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2002-2004 Doris Duke Conservation Fellows

 

See a slideshow of images from the Duke Conservation Fellows retreat in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, October 2-5, 2003.

 

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

Wendy Adams
Resource Policy & Behavior: Conservation Biology and Ecosystem Management

 

Wendy Adams graduated from Davidson College, NC, in 2002 with a B.A. from the Center on Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental Policy, a degree that she created to combine her interests in political science and ecology. She helped with field research on plant succession at Mount St. Helens in 1994 and 1999 and plans to continue the work in the summer of 2004. She has also spent summers working for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Ecological Society of America, and the journal Environmental Management. Wendy took a leave from Davidson during the winter of 2000 to work for the Al Gore Presidential Campaign. She was on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Washington State during the primary season. During the summer of 2000, Wendy served as an intern at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), helping with the review process of The U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. In the fall of 2000, she returned to Washington to work for the Washington State Democrats Coordinated Campaign and headed the Tacoma field office. She is currently continuing her studies as a master’s candidate in Resource Policy and Behavior with a concentration in Conservation Biology and Ecosystem Management at SNRE, where she is focusing on endangered species and biodiversity issues. Upon graduation, she plans either to serve on the staff of a state or national politician or to work for a nongovernmental organization interested in environmental advocacy.


Mary Adelzadeh
Resource Policy & Behavior: Collaboration & Conflict Management

 

Mary Adelzadeh is a native of northern Arizona. Mary’s Navajo upbringing and strong interest in the environment led her to pursue a B.S. in Environmental Biology and Management from the University of California, Davis. Immediately after graduation, Mary began work in the non-profit sector, first, with the federal Bureau of Land Management as a training coordinator for team-taught workshops on community-based collaborative resource management and community volunteerism. The workshops focused on improving intergroup relations, civic engagement, and collaboration among resource-dependent communities, environmentalists, and public land managers throughout the West. More recently, Mary worked as a community organizer for an environmental and social justice organization in Nevada, where she focused on bringing federal land management agencies, private mining interests, and Native Americans together to shape government policy regarding the impact of mining on ancestral Indian lands and scared sites. Mary’s commitment to conservation brought her to the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan to pursue a Master’s degree in Resource Policy and Behavior, with an emphasis on collaboration and conflict management. This summer she will begin her thesis project with the Washoe tribe of Nevada and California, where she is studying the implementation of a “co-management agreement” between the tribe, whose original land base was lost through encroachment, and the US Forest Service. Mary’s career goal is to help restore ecosystems while preserving Native American values and customs associated with the land. She hopes to achieve this by facilitating collaboration between Native American communities and government agencies charged with managing public lands, and through the reintegration of traditional ecological knowledge in land management practices.

 

Nat Gillespie
Resource Policy & Behavior: Water Resource Policy

 

Nat Gillespie attended Williams College in 1997 where he studied American Studies and Environmental Studies. He has work experience as an environmental consultant in groundwater and soil remediation, with the US Geological Survey as a fisheries technician through the Student Conservation Association, as a fishing guide in Colorado, and with the Conservation Fund's Freshwater Institute in West Virginia. Before coming to the University of Michigan, Nat worked for Trout Unlimited for three years in the Catskill Mountains of New York as their Catskills Coordinator. There he performed stream assessment, learned fluvial geomorphic restoration design, oversaw a variety of stream restoration and flood damage reduction projects, and worked with local and state officials to improve flood response and management of a valuable fisheries resource. He helped organize local citizens, nonprofit groups and politicians to lobby New York City and the Delaware River Basin Commission to improve water releases from the City's water supply reservoirs into the Delaware River watershed. Nat’s focus at the School of Natural Resources & Environment is policy affecting river management and flood control. His particular interest lies in examining methods of scientific, economic and political analysis used to make river management decisions that are designed to reduce flood damage in the East. Nat hopes to work for the federal government or a nonprofit group after graduation.

 

Liz Hamilton
Resource Policy & Behavior: Conservation Biology and Ecosystem Management

 

Liz Hamilton is a first-year student pursuing an M.S. in Natural Resource Policy and Behavior at the School of Natural Resources and Environment and an M.B.A. at the University of Michigan Business School. Before coming to Michigan, Liz spent three years working as part of The Nature Conservancy’s national science team. Liz led a study that measured the impacts of a $6 million dollar Ecosystem Research Program. She also worked on organizational analyses involving the future of coastal and marine conservation and opportunities for using social science tools in conservation. Before that, she helped write toxicological profiles of hazardous substances for a health and environmental consulting company. Liz received a B.A. in Biology from Cornell University in 1998, and she spent a wonderful semester studying rainforest, marine, and Aboriginal cultural ecology in Queensland, Australia, through the School for International Training in 1997. Liz is broadly interested in developing human communities that effectively balance ecological and social considerations and in applying the suite of scientific and political strategies for biodiversity conservation. She is also interested in bringing effective business models to nonprofit organizations and public agencies, and conversely, bringing an understanding to businesses of how to contribute to biodiversity conservation. She believes that conservation success hinges upon successful partnerships among the nonprofit, government, and for-profit sectors. After Michigan, Liz hopes to combine these interests in science, policy, and management working for a nonprofit conservation organization.

