2017 SEFS Graduation: Photo Gallery!

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Last Friday, June 2, we honored and celebrated our graduates at the 2017 SEFS Graduation in Kane Hall! SEFS alumnus Brian Kertson (’10, Ph.D.) delivered a rousing keynote (exhorting everyone, among other bits of great advice, to get a dog), Melissa Pingree gave the graduate student address, and Rachel Yonemura spoke on behalf of the undergraduates. We eagerly welcome the Class of 2017 into our ever-growing alumni family, and we can’t wait to see and hear about their next steps. Please join us in congratulating this enormously talented bunch of graduates!

In case you missed the ceremony and reception on Friday, or if you want to spot yourself in the crowd, check out a gallery from the morning—with all photos available to download! (Also, we weren’t able to include every photo in the gallery, so if you had your photo taken on Friday but don’t see it here, reach out to Karl Wirsing to see if he has it on hand.)

Photos © Karl Wirsing/SEFS.

Alumni Update: Melissa Pingree

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We were excited to learn that recent SEFS alumna Melissa Pingree, who defended her dissertation earlier this year and will walk in our graduation ceremony on June 9, has already begun a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Idaho with Dr. Leda Kobziar, a fire ecologist in the Department of Natural Resources and Society! Melissa will be working on projects relating fire disturbances to soil heating and repercussions for soil ecological processes.

Also, you may recall that for 10 weeks last summer Melissa studied in Japan’s Teshio Experimental Forest. She applied for the opportunity through the National Science Foundation’s East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) program, in conjunction with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The work she accomplished there is currently being prepared for a peer-reviewed journal, and she looks forward to continuing her research endeavors with Dr. Makoto Kobayashi to form a better understanding of soil nutrient limitations that pose challenges around the world.

If you’d like to get a glimpse of her experience in Japan—and also her travels in the country afterwards—Melissa shared a great 15-minute video she put together from her photos!