was the author of three papers – her first authored paper showed that the zika virus can be vertically transmitted through mosquitoes, and her other papers dealt with the biology of the mosquito vector and the incubation period of zika in the mosquito.
From having Genevieve in my seminar class, I can say that she was deeply curious about all aspects of the human ecosystem in which mosquito-borne disease occurs; for one semester she was studying the relationship between the adoption of insecticidal bed nets in homes in African countries and the incidence of malaria. Based on Genevieve’s scientific accomplishments and extraordinary scholarship, Genevieve’s was awarded a PhD in the spring semester of 2019. I know I speak for all of us when I say we have been so honored to have had Genevieve as part of our community."
~Molly Hunter
PhD Degree Awarded
Genevieve’s great uncle Roger accepts Genevieve’s PhD hood and diploma in her stead at the Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs Commencement in DuVal Auditorium, May 8, 2019.
Tree Dedicated:
A Live Oak (Quercus fusiformis 'Joan Lionetti') was donated by Civano Wholesale Nursery, planted by the UA Grounds Services on the north side of the Forbes Agriculture Building as a memorial for Genevieve. An informal tree dedication was held May 22 at the site.
The group gathered for the tree dedication, May 22, 2019.
Friends, students, and faculty at the tree dedication.
Friends, students, and faculty at the tree dedication.