Unsung Heroes for 2026 Honored at Dinner & Dialogue
Breann Richey, Swarnabha Roy and Hikari Skabelund Recognized for Exemplifying the Aggie Core Value “Loyalty.”
Breann Richey, Swarnabha Roy and Hikari Skabelund
Headshots courtesy of the awardees
Texas A&M’s Graduate and Professional School presented three graduate students with Unsung Hero Awards for 2026, recognizing their extraordinary commitment to service, mentorship and the Aggie Core Value of “Loyalty.” Breann Richey, Swarnabha Roy and Hikari Skabelund were celebrated at the Dinner & Dialogue, the Graduate and Professional School’s signature event and the centerpiece of Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week (April 6-10, 2026).
Each Unsung Hero awardeed receives a $1,000 scholarship to use for research, presentation or professional development educational or travel expenses.
Dinner & Dialogue brings together graduate students, faculty and campus leaders to celebrate the collective impact of graduate and professional students. The annual event centers on a theme connected to one of Texas A&M’s Core Values, providing an opportunity for reflection and conversation across the graduate and professional student community. This year’s theme, “Aggies Standing Together: Loyalty for Good,” highlighted loyalty not as passive allegiance, but as an active commitment to uplifting others, strengthening community and contributing to the public good.
The 2026 Unsung Hero Award recipients were selected for exemplifying this vision of loyalty through their dedication to mentoring and teaching, their leadership in supporting fellow students and scholars, and their efforts to ensure their research and service benefit communities within Texas A&M and beyond.
Unsung Heroes for 2026
Forest & Pine
Invasive species are a massive issue for our planet.
They cost us about $423 billion a year in mitigation and damage control. Um, and they also cost nature.
I came to Texas A&M to research hybridization and I started asking myself how do I want to see myself in 20 years and I kept coming back to this question of invasion.
My research mainly focuses on the Italian wall lizard which is this globally introduced species and something that’s really interesting about it is we know that it responds rapidly to new environments. We found out that it was introduced globally and no one was asking questions about what it was doing to the species that already lived in the habitats that it was invading.
There’s a really interesting study where these lizards were intentionally introduced to an island in Croatia and left. So they introduced 20 lizards, they walked away, came back 30 years later. Their limbs were longer, their heads were taller and wider.
And the reason that they were this way is because there were less bugs on the island. So the lizards had to adapt to the food that was available. So they started eating plants and their diet changed from like 90% bugs to 30% bugs and 70% plant. So we know that they respond really rapidly when they’re given novel environment. And that’s one of the reasons they’re so interesting to study as an invasive species.
The Italian wall lizard is native only to the Italian peninsula. It’s now been introduced all across Europe. It’s in parts of Asia, Africa, and there are now 12 states in the United States with populations of Italian wall lizard. In fact, in the last 2 years, there have been five new states with introduced populations of Italian wall lizard. So, this species really isn’t being taken seriously as an invader. and no one’s asking about what happens when it arrives in a new place.
So when we go out into the field, we capture these lizards and we ask a couple of basic questions. What kind of space are they occupying? What’s the temperature of whatever it is that they’re sitting on? How high up are they? How far are they from the closest shelter? How are they using their space?
And what are they doing in their space are some of the things that we really care about capturing every time we see a lizard. A&M has been instrumental. All of my research has actually been funded through different fellowships and grants and scholarships at Texas A&M. So, none of this would have been possible without Texas A&M support.
I could not do this research by myself.
I have a fantastic team of people that go out into the field with me. Since 2022, I have worked with 58 undergraduate researchers. So this is such a collaborative thing that we do.
Um, our research is really about having a great team and I think I have the best team.
My name is Warner Roy and I’m working in model robotics at Texas A&M University.
So I’m working on a scalable and secure model robotics. So what I’m trying to do here is like let’s say you have a lot of robots working in uh let’s say agriculture for first responders in a factory and when they’re getting like too constrained in the computation uh why not use the existing uh robots that you already have in the vicinity try to assist you in some way since uh multiple uh robots are working together in a group like like a swarm. So none of the single robot is getting overstrained or getting challenged. So they’re always working in sync. They’re forming a team of formation among themselves to uh do the computation, share data, learn from each other.
I have a few like uh Wall-E robots. I’m trying to simulate like a search and rescue operation where the robots have to work together, map the unknown area and at the same time do like a semantic mapping of the environment. In the future, I want to uh deploy something, contribute to something that makes the robotics much more safer, much more trustable and uh much more easier um for common audience to use.
If you see me more recently, you’ll mostly find me working in my lab, finishing all the experiments, getting all the data, like writing the paper, writing the dissertation, teaching, mentoring students, guiding them in the right path.
We have uh around 500 to 600 uh students in the capstone. Projects can be like uh robotics, embedded systems, uh circuit design, high voltage, power electronics, it can be RF and microwave, anything.
