{"id":43172,"date":"2026-09-09T14:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T18:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=43172"},"modified":"2026-09-09T14:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T18:21:25","slug":"quinn-receives-governors-award-for-excellence-in-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/quinn-receives-governors-award-for-excellence-in-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Quinn receives Governor\u2019s Award for Excellence in Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Aug. 5, 2026, in the hallowed halls of the South Carolina Statehouse rotunda, Furman University\u2019s John Quinn<\/a> accepted the Governor\u2019s Award for Excellence in Scientific Research at a Predominantly Undergraduate Institution (PUI) from Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette. Quinn, the Henry Keith and Ellen Hard Townes Professor of Biology and director Environmental Studies, is the eighth Furman faculty member to receive an Excellence in Science Award since 1985.<\/p>\n

The honor, now administered jointly by the Governor\u2019s Office and the South Carolina Academy of Science, is presented annually to one faculty member statewide across all STEM fields and recognizes exceptional scholarship and undergraduate engagement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best parts of working at Furman has been the research collaborations with students,\u201d said Quinn, a faculty member since 2012. \u201cThis award reflects those collaborations over the years and the creativity that emerges from interdisciplinary scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n

All told, Quinn has mentored 82 Furman undergraduates, high school students and a South Carolina high school teacher in research projects. Fifty-two of those are completing undergraduate theses in Biology<\/a> or Earth, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences<\/a> at Furman.<\/p>\n

At the core of Quinn\u2019s research and mentorship is a fundamental tenet \u2013 \u201cthere need not be a binary choice between conservation and development\u201d \u2013 a timely philosophy for a region like the Greenville area that is experiencing explosive growth. It\u2019s an idea that says thoughtful development can and should coexist with protecting our natural resources.<\/p>\n

To that end, Quinn and his undergraduate colleagues have directly assisted in orchestrating Biodiversity Management Plans across 12 Michelin North America<\/a> properties using novel bioacoustics data and GIS (geographic information systems) bolstered by AI and data analytics.<\/p>\n

Quinn and his undergraduate research team have partnered with nonprofit Upstate Forever<\/a> to conduct a large-scale mapping project for identifying critical tracts across a 10-county region in need of conservation investment.<\/p>\n

Filtering out noise, building better data<\/h2>\n

Increasingly, Quinn is leveraging the use of AI and machine learning in bioacoustics,<\/a> collecting and refining bird calls and sounds from other animals. The technologies boost the capacity to identify and track species in a fixed location and time as well as monitor temporal changes related to environmental stressors, seasonality, migratory patterns and more.<\/p>\n

From Kansas farmlands to the Canadian Prairies to the forests of South Carolina, Quinn and company have deployed automated recording units to capture and fine-tune avian sound signatures. This kind of work \u2013 identifying new ways of solving environmental problems \u2013 is gaining traction from the US Forest Service, the National Science Foundation<\/a> and local funding sources to support cross-disciplinary STEM investigations.<\/p>\n

During the Statehouse ceremony, Dean of Faculty\u00a0Jeremy Cass<\/a>\u00a0\u201900 said, \u201cJohn and his student collaborators \u2013 more than 75 undergraduates \u2013 have demonstrated that successful conservation strategies in working landscapes must\u00a0account for the social, ethical and historical drivers of land management, effectively merging the biophysical sciences with the human experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Quinn, seeing what\u2019s happening around us matters, but hearing is just as essential.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy listening to the environment, we can learn new things about the natural world,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cAnd while we have always collected data by listening, the recent development and use of AI and machine learning tools has allowed us to answer new questions about how wildlife uses the landscapes we share.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quinn has mentored more than 80 Furman and high school students. They have partnered with conservation groups and local businesses on research projects that strike a balance between development and sustainability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":43173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,37,2711,9,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-biology","category-earth-environmental-and-sustainability-sciences","category-engaged-learning","category-sustainability","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43172"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43192,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43172\/revisions\/43192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}