Conservation Biology

My name is Drew Racioppa, a senior at St Lawrence University. In my 21 years of life, I have really come to value the education of experience. I realized as a teenager that to help change the world, you have to see it. You have to feel the water, see the birds, learn the language, bake the bread. I became obsessed with communication and how people from different cultures interact. I have studied mangroves in Kenya with the Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute and worked on the highest continuous peak planting native mamane trees on Mauna Kea in Hawai'i.

Julia is a student in the class of 2023 at SLU and is completing her studies as a Conservation Biology major and German Studies minor. She enjoys participating in the training and application of wildlife detector dogs as survey technique in the field. Her interest in working with dogs melded well with her interest in Herpetology and led to the generation of a pilot research project using a detector dog to locate threatened species of turtles.

Kayla Edmunds '21 majored in Conservation Biology and minored in African Studies. She is particularly interested in Entomology and completed a Senior Year Experience in Fall '20 on the phenology and dispersal of Proctacanthus robber flies (Diptera: Asilidae) in St. Lawrence County. Her SLU Fellowship builds upon this experience while studying Lasiopogon currani, another unique robber fly species.

I herd animals

Cole Weigartz is part of the Class of 2021 and is majoring in Conservation Biology. He is particularly interested in studying mammals and forest ecology. During his summer fellowship, he studied habitat preferences for porcupines, which he will continue during his senior year. After graduating, he plans on continuing his studies and completing a Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology. Although he enjoys doing lots of outdoors fieldwork, he also enjoys crocheting, video games, and being a TA for General Biology.