Two CU undergrads are awarded Udall Scholarships for 2004-05

By Roger Segelken and Linda Myers

Two Cornell undergraduates have won scholarships for the 2004-05 Morris K. Udall Scholarship competition, and a third Cornell student was named as an honorable mention.

Receiving Udall Scholarships from Cornell are Kenneth C. Cheung, a junior in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, and Emily P. Ulmer, a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Daniel Pearlstein, a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences majoring in biology and society and applied economics and management, received an honorable mention in the competition.

Cheung and Ulmer are among 80 undergraduate students nationwide to receive this year's academic awards of up to $5,000 from the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation. The foundation's programs honor the late U.S. congressman from Arizona and are designed to assist students with excellent academic records and a demonstrated interest in careers in the fields of environmental policy, health care and tribal public policy.

Since 1998, Cornell students have been awarded 19 Udall Scholarships. This year Cornell is one of 14 institutions to have more than one Udall Scholar and the only Ivy League institution to do so.

Cheung, who is from Freehold, N.J., has a special interest in the natural environment and hopes, he said, to "play a part in the development of the knowledge that informs environmental issues, as a researcher and architect."

A committed environmentalist, he is a founding member and sub-team leader of the Cornell Solar Decathlon team, which is competing in the 2005 U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored national student competition to design, build and operate the best solar-powered house. Cheung's plan to revive a dying shopping mall made him a finalist in the National Endowment for the Arts' Open Architectural Ideas Competition in December 2002. His "Tubaphor," a musical instrument made from a 2-by-4 piece of wood, earned him the Baird Prize at Cornell in January 2002.

A Cornell Presidential Research Scholar, Cheung is currently conducting research in environmental psychology with Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmental analysis. Following participation in the Design Workshop Inc. summer program, he was the primary author of a paper on alternative transportation presented at the Ninth International Conference on Urban Transportation and the Environment in March 2003. This semester he is enrolled in AAP's study abroad program in Rome.

Cheung has been director of logistics of the Cornell Renewable Energy Society, another student group. In 2001-03, he was officer of propaganda for Kyoto Now! The consensus-based student group works for "energy justice"-- supplying the energy needs of the world population without compromising the well-being of the human and natural environment. He is involved with Ecology Program House, a living and learning center for students interested in the environment, and Earthrise Ecological Awareness Committee, which educates Cornell and area communities on environmental issues.

Cheung is an avid outdoor trekker, a seminar instructor and trip leader with the Cornell Outing Club and a member of the Cornell Cycling Team. He was recommended for the Udall Scholarship by Wells; Laura Briggs, assistant professor of architecture; and Mark Cruvellier, associate professor and chair of the Department of Architecture.

Ulmer, a biology and society major from Woodstock, N.Y., plans to combine her interests in biology, environmental science and social justice in a career as a public interest environmental lawyer.

At Cornell, Ulmer has worked as a student intern for Ithaca's Northside Neighborhood Sustainability Project and for New York Sea Grant. She was also a student researcher for the Department of Development Sociology's Polson Institute for Global Development project as well as for the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences' Weed Ecology Laboratory and was a library assistant at Albert R. Mann Library on campus. This year as a Bartels Community Action Research fellow, she worked with Ithaca High School students on developing environmental awareness and advocacy campaigns using participatory action research (PAR) methods. Through this experience, she was inspired to start a new organization at Cornell, Undergraduate PAR.

Active on campus throughout the college, Ulmer has been a member of the Cornell Greens, the Society for Natural Resource Conservation, the Cornell Food Project, Cornell United Progressives, the Ithaca Fair Trade Coalition, Cornell Model United Nations and Alpha Phi Omega service organization. Since her freshman year, Ulmer has organized a semestral campus book drive to send textbooks to needy schools in the United States and abroad. Elected to the Cornell Tradition Student Advisory Council (SAC) as a freshman, she will serve as the 2004-05 SAC chair.

Ulmer has been inducted into several honor societies: Quill and Dagger Senior Honor Society, Golden Key International Honour Society and the Ho-Nun-De-Kah honor society in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). Ulmer was a recipient of a CALS Charitable Trust Freshman Award, was a national finalist for the 2004 Truman Scholarship and has made the dean's list every semester since arriving at Cornell in fall of 2001.

She was recommended for the Udall Scholarship by Davydd Greenwood, professor of anthropology; Barbara Bedford, senior research associate in the Department of Natural Resources; and Delmar Crim, senior executive chef at Cornell Dining, where Ulmer had designed a food waste-reduction program.

Students applying for the Udall Scholarship must be endorsed by Cornell to participate in the national competition. This year's endorsement committee consisted of Barbara Bedford; Thomas Gavin, professor of natural resources; Jane Mt. Pleasant, American Indian Program director and associate professor of horticulture; and Beth Fiori, fellowship coordinator in Cornell Career Services.