Matthew Persons, Charles B. Degenstein Professor of Biology at Susquehanna University, has been selected by the Council on Undergraduate Research as the recipient of the 2026 Advanced Career Biology Mentor Award.
“Susquehanna University has a longstanding tradition of providing faculty-mentored undergraduate research opportunities to students as early as their first year,” said Kathy Straub, dean of Susquehanna’s School of Natural & Social Sciences. “Faculty members like Matt Persons are integral to making this possible. As a result of his mentorship over 25-plus years, our students have gone on to excel in careers in medicine, education, industry, and master’s and doctoral programs — outcomes tied to the hands-on experience they gained in Matt’s lab.”
Since beginning his career at Susquehanna in 1999, Persons has mentored 186 students on original research projects, an average of seven students per year. These collaborative projects have resulted in 28 peer-reviewed publications with student co-authors (in addition to 25 other peer-reviewed publications authored solely by Persons during this period) and five additional manuscripts with student co-authors currently in preparation. His research students have presented 231 times at conferences and professional meetings, and 23 students have won individual awards at these conferences.
“I am honored to receive this recognition from the Council on Undergraduate Research,” Persons said. “Mentoring undergraduate research students is an enlightening experience. Sometimes as a scientist, you can become a prisoner of your discipline. But then a student asks a question or comes up with an idea, and they open my eyes to a new way of thinking. I learn from them every day and that’s a large part of why I do it.”
An arachnologist and behavioral ecologist who serves as the director of Susquehanna’s interdisciplinary ecology program, Persons studies how animal communication and information use influences survival and reproductive success. Persons and his student collaborators use spiders as a model organism to ask questions about female mate choice, parental care, predator-prey interactions and kin-recognition, and broader questions in the areas of chemical ecology, ecotoxicology and neuroscience.
Some research examples include herbicide effects on spider parental care, the role of fishing spider silk on aquatic insect space use, projectile defecation in purseweb spiders, palatability and toxicity of spotted lanternflies to spiders, landmark navigation learning in spiders, sex pheromone identification, and documenting metal concentrations among arthropods in coal-impacted areas.
Persons and his students also study the behavior of other animals, including the relative importance of odor and infrared cues on ball python diet choice, urine-marking behavior in dogs, changes in aggressive behavior among creek chub and brook trout under shifting temperature, and herbicide-induced changes in earthworm seed-caching behavior.
Persons will receive his award at the CUR Award Celebration Ceremony in June.
