Xiaomeng Tian is awarded Ohio Cichlid Association’s 2022 Jim Smith Endow­ment Fund Grant

Xiaomeng Tian, young researcher at the Hector Fellow Academy, received the Jimmy Smith Fund Grant at the 2022 Extrav­a­ganza, making her one of the two winners. The primary goal of the fund is to support research, educa­tion, and conser­va­tion initia­tives that center on cichlids and catfish. The fund serves as a tribute to Jim Smith's legacy and contin­ues to provide much-needed support for impor­tant work in the field. This grant will provide Xiaomeng with $1400 to support her research by funding supplies for her experiments.

Xiaomeng Tian is currently pursu­ing her doctoral project at the Univer­sity of Konstanz in the group of Hector Fellow Axel Meyer. She has a profound inter­est in genetic mecha­nisms that drive the diver­sity and capac­ity of adapta­tion of differ­ent species. Her work delves into the intraspe­cific polymor­phisms of Peris­so­dus microlepis, a scale-eating cichlid from Lake Tanganyika, known for its asymmet­ric head and later­al­ized forag­ing behavior.

Congrat­u­la­tion to Xiaomeng Tian!