Mathias Graduate Student Awards Granted

The growing "diversity" of the Natural Reserve System was highlighted recently when the NRS announced the 24 winners of the 2009 Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Student Research Grants. This year's recipients attend every general UC campus, including tenth campus UC Merced, and their chosen research sites will include two recent additions to the NRS.

The NRS awards Mathias Grants each year to promote research at NRS sites while giving UC graduate students crucial experience in the design and management of field research projects. This year that list includes the first winner from UC Merced, Chelsea Arnold, who will be doing a hydrologic study of high-elevation ecosystems at the NRS's new Yosemite Field Station. Another new NRS site, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, is one of the many research sites that UC Irvine grad student Stephanie Kivlin will look at as part of her investigation into how fungi migrate under a changing climate.

This year's winners also come from disciplines that arent traditional users of the reserve system. Christopher Woodcock, for example, studies photography at UC Davis. He plans to visit all 36 reserves to create a visual survey of the system. Another good example is Nicole Migliarese, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley School of Education who will be studying children's everyday experiences with the natural world at the NRS's Sagehen Creek Field Station.

These prestigious graduate student grants were established in 1988 and named to honor Mildred Mathias, a legendary UCLA professor and NRS founder. Over the last 21 years, faculty judges have awarded more than 300 grants and given out over $500,000 in awards. In addition to the financial support from the grants, each winner is also invited to the three-day Mathias Symposium, where they have the opportunity to meet their colleagues and present the results of their research. The next symposium is scheduled for February 2010.

Congratulations to all 24 winners of the 2009 Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Student Research Grants! Click here for a complete list of winners.

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