UCSC Fellowships to honor MRC Greenwood, Frans Lanting, and Christine Eckstrom

September 3, 2004 - For immediate release

The STEPS Institute has announced the awarding of three graduate fellowships as part of its mission to facilitate interdisciplinary environmental research.The fellowships have been named to honor three outstanding individuals who are well known for forging links between science and society: MRC Greenwood, Frans Lanting,  and Christine Eckstrom.

MRC Greenwood, former Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz and now Provost at the University of California Office of the President, has made wide-ranging contributions to scientific research and education. In addition, Provost Greenwood led the effort to establish the STEPS Institute in 2002. Frans Lanting and Christine Eckstrom, a world-renowned photographer-writer team, have contributed by their photographic essays to our increased appreciation of the natural world.

The graduate students receiving the STEPS awards are Adelia Barber, graduate of Brown University and recipient of the MRC Greenwood Fellowship; Joanna Nelson, graduate of Stanford University and recipient of the Frans Lanting Fellowship; and Antonia D’Amore, graduate of the University of California Santa Cruz, and recipient of the Christine Eckstrom Fellowship.

Adelia Barber’s proposed graduate project will be a field-based plant ecological study that incorporates aspects of remotely sensed data and mathematical modeling, with a particular focus on the way plant diversity is organized across California landscapes. During her undergraduate studies, she completed an extensive project in game reserves in north central Tanzania, involving botanical fieldwork as well as extensive discussions with local Masai pastoralists to create better dialogue on the management of dual-use lands.

Joanna Nelson’s proposed research addresses the biological, physical, and social effects of regional climate change in the boreal forest of North America. She will be expanding a fire-climate-vegetation model currently being used in interior Alaska, to include feedbacks to and from human communities in the region.

Antonia D’Amore’s graduate research will create an accurate range map integrating data from state, governmental and private sources to assemble distributional data for the Elkhorn Slough watershed. In addition, her work will contribute towards characterizing the distribution and habitat requirements of the California Red-legged Frog, a key component of threatened coastal California biodiversity.

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