The American Ornithological Society (AOS) annually bestows research awards honoring early-career researchers for their ornithological research. This year’s early-career research awardees represent outstanding contributions to the scientific study and conservation of birds. The 2025 recipients will accept their awards and delivery plenary talks at the 2025 AOS annual meeting (AOS 2025) this August in St. Louis, Missouri.
The AOS’s James G. Cooper Early Professional Award and the Ned K. Johnson Early Investigator Award recognize outstanding and promising work by researchers early in their careers. Our 2025 James G. Cooper Award winners are Teresa Pegan and Valentina Gómez-Bahamón. This year, the AOS awarded the Ned K. Johnson Award to Maria Stager.
“The AOS has a long history of recognizing people making significant contributions to ornithology and avian conservation, “ AOS President Sara Morris remarks. “We are excited to highlight the work of these three early career ornithologists, who will share their work with our community at our conference this summer.”
“North America has lost three billion birds over a half-century; now more than ever we need a strong focus on understanding and conserving birds,” adds AOS Executive Director and CEO Judith Scarl. “The AOS is proud to be able to recognize and celebrate these incredible early-career professionals who will play such a critical role in shaping ornithology and bird conservation in the decades to come. Thank you Teresa, Valentina, and Maria for your work to advance the field of ornithology!”
James G. Cooper Early Professional Award
Teresa Pegan, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University and University of Massachusetts Amherst
Teresa Pegan, Ph.D. received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 2015, and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2023, advised by Benjamin Winger. She is now a National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral fellow co-sponsored by Scott Edwards at Harvard University and Nathan Senner at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Pegan is interested in how migratory life history strategies influence avian evolution. Her current work focuses on population and evolutionary genomics of extreme long-distance migrants in Charadriiformes (shorebirds and relatives). Her past work has been recognized by a University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Tinkle Award and an AOS Kessel Publication Award (Winger & Pegan 2021, Ornithology). Pegan was previously awarded the AOS Werner and Hildegard Hesse Research Grant (2019); an AOS Katma Award, (2020; Winger et al. 2019), and AOS annual meeting travel grants (2024, 2023, 2016). Pegan will deliver a plenary address titled “The Evolutionary Consequences of Seasonal Migration” at the AOS 2025 meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, in August.
Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech
Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech. She studies how different ecological contexts influence behavioral responses that can drive evolutionary processes, promoting or hindering species formation and persistence. She is originally from Colombia, where she trained as an ornithologist with the non-profit organization SELVA: Research for Conservation in the Neotropics. Since then, she has been an active research and outreach volunteer affiliated with SELVA. She achieved her master’s degree at Los Andes University in Bogotá, and her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at The Pennsylvania State University. Gómez-Bahamón is one of the managers of the Tomogrande Biological Station in the Colombian Orinoquía, where she has done research on behavior, conservation, ecology, and evolution of birds, as well as multiple training workshops for students. Additionally, she runs a long-term outreach project called The Migratory Truck in collaboration with community leaders and SELVA’s education team, which aims to foster the appreciation of nature through culture and science in marginalized communities of the Vichada Department of Colombia. As a Ph.D. student she received an AOS Research Grant (2017); an AOS Travel Grant (2019); and as a postdoctoral scholar she received an AOS Latin American/Caribbean Conservation Research Grant (2023). Gómez-Bahamón will deliver a plenary address titled “Behavioral responses as catalyst for eco-evolutionary dynamics” at the AOS 2025 meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, in August.
Follow Dr. Gómez-Bahamón’s research.
Ned K. Johnson Early Investigator Award
Maria Stager, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Maria Stager, Ph.D., earned her B.S. in Natural Resources at Cornell University and spent a semester studying abroad in Italy. After college, she stumbled into bird research—working as an avian research assistant for projects in Argentina, Australia, and the Galapagos, among other places. She enjoyed doing research so much that this eventually led her to graduate school. Stager did her graduate work with Zac Cheviron, first as a master’s student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and then as a Ph.D. student at the University of Montana. Her first postdoctoral position was at the University of South Carolina and later with Scott Taylor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Stager joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an assistant professor in biology in 2022. The research in her lab combines field studies and laboratory experiments on natural populations while integrating tools from physiology, ecology, and genomics. Much of this work focuses on understanding how birds respond to environmental change and more specifically, the physiological mechanisms that enable an individual to cope with fluctuating environmental conditions throughout its life. Stager feels exceptionally fortunate for her experiences in the field of ornithology and for the opportunities she’s had to work and collaborate with so many passionate people. As a graduate student Stager received an AOS Council Student Presentation Award and Student Travel Grant (2019), as well as two American Ornithologists Union research awards (2013, 2016). Stager will deliver a plenary address titled “The importance of flexibility in a changing world” at the AOS 2025 meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, in August.