Krich

Oakes

Morris K. Udall Scholarships for the 2003-04 academic year have been awarded to two Cornell University undergraduates – Abigail Krich and Summer Rayne A. Oakes.

Krich and Oakes are among 80 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. Two other Cornell undergraduates were cited as honorable mentions for the scholarships – Stephanie Horowitz and Garrett Meigs.

In the past six years, Cornell students have garnered 17 Udall scholarships – more than from any other institution in the country.

Krich is a junior from Lexington, Mass., majoring in biological and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In the future, she hopes to work with an innovative architecture and engineering firm that focuses on "green" buildings, and she said, "With my engineering background and possibly an architecture degree in the future, I see great opportunities for integrating renewable-energy technology and other conservation concepts into the mainstream built environment."

During her time at Cornell, Krich has worked as a mechanical designer in the university's Planning, Design and Construction division; a summer intern in the Massachusetts-based Center for Sustainable Energy; a resident adviser in Ecology House, a residential program house at Cornell dedicated to environmental concerns; an instructor with Cornell Outdoor Education; an environmental opinion columnist with the Cornell Daily Sun; and a photographer's assistant in the university's Department of Plant Pathology. She is a co-founder of the Cornell Renewable Energy Society and president of Kyoto Now!

Honors to Krich have included designation as a Greenpeace youth delegate to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development; a second place in the student design competition at the 2002 Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference (for a study of the feasibility of integrating solar-electric panels into the new West Campus buildings); a George O. Smith Scholarship for undergraduate study in the physical sciences; and election in 2002 to Sphinx Head, Cornell's oldest senior honor society.

Oakes is a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with a major in natural resources and a minor in entomology. Her love for nature and the environment began, she says, while growing up in northeastern Pennsylvania where she was active in numerous environmental projects. After graduation from Cornell she hopes to become an ecosystem manager and work to improve conservation programs, she said, "by successfully integrating dimension aspects, scientific research and the intrinsic value of nature into comprehensive management plans."

At Cornell Oakes is vice president of the Educate for the Earth Club and a frequent artistic contributor to Ursus, the student environmental publication. Her work experience includes serving as a research assistant in the Cornell Waste Management Institute and in the Aquatics Laboratory of the Department of Entomology. Oakes also was an environmental lobbyist for the Long Island Neighborhood Network and served as a board member of her township's environmental management council for three years. Honors to Oakes have included the Harlan B. Brumstead Award from the Department of Natural Resources and a Teamsters Union Scholarship.

Among Cornell's honorable mentions for the Udall Scholarship, Horowitz is a sophomore majoring in architecture in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, and Meigs is a junior majoring in natural resources in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

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