Doctoral Students Awards/Fellowships - 2007/2008
Congratulations to the following 2007-08 Award and Fellowship recipients.
David Butman has received a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship for his dissertation research examining the origins and fate of organic carbon entering rivers and head-water streams. Through the integration of field experiments and large scale spatial modeling with remote sensing, this research will help to increase understanding of how streams and rivers can influence the US and North American carbon budgets. His major advisor is Professor Peter Raymond.
Jennifer Balch has received a P.E.O. Scholar Award. Her doctoral research focuses on how fire influences the transition from forest to savanna in the Brazilian Amazon. Her major advisors are Professors Lisa Curran and Daniel Nepstad.
Janette Bulkan has received a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Visiting Fellowship for Tropical Forest Conservation. Her research is looking at forest concession policies and practices on the Guyana frontier. Her major advisor is Professor Michael Dove.
Kimberly Carlson has received a Council on Southeast Asian Studies at Yale Ford Foundation Summer Research Grant; a Yale Tropical Resources Institute summer research grant; and a Yale Program in Agrarian Studies Graduate Student Award. Kim is investigating the ecological and socio-economic effects of oil palm plantations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia by using high resolution remotely sensed data (Quickbird), and available Landsat and MODIS products. Her major advisor is Professor Lisa Curran.
Uromi Goodale received the honor of Best Student Presentation-Physiological Section at the annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America, for her talk, "Use of Non-destructive landscape ecophysiology tools in Sri Lanka". Her major advisor is Professor Graeme Berlyn.
Iona Hawken has been awarded a Yale Univeristy John F. Enders Fellowship; a Henry Luce Foundation Award; and an Amazon Conservation Association Graduate Research Grant. Her dissertation research investigates how urbanization factors impact land-use and forest-use, environmental values underlying land-use decisions; and how these land-use and forest-use changes impact forest plant and animal communities in lowland Peruvian Amazonia, Her major advisor is Professor Stephen Kellert.
Katrina Jessoe has been awarded an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) award,and a Theresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research award. Katrina has also been awarded travel support with funds from a V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation Grant (through Prof.Tim Gregoire) which is intended to foster collaboration between the TATA Research Institute in India and F&ES. In addition, IDEXX Laboratories has donated equipment worth $2,000 to her project. Her research uses an economics perspective to investigate how the health outcomes from improved drinking water supplies depend upon behavioral choices in rural India. Her major advisor is Professor Sheila Olmstead.
Holly Jones has been awarded a Leopold Schepp Foundation Scholarship. Holly is researching invasive rodent removal in offshore islands of New Zealand. Her research will shed light on ecosystem recovery following invasive species removal. Her major advisor is Professor Oswald Schmitz.
Diana Karwan has received a Yale University John F. Enders Fellowship. She was also awarded an Outstanding Student Paper Award from the American Geophysical Union Biogeoscienes Section for her presentation at the Fall AGU meeting. Diana investigates the source and in-stream movement of suspended particulate material in two working forests: the Mica Creek Watershed in Shoshone County, Idaho and Great Mountain Forest in Norfolk, Connecticut.
Kelly Levin has been awarded a Yale MacMillan Center dissertation research grant, a Switzer Fellowship, and a Theresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research award. Kelly has also been awarded travel support with funds from a V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation Grant (through Prof.Tim Gregoire) which is intended to foster collaboration between the TATA Research Institute in India and F&ES, for work she is performing on an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary. Kelly's dissertation research is dedicated to enhancing the policy response to the problem of climate impacts to biodiversity. Her major advisor is Professor Benjamin Cashore.
Doctoral student Catherine Picard in the field.
Catherine Picard has been awarded a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, a National Security Education Program Boren Fellowship, and a Yale MacMillan Center Dissertation Research Grant. Catherine’s research focuses on the promise and peril of transboundary protected areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is conducting her research on the Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor, located along the Tanzanian-Mozambique border. Her major advisors are Professors Susan Clark and William Burch.
Daniel Piotto has received a Yale Tropical Resources Institute research grant and a Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies pilot grant. Daniel is researching natural and artificial pathways of forest restoration in the Central Corridor of the Brazilian Atlantic forest. His major advisors are Professor Florencia Montagnini and Professor Mark Ashton at Yale, and Dr. Wayt Thomas at The New York Botanical Garden.
Jonathan Richardson has been awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship; a Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Pilot Grant; and a Connecticut Association of Wetland Scientists Lefor Grant. His research investigates the influence of landscape structure on amphibian dispersal and population dynamics. Taking both an evolutionary and ecological perspective, he is particularly interested in the effects of gene flow on population health and persistence across the landscape. His major advisor is Professor David Skelly.
Laura Robb has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. Her research will compare behavior under voluntary environmental policy and command-and-control regulation, using agricultural nutrient management in Denmark and Iowa as a case study. Her major advisor is Professor John Wargo.
Alvaro Redondo Brenes has been awarded a Yale Latin American and Iberian Studies Travel Award; a Yale Tropical Resources Institute research grant; and a grant from the Evergreen Fellows Program. Alvaro is researching the effect of land use, political and socioeconomical factors on wildlife conservation in the Path of the Tapir BiologicalCorridor and the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. His major advisors are Professors Florencia Montagnini and Chad Oliver.
Ali Senauer has received a Hixon Center for Urban Ecology Fellowship, a Henry Luce Foundation Award, and a YIBS Center for Field Ecology Pilot Grant. Ali is investigating how children's exposure to the physical structure of their residential environment impacts their experiences and health. Her major advisor is Professor Stephen Kellert.
Shaila Seshia has been awarded a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Field Work Grant. Shaila also continues to receive a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship (2007-2009). Shaila is a doctoral student in the joint Anthropology/F&ES doctoral program. Her research is entitled "Forward to Nature? The Making of Organic Uttaranchal" (Uttaranchal, India). Her major advisors are Professors Michael Dove and Helen Siu.
Steven Wallander has received a Theresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research award. His research examines the impacts of water efficiency standards and subsidies on residential water conservation. His major advisor is Professor Sheila Olmstead.
Listed below are students who continue their outside awards in 2007-08.
Cristina Balboa continues her EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship. Her dissertation research examines the new governance roles played by transnational conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing country conservation, and the accountability mechanisms that tie them to resource-dependent communities. This research aims to bring science to an otherwise normative topic and improve the likelihood of long-term conservation success. Her major advisor is Professor Benjamin Cashore.
Manja Holland continues her EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship. Manja is investigating the effects of urbanization on macroparasite life cycles and amphibian disease. Her major advisor is Professor David Skelly.
Alexandra Ponette continues to receive a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in Ecosystem Studies and a NASA Graduate Student Research Fellowship. Her doctoral research examines the effects of land use and land cover change on water and atmospheric inputs to a fragmented tropical montane landscape in eastern Mexico. Alexandra is particularly interested in the ecology of cloud forest ecosystems and shade coffee agroecosystems, and the importance of fog as a vector of nutrients/pollutants to high elevation landscapes. Her major advisors are Professors Lisa Curran and Kathleen Weathers.
Juliana Wang is the recipient of 2007-2008 Dissertation Fellowship at the Council on East Asian Studies, for her work on measuring productivity and environmental effects of electricity shortages. Her advisors are Professors Erin Mansur and Robert Mendelsohn.
