Congratulations to Asil Newigy who was recently awarded the Farouk El-Baz Student Research Grant in Desert studies by the Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division of the Geological Society of America (GSA). Asil was honored with the prestigious award at the recent GSA Connects meeting in Anaheim, California which, in addition to the prestigious recognition for her proposal, will provide her with $2,500 (USD) of research funding. Asil is a Master’s student  at the University of Potsdam where she participated in a field excursion led by Professor Maria Mutti, Dr. Jens Kallmeyer and Dr. Ben Rendall to the Eastern Desert along the Red Sea coast of Egypt. Inspired by that field course, Asil developed a project proposal that attempts to link processes in desert ephemeral stream catchments (wadis) with patterns of carbonate sedimentation along the coast. Asil’s research - currently supervised by Dr. Ben Rendall - is relevant to several practical applications in sedimentology and stratigraphy and has great promise to better understand the ways in which the Red Sea’s extensive coral reef system responds to terrigenous sedimentation events. We look forward to seeing the results of Asil’s research and wish her the best!