University of Michigan News Service – UM News

Seven receive conservation fellowships

Editors: For more information about any of these Fellows, contact Marcia Lochmann, (734) 615-6431, or e-mail [email protected]

ANN ARBOR—Seven graduate students at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment have been named Doris Duke Conservation Fellows for 2002.

Doris Duke Conservation Fellowships are awarded to master’s degree students who show outstanding promise as future conservation leaders in non-profit or governmental sectors. The school at the U-M is one of only six in the country to be chosen for these grants, based on its interdisciplinary environmental programs and commitment to educating conservation practitioners.

The students are as follows:

Katia Aviles-Vazquez, San Juan, Puerto Rico — graduate student in resource ecology and management focusing on terrestrial studies. Aviles-Vazquez has worked in an organic farming cooperative, in a favela near Recife, Brasil, and with a non-profit conservation organization in Puerto Rico. Her primary interest is in the conservation of tropical areas and the sustainability and improvement of living conditions for the people who live in them. She wants to focus on how to better manage and perhaps restore landscapes in Puerto Rico.

Lisa Bobrowski, Grand Rapids, Mich. — graduate student in landscape architecture. Bobrowski completed a bachelor’s degree at Michigan Technological University and then spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. Her primary interest is in ecological restoration, native plant landscapes and community involvement in these projects.

David Chadwick, South Dakota — graduate student in resource policy and behavior. Chadwick received a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College in 1995. For three years he worked in Washington, D.C., on the staff of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). His coursework focuses on public land policy, land conservation, and citizen involvement in resource management. His goal is to work for a public land management agency or a nonprofit organization that involves citizens and communities in resource management decisions.

Stephen Higgs, Birmingham, Mich. — graduate student for joint master’s degree programs in natural resource policy and behavior and J.D. in international and comparative environmental law. Higgs has taught environmental education in various non-governmental organizations in Latin America and worked for several government agencies and non-profits in Washington, DC. His goals include the practice of environmental law and teaching environmental law and collaborative natural resource management at the college level.

Jeremy Moghtader, St. Joseph, Mich. — graduate student in resource ecology management, studying landscape diversity in agricultural lands as related to biodiversity and ecosystem function. Moghtader has worked as an Americorps volunteer for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. After graduation he plans to work with local and regional organizations to implement conservation plans for rural areas.

Mindy Murch, Kalamazoo, Mich. — graduate student in the Corporate Environmental Management Program, a dual master’s program between the School of Natural Resources and Environment and the Business School at the U-M. She has worked as a strategic planner for PricewaterhouseCoopers and for the U.S. Forest Service. Her future plans include returning to the Forest Service.

Joseph Short, Baltimore, Md. — master’s candidate in resource ecology and management, specializing in conservation biology and ecosystem management. Following graduation from Carleton College, Short worked for three years at the Nature Conservancy, where he planned and managed riparian, aquatic and grassland restoration projects and coordinated local outreach programs and volunteer training. He is part of a project team at U-M that is facilitating a watershed restoration effort along the Shiawassee River. His Duke Foundation project will be researching and writing a conservation plan for a new Nature Conservancy project area in northern California.

The Doris Duke Conservation Fellowships at the U-M are administered as part of the School of Natural Resources and Environment’s Ecosystem Management Initiative, an ecosystem-based teaching, research and outreach program that promotes sustainable natural resource management.

The Doris Duke Conservation Fellowship Program provides tuition, internship and loan repayment support for graduate students focusing on the conservation of natural resources and who intend to work in public and non-profit organizations. The overall goal of its Environmental Program is to conserve the habitat upon which flora and fauna depend in ways that balance both human and ecological needs.