2017 Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship Winners Announced

Heather Houlton (hrh@americangeosciences.org)

3/3/2017

 

The American Geosciences Institute congratulates Master's student Clarice Perryman and Ph.D. student Zena Cardman as the 2017 recipients of the Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship. The scholarship, which is awarded to women pursuing graduate degrees in geoscience, disburses a $5,000 award for one academic year. Wallace Scholars who are continuing their graduate studies are eligible to apply for the award a second time.

 

Clarice Perryman (University of New Hampshire - M.S., exp. May 2018) studies biogeochemistry at the University of New Hampshire's Department of Earth Science. She investigates carbon dynamics of peatlands and wetlands, specifically studying geochemical controls of methane oxidation in thawing permafrost. She will be conducting field research at Stordalen Mire, a permafrost peatland in Abisko, Sweden, this summer to continue her research. Results from her research will help further validate biogeochemical models of peatland and wetland systems to ultimately produce more accurate model predictions of total carbon emissions.

 

Zena Cardman (Pennsylvania State University - Ph.D., exp. December 2018) studies how microbial activity and environmental geochemistry influence each other in Pennsylvania State University's Department of Geosciences. Her primary research project is on Manantial del Toro: a submerged cave in the Dominican Republic, and home to huge biofilms that hang like living orange Jell-O stalactites. She is analyzing metagenomic data to identify potentially novel links between the nitrogen and iron cycles in this cave, with a special interest in ammonium oxidation and iron reduction in low-oxygen and variable oxygen settings. She hopes her research will offer insights into what microbial metabolic strategies were viable during oxygenation on early Earth.

 

The Wallace Scholarship is celebrating its fifth year supporting women geoscientists in graduate school. The original bequest was given from Harriet Evelyn Wallace, who was one of the founding members of the Geoscience Information Society (GSIS), a national organization and AGI Member Society that facilitates the exchange of information in the geosciences.  The scholarship is awarded to the top applicants who most exemplify strong likelihoods of successful transitions from graduate school into the geoscience workforce. To learn more, please see https://www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/harriet-evelyn-wallace-scholarship.

 

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The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other Earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.