Environmental Leaders

Two students win Udall scholarships for environmental studies research.

Two Kenyon students have been awarded prestigious scholarships from the Morris K. Udall Foundation to support their research in environmental

studies. Anna Zimmermann and David Long, both juniors, were selected as future leaders in the field.

Long, of State College, Pennsylvania, is pursuing a double major in chemistry and mathematics with a minor in physics. His research on carbohydrate catalysis has focused on creating green pathways in order to reduce the release of excess hydrobromic acid, a toxic chemical. He presented his work at the Midwest Carbohydrate Symposium and the 2005 American Chemical Society national meeting in San Diego, where he met with leading industrialists who expressed interest in these new protocols. He has published the results of his work in the journal Carbohydrate Research and was a contributing author to a publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He is a 2005 winner of a Goldwater scholarship.

Zimmermann, of St. Paul, Minnesota, majors in biology with a concentration in environmental studies and a minor in Chinese. Zimmerman has conducted research on the effects of toxins on individual organisms and complex ecosystems. Last spring, she won the Chinese Prize, awarded by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures on Honors Day, and she spent the fall of that year in a language immersion program in Beijing. In China, she conducted an independent project examining the transition from bicycles to automobiles as the main form of transportation in major Chinese cities and the environmental impact of this change. A 2006 winner of a Goldwater scholarship, Zimmermann plans to apply both of her academic interests to the study of pollution in China.

Long and Zimmermann are among eighty students selected to receive the scholarships from a highly competitive field of 445 candidates nominated by more than two hundred colleges and universities. The scholarships are worth up to $5,000 each.

The Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation was authorized by Congress in 1992 to honor Congressman Udall's legacy of public service. Udall served in the House of Representatives for three decades. His love for the environment resulted in numerous pieces of legislation, one being the Alaska Lands Act of 1980, which doubled the size of the national park system and tripled national wilderness.

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