Congratulations to Abby Buffington for her award of an Ohio State University Alumni Grant for Graduate Research and Scholarship for support of her dissertation research, Becoming Food Producers: A Phytolith Analysis of Niche Construction by Forager-Herders in Neolithic Southwest Arabia. Her research uses phytolith analysis to investigate human modifications to the environment of Wadi Sana, Yemen. The results of her research will contribute to a fuller understanding of the process of incorporating food production into subsistence practice in South Arabia and other marginally arid environments of the Near East.