The Hawai‘i Branch of the American Society for Microbiology (HI-ASM) held their annual Spring Symposium on Saturday, April 11, 2026 at the John A Burns School of Medicine. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Jason K. Blackburn, Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. Dr. Blackburnʻs research centers on global zoonotic disease ecology, with an emphasis on international collaboration, capacity building, and the development of sustainable surveillance and training programs across low-resource and high-risk regions. The title of Dr. Blackburnʻs talk was “Bridging the Col: Environmental Reservoirs and Evolutionary Pathways – GeoAI and Genomics to Redefine Medical Geography”.
The symposium featured oral and poster presentations by students representing the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, and Hawai‘i Pacific University. Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students competed for awards for best oral presentation, best poster presentation, HI-ASM travel awards, and the Colonel Person award for the highest scoring presentation. This year’s winners were:
- Colonel Person Award – Jessica Leaning
- HI-ASM Travel Awards
- Liam Fressie
- Marie Therese Cook
- Yu-Ching Dai
- PhD Oral Presentation
- 1st Place – Troy Odo
- 2nd Place – Jonatan Josue Fierro Nieves
- 3rd Place – William Harrigan
- PhD Poster Presentation
- 1st Place – Prashant Dahal
- 2nd Place – Thomas Ken Awamura
- 3rd Place – Thi Hai Au La
- MS Oral Presentation
- 1st Place – Yuewen Ding
- 2nd Place – Natalie OʻConnor
- MS Poster Presentation
- 1st Place – Jessica Leaning
- 2nd Place – Anuj Pawar
- 3rd Place – Marika-Leeah Bartholomew
- Undergraduate Oral Presentation
- 1st Place – Johnathan Cornell
- 2nd Place – Edwin Arii
- Undergraduate Poster Presentation
- 1st Place – Colby H. Macapagal
- 2nd Place – Riley Ann Katsue Kaai