# REU student awarded ASPT Research Prize! June 12, 2025 [ Jenifer de Carvalho Lopes ](/people/jenifer-de-carvalho-lopes) - [ News ](/news-categories/news) ![HUH Fellow Jenifer Lopes and REU student Rain Bugado](/sites/g/files/omnuum6796/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-06/2025-06-12%20at%2013.11.24.jpeg?itok=pftqnBGj) Rain E. Bugado, mentored last summer by HUH Research Fellow Dr. Jenifer C. Lopes, was selected as one of the winners of the 2025 Undergraduate Research Prize award by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT). Established in 2013, the ASPT Undergraduate Research Prize honors students who have completed outstanding projects in plant systematics, broadly defined. As part of this award, Rain will be acknowledged at the Botany 2025 meetings in Palm Springs, where the ASPT Awards Celebration will take place on July 29, 2025. Rain is a senior undergraduate student at the University of New Hampshire, who participated in the Genes, Ecosystems, Organisms (GEO) Research Experience for Undergraduates program (REU) at the Departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. ![Vellozia peripherica](/sites/g/files/omnuum6796/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-06/Vellozia_peripherica_Serra_Canastra%20%2814%29.JPG?itok=xWfAETpP) Vellozia periphericaRain developed a research project at HUH under the supervision of Jenifer. Her project was about the conservation of *Vellozia* in the *Campos Rupestres* under climate change, which was published earlier this year. The *Campos Rupestres*, a mountainous environment in the highlands of central-eastern Brazil, characterized by high species richness and endemism. Among this ecosystem’s most diverse and abundant endemic genera is *Vellozia* (Velloziaceae), comprising 127 species. In this study, it was shown that on average, each species of *Vellozia* is expected to lose 84.26% of its suitable habitat by 2060, with 13 species projected to lose 100% of their habitat. Over half of the genus is projected to lose over 92% of its suitable habitat. Bugado, R. E., Shrestha, N., Magri, R. A., Prado, J., & Lopes, J. C. (2025). Vanishing ecosystems: The looming threat of climate change on an iconic genus *Vellozia* in the Brazilian *campos rupestres*. Global Ecology and Conservation, 58, e03439. Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)