2023 Dr. Howard & Beth Hoekje Conservation Scholarship Recipients
Every year the Audubon Outdoor Club sponsors the Dr. Howard & Beth Hoekje Conservation Scholarship for distinguished graduate and undergraduate students at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University-Kingsville pursuing research and future careers in wildlife conservation. Undergraduate scholars receive $1,000 and graduate scholars receive $500. Applications for the 2024 Scholarship will open in Summer 2024.
Jordan Jeanneret
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Jordan is from Goliad, Texas. She was first introduced to conservation through her local FFA chapter in high school. Within FFA she was able to meet a private land biologist and see first-hand land burning methods, nuisance animal control, and invasive plant removal. These experiences solidified her decision to pursue an undergraduate degree in Range and Wildlife Management.
Jordan is studying to work towards habitat and animal conservation in South Texas and ultimately keep Texas wild for all to enjoy.
Thomas Yamashita
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Thomas is originally from California, from the San Diego area. He has always had an interest in wildlife and conservation biology. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley in 2014 where he studied Ecology and Biogeography. After his degree, he worked in various national forests across California assisting with monitoring recreation on national forests. After a few years working, he decided to go to graduate school to study wildlife ecology and started a Masters program at University Texas Rio Grande Valley, studying wildlife vehicle collisions and road mitigation structures for wildlife. After completing his degree in 2020, he started a Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology studying road impacts on mammals and how wildlife crossings can reduce those impacts. After he completes his Ph.D., he plans to stay in academia, focusing his research on human impacts on wildlife and the natural environment and teaching and mentoring students about conservation biology and how we, as humans, can balance our needs with the conservation of nature.
Joseph Garza
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Joseph is a current undergraduate student studying biology at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Joseph grew up on the Gulf coast near a small beach town called Port O’ Connor, TX where he spent the greater part of his time fishing the flats of Matagorda Bay. It was through his time spent on the water that a strong desire to have a positive impact on our coastal ecosystems started to emerge. His time as a current undergraduate student has yielded collaborations on multiple research projects studying a range of topics spanning coral genomics to quantifying planktonic distribution. Joseph is a TA and teaches the laboratory component of General Chemistry I at his university. When Joseph is not working in the lab you can find him traveling the country climbing the most beautiful and technical mountain peaks. Joseph is an avid rock climber and certified AMGA rock-climbing guide. Currently, Joseph is working towards publication in whereby he is exploring the feasibility of extracting DNA from coral skeleton taken from islands spanning the South Pacific Ocean. Joseph’s career plans encompass becoming a professor of Marine Biology and working closely with invertebrate aquaculture operations to optimize cultivation efforts here along the Gulf coast.
Isabel Nykamp
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Isabel grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and attended Calvin University of Grand Rapids for her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Health & Conservation Biology. During her time as an undergraduate, she was involved in projects which were framed around aquatic ecosystems, assessing the health of various waterbodies to improve the living conditions of the surrounding communities and wildlife. She grew to appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of restoration biology and wanted to pursue higher education focusing on wetland and coastal ecosystems. These interests have culminated into her position as a Graduate Research Assistant position under Dr. Jennifer Pollack at the Coastal Conservation and Restoration lab at Texas A&M – Corpus Christi, working towards her Master’s degree in Coastal & Marine Systems Science. Within the lab, she will be utilizing GIS systems to characterize the elevation of wind tidal-flats and to restore elevation damage caused by human disturbance. A restoration plan for these disturbances has not yet been created for these ecosystems and this research allows her to bring awareness to an ecosystem which shorebirds heavily rely on and yet tends to go unnoticed by the local community and stakeholders alike.
Winners of the Audubon Outdoor Club Habitat Conservation Award at the 2023 Texas A&M University Student Research Symposium:
1st Place: Rebecca Davis - “Birds in the cacao: Examining how agroforests provide habitat for tropical birds”
2nd Place: Allison Weber - “Fine-scale genetic population assessment of eastern oysters for aquaculture, fisheries management, and restoration”
3rd Place: Bria Marty - “Flora and function: A multi-taxa assessment of the Ingleside Sandsheet pond habitat to inform and support conservation”