Sarah Horwath is a third year aquatic biology major and part of the UC LEADS program, essentially a two year undergraduate research and mentorship program designed to prepare students for graduate education. For the second summer of the program, students spend 10 weeks doing research at another UC campus with a faculty mentor. Sarah applied for a GIS internship with Island Conservation at UC Santa Cruz and got it, “largely due to my experience from taking the Geography 176 GIS series of classes this year. Island Conservation was started by Bernie Tershy and Don Croll, two professors at UCSC. The nonprofit works to eradicate introduced species from islands in order to prevent extinctions and to preserve the islands’ natural ecology. I will be working with them on a GIS project likely to help with the decision of where to next focus their efforts since they have successfully started sister organizations in Mexico and Canada.” You can learn more about the UC LEADS program and more on Island Conservation here.