 

Bob Heiser
Resource Ecology and Management: Land Conservation

 

Originally from Gambier, Ohio, Bob Heiser graduated from Amherst College in 1991 with a B.A. in Economics and Psychology. He then worked for several years for Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he focused on the school’s financial operations and the investment of the school’s endowment. Bob then received an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. After graduating from business school, Bob worked for six years for Cambridge Associates in Boston, Massachusetts. As a consultant at Cambridge Associates, Bob advised non-profit institutions on their financial and investment decisions. Bob is currently a first-year Master’s student in the Resource Ecology and Management program at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. He is currently focusing on land conservation and hopes to work for a land trust or similar conservation organization to protect land in rural areas.

 

Emily Nobel Maxwell
Resource Policy & Behavior:Environmental Justice

 

Emily Nobel Maxwell grew up in Philadelphia and moved to NYC in 1997 to attend the New School for Social Research (B.A. 1999) with the goal of teaching environmental education in community gardens. After working with the New York City Community Garden Coalition, she began volunteering at the Cherry Tree Garden in Mott Haven, South Bronx, which soon was slated for auction along with more than 110 other gardens. Wanting to take the proactive stance that gardens were vital to a thriving, healthy city, Emily founded the More Gardens! Coalition with four others. The group grew quickly, and dedicated itself to the pursuit of preservation and creation of community gardens via political, educational, legal, and direct action means. Acting in concert with other organizations, More Gardens! successfully preserved the original gardens slated for auction and continues to further its mission. After graduating from the New School, Emily had the privilege to study at Schumacher College in England with Vandana Shiva, Wolfgang Sachs, and Mathis Wackernagel. Inspired to learn more about the international trends in environment and development issues, she traveled to South Africa and volunteered on a permaculture project and with a peace organization. After three wonderful months there, she returned to NYC to work for a peace organization before returning to Philadelphia where she coordinated a community greening and environmental education project in South Philadelphia as part of the Urban Resources Partnership Initiative funded by the Forest Service and the Natural Resource Conservation Service. A first year Environmental Justice student at SNRE, Emily intends to eventually return to Philadelphia to continue working on open space and environmental equity issues.

 

Channaly Oum
Landscape Architecture: Restoration Ecology

 

Channaly Oum grew up in France and California. She attended Swarthmore College where she majored in religion. As an undergraduate student, she interned for the International Services branch of the American Red Cross and helped coordinate a student group involved with homeless people in Philadelphia. She also studied in Nepal, concerned primarily at first with development issues; that experience planted the seeds for examining relationships between people and the places where they live. After graduating, she lived in a Quaker community and worked as a teaching assistant in a Quaker school, both places stressing conflict resolution and values important in community life. She is now studying landscape architecture at the University of Michigan. Her interests are in restoration ecology and in designing places that are useful, ecologically healthy as well as cherished by the community. She is interested in including community participation in the design and decision-making process, as an educational tool and basis for sustainable design.

 

Beth Wilson
Resource Policy & Behavior: Indigenous Ecosystem Management

 

Beth Wilson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December 2001 with a double major in Creative Writing and Biological Aspects of Conservation. While getting her BA she volunteered on environmental issues, political campaigns, and with her church. She also spent a semester studying ecology and conservation in Madagascar. Following graduation she worked for the state government and continued her leadership role in Madison’s peace movement, particularly outreach and interfaith organizing. Beth’s work experience includes WISPIRG (Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group), where she was a field manager, canvassed door-to-door, and did media and outreach work on water pollution and clean energy campaigns. Currently, Beth is a first year student in the Policy program, with interests in sustainable local institutions and indigenous ecosystem management. She is part of a master’s project that will work with the Walpole Island First Nation community to develop conservation strategies for their unique natural and cultural resources. She also works as a research assistant for the Center for Population Planning. After graduating, Beth would like to work with native communities to recognize and promote sustainable resource management practices, and the political structures which support them.

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