2025 Scholarship Application Cycle - Closed
Application deadline - December 31, 2024
The mission of ORTWS includes Inspiring, empowering, and enabling Oregon's wildlife professionals and students to promote science-based wildlife conservation and management through the participation and leadership of an open and inclusive community of members.
A key piece to achieving this mission is enhancing our members’ career development, which includes supporting students and their research. The ORTWS Scholarships are intended to foster students who have demonstrated potential for making a future professional contribution in wildlife sciences or management through research, management, education, or outreach.
- If selected, the student commits to attend the upcoming Annual Meeting to receive the Scholarship. (The student can communicate any challenges to this in their application.)
- Applicants should currently live, study, conduct research, or within the past year worked in Oregon.
Available Scholarships
Outstanding Undergraduate Student Scholarship ($600)
- Awarded to: full-time undergraduate student
- Selection criteria: commitment to fish & wildlife conservation, academic record, leadership / community engagement, relevant experience, hardships overcome
Kathy Johnson Outreach Scholarships ($600)
- Awarded to: full or part-time undergraduate or post-baccalaureate student
- Selection criteria: financial need, commitment to fish & wildlife conservation, academic record,
leadership / community engagement, relevant experience, hardships overcome - Additional Eligibility: must be a non-traditional student (i.e. older returning student, single parent, or student making a career shift into natural resources) OR a student facing real-world issues or challenges related to class, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, age, language, race, ability, and/or sexual orientation
Outstanding New Graduate Student Scholarship ($1000)
- Awarded to: full-time graduate student in their first year of study
- Selection criteria: academic record, leadership / community engagement, professional presentation of research, outreach efforts, research goals, hardships overcome
Advanced Graduate Student Scholarship ($1000)
- Awarded to: full-time graduate student past their first year of study
- Selection criteria: academic record, leadership / community engagement, professional presentation of research, outreach efforts, research goals, hardships overcome
2025 Scholarship Recipients
Outstanding Undergraduate Student Scholarship: Citlali Solis
Citlali Solis is a Natural Resources student with a concentration in policy and management at Oregon State University. Citlali got her start in the environmental field by participating in a year-long internship program with the National Park Service at Golden Gate National Recreation Area. As a wildlife intern, Citlali has contributed to management discussions surrounding wildlife habitat health, endangered species monitoring, and habitat restoration initiatives. She has specifically worked with coastal ecosystems and organisms, including Brandt's Cormorants, Harbor Seals, and Western Snowy Plovers. She hopes to stay involved with environmental sciences and wildlife protection by continuing to bridge the gap between science, community, and public knowledge through participation in environmental policy, economic, and social science research.
Outstanding New Graduate Student Scholarship: Alyson Yates
Alyson Yates is a master’s student in the Environmental Science & Management program at Portland State University. As a part of the de Rivera Lab, her research is focused on habitat connectivity and amphibian movement in Pacific Northwest urban ecosystems. Her work specifically investigates the use of Oregon’s first amphibian road undercrossing structure by northern red-legged frogs and the movement patterns of these frogs in their forested upland habitat.
Alyson has also worked extensively with bats, having surveyed and photographed dozens of bat species in Asia, Africa and North America with the non-profit Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation. Additionally, she spent the summer of 2024 monitoring California spotted owls and American goshawks with the U.S. Forest Service. These projects inform her ongoing creative work as a conservation and science communications photographer and mixed-media artist.
Kathy Johnson Outreach Scholarship: Alisha Andrews
Alisha Andrews is a dedicated student completing her Bachelor of Science in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University. She has gained diverse experience, from conducting marine research as an REU intern at Hatfield Marine Science Center to studying oceanography aboard a research vessel. Passionate about protecting natural ecosystems, she strives to contribute meaningfully to environmental stewardship efforts. Alisha is committed to applying the knowledge, skills, and experience she has gained throughout her academic and professional journey to support conservation initiatives, ensuring the protection and sustainability of natural ecosystems for future generations.
Advanced Graduate Student Scholarship: Lara Mengak
Lara is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University. For her dissertation, she is examining the social-ecological system of cattle-elk interactions, ranchers, and drought and how these factors affect the relationships between people and wildlife on Western rangelands. Her research explores how humans make decisions regarding drought, wildlife conflict, and other rangeland conditions and how large ungulates respond to drought and resource competition. She believes that understanding people’s relationships with nature is essential to the future of conservation and human communities.