NEW FEATURED ALUMNI PROFILES

Emily Maleki - Kenya Summer '99

After nearly five years at NBC, most recently as associate producer of the Today Show, Emily is transitioning to documentary film production.

"My experience at SFS allowed me to foster the gutsy side of myself -- the side that loves to explore, to meet new people, and to learn. This translated into confidence and, more importantly, a new angle for viewing the world."

Jeffrey Flocken - Kenya Summer '90

Jeff is D.C. Office Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

"I saw my first wild elephants with SFS in Kenya. That experience motivated me to think through how I could best make a difference in wildlife conservation as a career. Many years later, I was directly part of a victory that will stop thousands of elephant ivory pieces from being sold online."

Laura Bergner - Australia Fall '07

Laura has been awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to conduct research on "the world’s most intriguing bat species through the lenses of ecology, education, and conservation." Over the course of the next year, she will be traveling to Costa Rica, China, Thailand, Philippines, Madagascar, and Fiji to learn about the common dislike of bats by human communities despite their important ecological function as pollinators, pest control, and seed dispersers.

Sharon Deem - Kenya Summer '85

Sharon is a veterinary epidemiologist based in the Galapagos.

"Every day is different in my job. I often travel the islands of the Galapagos to conduct field studies, and during these trips I am 'on call' 24 hours a day for many days at a time. These trips differ from living and working on a boat while studying Galapagos penguins, camping on land while studying the health of passerines prior to a re-introduction program, or visiting chicken farms to determine diseases that domestic birds may carry and directly or indirectly expose to wild birds." 
 

Kristen P. Patterson - Palau Spring '95

Kristen is program officer for The Nature Conservancy’s new Africa program.

"Get significant field-based experience overseas early on in your career if you are interested in the international conservation or development field, and return to the field every few years. Your decisions are then based on actual on-the-ground experiences, which provide you with more credibility."

Darren Aronofsky - Kenya Summer '85; Alaska Summer '86

Darren Aronofsky, director of the highly touted new film The Wrestler, remembers vividly the first time he saw a glacier. "I never knew ice could be blue." It was 1986, and he was a high schooler fresh from the pizza parlors and handball courts of urban Brooklyn, studying harbor seals in Alaska with SFS. 





Rob Holmes - Kenya Fall '90

Meet Rob, founder and president of Green Living Project, who travels the world documenting successful and unique sustainability projects.

"SFS laid the foundation for building my key passions: conservation, media, and international travel. I was a self-taught photographer in Africa learning about wildlife management. And now, these passions are the heart of Green Living Project."

Hadas Kushnir - Kenya Spring '00

Based on her research conducted over the past four years, Hadas Kushnir, a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota, is preparing recommendations to keep villagers in Tanzania safe from lion attacks. Her work was featured on a recent episode of Wild on the National Geographic Channel. Click on the link above to read more about Hadas or click here to see a You Tube clip of her interview on Wild.

Florence Reed - Australia Fall '87

Florence is the founder and president of Sustainable Harvest International, an organization that helps farming families in Central America increase production through sustainable agricultural methods.

"I left SFS with a desire to protect what was left of the world’s tropical forests and a much deeper appreciation of the interconnectedness of life…of all the flora and fauna."

Sarah Jovan - Canada Spring '98

Sarah, alumna from the Canada program, is a researcher who studies how lichen communities respond to air pollution and climate change.

"My advice is: learn good field skills early. Make time to go outside often for the rest of your employed life. It's a critical part of your continuing education. You can't be a desk-bound ecologist."

David Manahan - Australia Fall '88; SFS Faculty Australia '08-Present

Meet David, alumnus from Fall '88, who has returned to Australia twenty years later to teach a new generation of SFS students.

"As an educator, I have often used service-learning to enhance students' educational and life experiences; according to the students, the rewards have been magnificent...By grounding their learning into actual events, students express feelings of personal connection to the local community, see the fruition of knowledge and action, and appreciate the opportunity to give back to the communities that share so much with them." 


Sonia Di Fiore - Kenya Fall '98

Sonia, an alumna from the Kenya Fall '98 program, is conservation grants administrator at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

"From SFS, I gained life-long friends, working relationships with colleagues, and an appreciation for the challenges facing people and wildlife in East Africa and the multi-dimensional challenges of carrying out conservation and research initiatives."

Kristen B. Gorman - Australia Fall '94

Meet Kristen, an alumna from the Australia Fall '94 program who is currently conducting research on pygoscelis penguins and climate warming at the Palmer Station in Antarctica.

"To become a research scientist you must have an incredible work ethic, perseverance, and very importantly, find a graduate mentor who is a leader in the field who will develop and challenge your thinking and writing."



Miwa Tamanaha - Mexico Fall '99

Meet Miwa, executive director of KAHEA, a grassroots non-profit conservation organization in Hawai'i.

"Like the ecosystems we seek to protect, the human interactions around ecosystems (between managers, users, politicians, and individual citizens) are incredibly complex. Success in conservation and resource management requires a deep respect and understanding of both the natural and human environment in which we work."






Ethan Zohn - TCI Spring '95

Before winning one million dollars on Survivor: Africa, Ethan Zohn was a student at the Center for Marine Resource Studies – diving, identifying marine animals, and playing soccer with the community. He now has co-founded an non-profit HIV/AIDS awareness organization called Grassroot Soccer.

"Taking on such an ambitious project [Grassroot Soccer] and transforming it from an idea to reality is a long and difficult process. We were just three guys with no experience, but we knew we had a good concept. So, we wrote the curriculum and ran a seven-month pilot program. Afterwards, we re-evaluated the plan. It was a learning experience – getting a board of directors, bylaws, everything."

You can see more alumni profiles here.

We are looking for additional alumni to profile. If you would like to share your experience or would like to recommend another alumnus/a for a profile, please contact the Alumni Relations Coordinator at alumni@fieldstudies.org.