TNUF scholarship recipients, since the program’s inception in 1996, have made significant contributions to the understanding and conservation of aquatic resources of which we can all be proud. Some have received multiple-year scholarships (generally $1,000-3,000 / yr) for particularly appropriate research topics and deserving / needing students. Several have become leading experts in their fields of specialty and in the education and conservation arena. The diversity of recipients and their areas of interest and passion is evident here:
- Jeffrey Dambacher, PhD, OSU (now a Professor in New Zealand) –Zoogeography of Oregon fishes. (1996 recipient)
- Lisa Krentz, MS, OSU — Estuary movement of sea-run cutthroat trout in the Salmon River.
- Sharon Frazy, MS, OSU — Relationship of stream-side vegetation to juvenile-anadromous fish population numbers.
- Pollyanna Lind, MS, U of O, Geomorphology as related to watershed erosion and deposition on the Sprague River.
- Jeremiah Bernier, MS, Humboldt State University — Differential gene expression between fall and spring Chinook salmon on the Feather River.
- John McMillan, MS, OSU — Life history diversity of rainbow trout in the John Day River.
- Kelly Crispen, MS, Univeristy of Montana — Retrospective Analysis of the ecology of salmonid fishes in the Umpqua River.
- Sierra Lewis, MS, OSU — Factors related to anadromous fish migration over anthropogenic and natural barriers, and distribution in the headwaters of the North Umpqua basin. (2010-11 recipient)
- Cris Salazar, BS, OSU (Roseburg resident and UCC graduate) — funded for BS studies in fisheries and conservation at OSU (2011-14 recipient)
- David Treskey (UCC graduate) — BS in Environmental Science, OSU (2015-16)
- Leslie Jensen, MS candidate, OSU – Fish population and community responses to forest harvest and environmental variability in Western Oregon. (2016 recipient)
- Cheyanne Rico (Douglas County resident and UCC student), BS candidate, Lane-Benton CC and OSU, 2017 recipient.
- Michelle Pepping, MS candidate UC-Davis – Spatial distribution of juvenile summer and winter run steelhead in the North Umpqua Basin based on genetic markers.(2017 recipient)
Selected Testimonials
From Cris Salazar, 2011-14 recipient:
“Again, I’d like to thank you and TNUF for helping me out. I would likely still be in Roseburg taking online classes, if it weren’t for your support, and I feel I’m getting much more out of it, here in Corvallis… Please let the rest of TNUF know of my progress and appreciation.
I’ve just been busy with school and work, mostly preparing for finals. I’m also learning a ton helping Gordie Reeves’ grad student, Haley Ohms, age her steelhead smolts, scales and otoliths, at the Corvallis Forestry Sciences Lab. Gordie has also got me lined up to go to Cordova, AK for the Summer working on the fish crew in the Chugach NF, which I am really looking forward to. And I can’t thank Paul Utz enough for helping me get in touch with Mr. Reeves, as well as TNUF for helping me make the move from Roseburg to Corvallis. Things are working out well.”
And more recently: “Things have been going well with myself. Currently living here in Eugene and living the life of a seasonal technician; bouncing from agency to agency. Summer of 2016, I was hired as a crew leader for AREMP, the inter-agency stream monitoring program I was a part of in 2014. I had a great time traveling all over N. California, Oregon, and Washington and got to expand my resume with supervisory experience. Also, a recent addition to the AREMP protocol was environmental DNA sampling. A method of stream sampling I’ve been increasingly involved and interested in.
During the winter, I’ve been working up at the Northwest Research Station. Dr. Reeves has me in the lab helping some undergrads learn to read Coho scales from the Copper River Delta. Which is great, since winter work in natural resources can be tough to find. Fortunately, I’m also going to start work with the Calapooia Watershed Council in February. I will be conducting spawning surveys for steelhead in the Upper Calapooia as a Fisheries Monitoring Technician. It is only a temporary position but I’ve recently been getting the feeling that working for a watershed council might be a perfect fit and was excited to be hired.
However, despite my passion for hiking up steep hills through devil’s club and vine maple, I have my sights set on graduate school. Depending on the program and adviser, I would like to investigate the methodology used in environmental DNA stream sampling and how detection rates vary seasonally for certain aquatic species. It is my hope that my experience working with researchers over the past years, both in the field and laboratory, will help me succeed. But until then, I would like to thank the North Umpqua Foundation for their continued support and wish everyone a prosperous 2017.”
From Dave Tresky, 2015 recipient (now a USFS Hydrologic Technician and TNUF Director):
“I just wanted to write and say how much I appreciate the scholarship and how much it is going to help me. I had been losing sleep on how I was going to get my loans paid in the time between when I graduate and when I get my career going and this has taken a huge worry off of my shoulders. I have a savings account that I put the money into and is going to be a huge relief. So once again I just wanted to say thank you to everyone in TNUF.”
From Jeffrey Dambacher, 1996 recipient:
“Yes I was the recipient of the first award…. I was starting a PhD on the zoogeography of Oregon fishes, and I used the money to take my first class. That class turned out to be on qualitative modeling, which captured my attention so much that I subsequently changed my dissertation topic to theoretical ecology. It’s been a great journey and I remain very grateful for the foundation’s initial support which came at a critical time for me. I am presently in Bordeaux France attending a symposium on estuary ecology where I presented a keynote address on my modeling work.”
