Diego Gallego selected as the 2026 James A. Kushlan Graduate Student Award Recipient

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary recently selected Dr. Diego Gallego, Spain, as its 2026 James A. Kushlan Graduate Student Award recipient. Diego is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for the Conservation of Birds of Prey (Argentina) and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. He is assessing how snowy owls prospect and settle to nest in the vast arctic landscape using an unprecedented telemetry track database. 

“Diego is the perfect example of an engaging, well spoken up-and-coming conservationist. He is and has been involved in various projects over the last decade and always finds a way to achieve significant milestones and make great conservation contributions,” says Hawk Mountain Senior Scientist and Director of Graduate Studies Dr. JF Therrien.

The snowy owl is particular in its extreme annual breeding dispersal distances. As an example, individuals can successfully nest in the remote corners of northeastern Greenland on one year and then settle to nest in the Western Canadian Arctic the next. This behavior poses significant challenges in studying its population trend, but also individual life history traits such as fecundity, reproductive success, and survival. By combining precise individual tracking over several consecutive years, Diego’s project is shedding light for the first time on the prospecting process occurring through consecutive years on an individual level, as owls assess the state of the tundra. 

The James A. Kushlan Award was established in 2005 to support graduate students in their work for or with Hawk Mountain Sanctuary through a generous gift established by the Kushlan Endowment Fund. The award is competitive and based on the merit of research project proposed. It is awarded to a qualified graduate student working in raptor conservation and without geographic restriction. The Hawk Mountain Graduate Student Program is a strategy to support the most talented up-and-coming raptor biologists and assist them with completing independent research that not only adds to our understanding of raptor conservation, but also helps to establish young professionals globally as leaders in the conservation community. 

For more information or to support the Graduate Student Program, please contact Dr. JF Therrien at [email protected].