Sarah Noe and Emily Colón Receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Congratulations to Sarah Noe and Emily Colón for receiving NSF Graduate Research Fellowships! The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are at the beginning of their graduate career and pursuing a research-based master’s or doctoral degree. The fellowship provides up to three years of educational support. The Graduate Research Fellowship Program has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. 

Sarah Noe has proposed to correlate previous environmental and climate reconstructions with analyses on faunal remains to determine how diet and selective breeding of domestic animals contributed to different Icelandic settlement’s resilience. Knowledge of how livestock survive and adapt to harsh environments and climatic conditions will be beneficial for current and future agricultural practices amidst climate change.

Emily Colón has proposed to understand how cultural landscape management, more specifically the fire-making practices of forest and cerrado-dwelling indigenous groups, like the Mebêngokrê-Kayapó, are affected by climate change, and the effect these practices have on biodiversity of the Brazilian cerrado. This area of bushy scrubland and dry forest is more susceptible to deforestation and drought, making this study a timely account of human response to climate change, as well as expand the narrative of the role of fire in social-ecological systems.

Jessica Breitfeller and Kaelin Rapport both received honorable mentions. 

For more information about the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, visit: https://www.nsfgrfp.org/general_resources/about 

Published on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 10:34