First Place 2020

Todd L. Green
PhD Candidate
Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences
Tulsa, OK 74107

Title: Embryonic Cassowary
Description: “This unhatched southern cassowary specimen (Casuarius casuarius) was micro-CT scanned; data were then visualized through digital rendering software. Colors are indicative of differing densities of bone and soft tissues (yellow = more dense; purple = less dense). The embryo is only about the size of a pear, though adults can grow to six feet in height. Cassowaries are a threatened group of flightless birds which inhabit the Wet Tropics of northeastern Australia and New Guinea.

Second Place 2020

Nathan Ong
PhD Candidate
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences
Tulsa, OK 74107

Title: Cosmic Turtle
Description: Cultures from around the globe have common myths that the world rests on the shell of a giant turtle, and it’s easy to see why. I’ve spent hours blissfully lost among the mountains and valleys that grow on these shells.
This is a paleohistological slide of a Late Cretaceous soft shelled turtle named Helopanoplia. It was imaged under cross-polarized light at 10x magnification, using a Zeiss Axioimager M2 motorized microscope. This shell fragment was found on the Kaiparowits Plateau, which is federally-administered land formerly protected by Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.