And we also have like teams not just from electrical computer engineering, from mechanical, from aerospace as well.
They all come together and work in the same team.
I try to make the class like interesting. So when I’m explaining something to them, I try to always give them an example like where they encounter in their daily lives and then I ask them like what is your way to approach this problem?
A lot of times uh when you explain something uh to the students they take it lightly. But when they try to do their project and then they use the what you have told them and then they realize oh this guy was telling the truth and I should have paid attention and that that aha moment motivates me. I have a lot of students. They have surpassed me in so many ways. Like that is like the biggest achievement that drives me. That gives me the kick.
My research is mainly looking at potential toxicities in lunar regulus simulant or as most of y’all would call moondust simulant.
I wanted to grow plants in space. I didn’t want to be stuck on Mars or anything like that, but I wanted to grow plants in space.
One thing we forget about is astronauts need to eat, too. Typically, previous studies have been all about engineers. I love engineers. I’m married to an engineer. But also system design, things like that. But now since our technology has advanced and we can have people on the International Space Station without any issues, um we’re starting to consider more about life quality. So instead of prepackaged foods that degrade in vitamin C and vitamin B1s that are essential for us humans, we want to start looking at that quality.
I started off as a mechanical and environmental engineer at Utah State University. So I’m Aggie squared there. I had a thermodynamics professor who was very interested in the Martian.
When I read the book and watched the movie, I was like, Mark Wattney is a mechanical engineer as well as a botnist, so why not do kind of both? and
I decided I’m going to go into plant science.
I mainly work with controlled environment which is a large part of horiculture on Earth but I also focus on space systems.
I have people come up to me and they say well you’re doing stuff in space who it it doesn’t relate to things we do on Earth but actually it does here on Earth. That means growing stuff inside, typically with LED lightings.
NASA actually was a huge advocate for LED lighting. They needed to grow plants in space. There’s no sunlight, so they had a lot of LED lights.
I didn’t know you can grow plants indoors with LED lightings. And looking at the colors, the light quality. Oh, plants have favorite colors like red and blue. So, I know that anything I do up there, I can utilize here on Earth.
For me, teaching is so valuable because I get to see students learn and find their passions. I get to be kind of that bridge where I get to introduce people who are more maybe artsy, right-minded to a little bit more science. So, it’s been fantastic. You should see all of our flowers.
I love being an Aggie. I was Aggie before. I’m an Aggie now. It’s fantastic. I got to see Utah State versus Texas A&M. I was 100% sure an Aggie was going to win. A&M has such a sense of community and I have found so much more meaning being involved in everything that M has built a sense of community for me and I think that’s really important. So say yes to everything you guys.
Unsung Heroes for 2026
Breann Richey, Doctoral Candidate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Michelle Lawing
Richey is conducting international research on globally invasive herpetofauna, focusing particularly on the Italian Wall Lizard. Richey prioritizes mentorship, community support, and the pursuit of knowledge that creates opportunities for others. Richey has mentored 58 undergraduate students, peer-mentored three master’s students, and supported a high school student, working to make research training accessible, interdisciplinary, and valuable across a range of academic and professional paths. Beyond research, she volunteers frequently at campus research and outreach events and is deeply invested in building a stronger, more connected community within her department and program. She hopes her work reflects a commitment not only to scholarship, but also to helping others grow, belong, and succeed.
Swarnabha Roy, Doctoral Candidate, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Faculty Advisor: Stavros Kalafatis
Roy is a robotics engineer who developes architectures for modular multi-robot systems that operate over challenging networks by combining perception, planning and edge-cloud orchestration with learning-based control. commitment to “Loyalty for Good” is rooted in engineering open-source, accessible robotics for humanitarian and agricultural use, ensuring technological advancements benefit the greater community. Roy strives to demonstrate unwavering loyalty to his fellow Aggies through his dedication to mentoring over 600 undergraduate students and advocacy as President of the Indian Graduate Students Association (IGSA). Whether Roy is building lasting educational resources for his students or quietly connecting peers with vital mental health and campus support systems, his ultimate goal is to uplift others and ensure no student has to face their hurdles alone
Hikari Skabelund, Doctoral Student, Horticultural Sciences
Faculty Advisor: Shuyang Zhen
Skabelund strives to demonstrate loyalty by putting the success and well-being of her peers and the broader Aggie community first. Skabelund mentors and teaches undergraduate students in her lab, leads mini after-class workshops, and dedicates time to multiple organizations, including Plant the Moon Challenge, Horticulture Graduate Council, and the Graduate Student Experience and Success Working Group. She believes loyalty means showing up consistently and helping lift others, even behind the scenes. In her research, Skabelund may not reach for the stars, but she does reach for the moon, where she explores enhancing crop growth and stress tolerance to lunar regolith (moon dust), elevated CO2, and novel light spectra for sustainable production strategies in space and terrestrial controlled environment agriculture, allowing others to reach for the stars.
