1999-2001 Doris Duke Conservation Fellows

For more information on the Doris Duke Conservation Fellowships, please return to the Doris Duke Conservation Fellows Page.

Samantha Conrad is a first year joint MBA/MS (Resource Policy and Behavior concentration) degree candidate in the Corporate Environmental Management Program. She graduated from Yale University in 1995 with a BA in Political Science and a focus on global conservation issues. With the support of a postgraduate fellowship from Yale, she joined Conservation International (CI) as a volunteer at CI's Ankarafantsika project in northwest Madagascar. After assisting with the project's community development and primate research activities, she transitioned to the role of Ecotourism Consultant in 1996, working with CI and local and international partners to launch community-based ecotourism activities in Madagascar. Upon her return to the US, Samantha became the Program Coordinator for CI's projects in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, backstopping multilateral donor-funded projects, serving as the primary liaison between field staff, US headquarters, and external partners, leading fundraising initiatives, and fostering media support for project activities.

Ryan DiGaudio (MS candidate in Resource Ecosystem Management) came to SNRE having a professional and academic background strongly rooted in natural resources and conservation. He obtained a BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Biology and Environmental Studies. As an undergraduate at Santa Cruz, Ryan was exposed to many luminaries in the conservation and ecology field. This fostered a strong interest in Ryan to gain an in-depth understanding of how the natural world operates through ecological processes and how human activities are affecting these ecological processes. After graduating in 1995 from UCSC, Ryan began working as a biologist for the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving bird populations and their habitats. Working in this capacity, Ryan conducted many comprehensive field-based research projects throughout California and abroad. While the exact nature of the research varied from project to project, they all had one key objective in common: to study and monitor bird communities and their habitats in order to evaluate their population status and to develop conservation and management plans. As Ryan studied how wildlife populations were responding to physical changes in their habitats, he increasingly became interested in understanding how wildlife populations were responding to large scale environmental change, such as global climate change. This led to Ryan's thesis project of examining how avian communities respond to climatic variables in both short term and long term changes. After graduating from SNRE, Ryan hopes to continue working with environmental NGOs, specifically to work on biological conservation related issues.

Christina Hura (MS candidate in Resource Ecology and Management) received her Bachelor's of Science from Ohio State University, where she majored in Environmental Science with a focus on Wildlife Management. During the course of her undergraduate degree she also completed an honors research project entitled, "A Comparison of Avian Diversity and Abundance in a Natural and a Restored Wetland on Lake Erie". In addition to this experience, she also worked as a resource management intern for the Columbus and Franklin County Metroparks working on biotic surveys and exotic species removal. Christine has also worked for Ohio Citizen Action, a nonprofit environmental organization, where she went door-to-door educating the public about pesticide and right-to-know issues.

After graduating from Dartmouth College with a BA in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, Sarah Kopplin pursued several environmental "adventures" before entering SNRE's REM/CBEM master's program. Her first adventure started in Australia, where she worked in the outback, studying invertebrates (primarily ants). Next, she worked with maned wolves (indigenous to South America) at the Smithsonian Institution's Conservation and Research Center. She also created an educational "module" to teach elementary school children about endangered species. After the CRC, Sarah headed to her home, North Carolina, to study federally endangered freshwater mussels with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Following that field season, Sarah worked with ERA Environmental Consulting, Inc. There, she helped devise an environmental software program to help furniture manufacturers comply with air pollution regulations. The summer before coming to Michigan, Sarah worked for the Long Island Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, studying and working to protect the federally endangered Piping Plover and the state-threatened Least Tern.

Katya Podsiadlo obtained a Bachelors of Arts in Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont in 1994, where she concentrated on land conservation. Her undergraduate thesis, "An Evaluation of the Cultural Acceptability of the Forest Legacy Program in Granby and East Haven, Vermont," studied the cultural factors contributing to the success of federal land conservation programs. Since her undergraduate studies, Katya has gained diverse professional experience that provides a strong interdisciplinary approach to landscape architecture. She has worked as a research data specialist at the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont and as an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Northeast Kingdom Initiative in Vermont. In these capacities, Katya compiled, updated, and analyzed community data, performed a Visual Analysis as part of a Main Street Assessment for community development, and assisted in program evaluation, web development, grant and newsletter writing, and environmental education curriculum. Katya also has experience in horticulture and agriculture through employment at Horsford's Garden Center and Nursery in Charlotte, Vermont and at Verrill Farm in Concord, Massachusetts. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, Katya also worked at a landscape architecture firm for two years that specialized in historical landscape architecture and preservation planning for parks, parkways, museums, historic sites and estates. In addition to conducting historical research, field investigation and site analyses, she was project manager, authored historic and cultural landscape reports and drafted plans by hand and using CAD-based computer programs.

Clea Rome graduated with a BA in Biology from Macalester College in 1996. After college, her interest in natural resource management carried her to Wyoming, where she lived and worked on a national wildlife refuge, educating school groups and monitoring wetlands. She has also worked for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Plant Protection Division, tracking and controlling the spread of exotic species. Clea became interested in ecological design while working on a wind and solar powered organic farm in northern Minnesota. Her purpose in pursuing a degree in landscape architecture at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment is to gain the skills needed to design communities and green spaces that foster ecological soundness. Clea's interests include urban and rural planning issues, stormwater management systems, and ecological restoration. After graduating, Clea would like to work with a government agency planning open space, greenway networks and brownfield redevelopment.

Jeff Staudinger
Resource Policy & Behavior

Jeff Staudinger (MS candidate in Resource Policy & Behavior) entered SNRE with a variety of environmentally-related experiences. His previous academic background is in environmental engineering, possessing a BS and MS from Virginia Tech along with an Engineering degree (a professional post-master's degree) from Stanford University. Jeff has 9 years of professional experience as an Environmental Engineer, half working as a Project Engineer for a leading environmental consulting firm (Roy F. Weston, Inc.) and half working as an Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Compliance Engineer at two manufacturing facilities. In addition, he has taught environmental and engineering-related courses at three colleges part-time as well as volunteered as a full-time Lecturer/Teaching Assistant for the Stanford Youth Environmental Science Program, a summer education program for underprivileged high school students.