It is with great enthusiasm that FAE welcomes Sam Broadbent, Emma Puetz, and Mason Hintermeister as our newest PhD students in the fall of 2024! We look forward to meeting our new members in the upcoming months. But as a sneak peek, please take some time to read some unique facts about each student below.

Sam joins us from University of Maine where he studied Molecular Biology. He regularly eats insects, as his dad runs EntoSense, an edible insect company. Additionally, he has raised some unusual critters of his own such as jumping spiders, native planaria, and ant colonies. Welcome, Sam!

Emma most recently graduated from Missouri University of Science and Technology with a degree in Geological and Related Sciences. Her favorite hobbies are running, backpacking, camping and digging for dinosaurs. She enjoys spending all of her time outside and traveling. Her most recent adventure was a backpacking trip in the Canadian Rockies of Banff National Park. Welcome, Emma!

Mason is completing his degree at Stony Brook University in Biological Sciences. He enjoys looking for shark teeth and other fossils along the Calver Cliffs and the Potomac. They have also recently gotten into making stone tools. Additionally, Mason enjoys taking hikes and walks anywhere where there’s nature to be seen. He had the privilege of doing field work in the sunburnt, canyon-riddled deserts of the Turkana Basin in northern Kenya, a place which he describes as truly breathtaking and hopes to return soon. In his free time, Mason can also be found chowing down on some Maryland favorites such as scrapple and Old Bay ice cream (though, of course, not at the same time). Welcome, Mason!