Nicole Ardoin is one of only two students in the country to receive a 2006 Morris K. Udall Dissertation Fellowship. The Udall Dissertation Fellowship is awarded to outstanding doctoral candidates who have achieved distinction in their scholarly research and who are entering the final year of writing their dissertation. The dissertation topic must be significant and relevant to national environmental public policy and/or environmental conflict resolution. The award covers both academic and living expenses up to $24,000 for the year. Her doctoral work examines the efficacy of using a larger scale to involve local communities in conservation efforts, particularly through environmental education strategies. Her research uses three ecologically, geographically, socially, and culturally diverse case studies--the Galapagos Islands, the Klamath-Siskiyou, and the Chesapeake Bay--to examine the scale at which residents of high-priority ecoregions perceive of and care about their places. Her major advisor is Professor Stephen Kellert.

Weslynne Ashton has received a Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research award for 2006-2007. Weslynne is exploring how an ecological framework can be applied to regional industrial systems, with particular attention to community composition. Her major advisor is Professor Marian Chertow.

Graeme Auld continues his fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada to conduct doctoral research on market-driven certification programs. He proposes to analyze both market power and the health benefits of certified products to understand how and whether certification programs can gain lasting support. His major advisor is Professor Benjamin Cashore

Cristina Balboa has received an 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.

Janette Bulkan has received a Compton Foundation Fellowship and a MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale International Dissertation Research Grant. Her research is looking at forest concession policies and practices on the Guyana frontier. Her major advisor is Professor Michael Dove.

Manja Holland continues her EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship in 2006-07. Manja is investigating the effects of urbanization on macroparasite life cycles and amphibian disease. Her major advisor is Professor David Skelly.

Holly Jones has received an American Philosophical Society Lewis and Clark Exploration Grant. Her research looks at Invasive species, island ecology, and restoration biology. Her major advisor is Professor Oswald Schmitz.

Barry Muchnick has received a Rockefeller Scholar-in-Residence fellowship from the Rockefeller Archive Center, an Environmental History Fellowship from the Denver Public Library, the Bernard and Audry Rapoport Fellowship from the American Jewish Archives, a Lamar Fellowship from Yale’s Howard R. Lamar Center, and a Yale Prize Teaching Fellowship. The Yale Prize Teaching Fellowships recognize outstanding performance and promise as a teacher. They are considered among the most important honors that Yale bestows upon graduate students. He is pursuing a joint History/Forestry & Environmental Studies Ph.D. degree. His major advisor in F&ES is Professor Michael Dove.

Andrew Niccolai has received a grant from the Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center of the US Department of Agriculture and the US Forest Service for a project which will investigate the development of automated tree identification methods to delineate and distinguish between eastern white pine and eastern hemlock trees using local indicators of spatial association with high spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery as applied to temperate conifer-hardwood forest management in northwestern Connecticut. Andrew is the recipient of a generous donation from the ImageTree Corporation for the advancement of his research in individual tree identification for classification of temperate hardwood genera. He has also received summer funding from the Class of 80 Fund for his doctoral research. His major advisor is Professor Chad Oliver.

Catherine Picard will continue to receive the Dreyfus Memorial Fellowship, which is administered by the DACOR Bacon House Foundation. She is researching protected areas in Tanzania. Her major advisors are Professors William Burch and Susan Clark.

Alexandra Ponette has received a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in Ecosystem Studies and a NASA Graduate Student Research Fellowship. Her doctoral research examines cloud forest fragmentation, agroecosystems, and plant diversity in central Veracruz, Mexico. Her major advisors are Professors Lisa Curran and Kathleen Weathers.

Shaila Seshia has received 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.

Mark Urban is the Co-PI on a grant to organize the working group, "Evolving Metacommunities". The travel and lodging grant is supported by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, a research center funded by NSF, and the University of California, Santa Barbara campus. Mark will be a post-doctoral fellow beginning in Sept. at the same center. The title of his research is “Predicting Ecological Interactions Across Geographic Scales”. His major advisor is Professor David Skelly.