Notable & Quotable

UM student Rachel Dickson, a junior from Missoula, won a 2017 Udall Scholarship, which provides up to $7,000 to support her studies. Dickson is UM’s 41st Udall Scholar, which leads the nation. Scholars are selected on the basis of commitment to careers in the environment or, for Native Americans, commitment to careers in tribal public policy or health care. Jed Syrenne, also a junior from Missoula, won a Goldwater Scholarship, the top national award for undergraduate research in science, math and engineering. Syrenne is UM’s 17th Goldwater Scholar.

Paul Gladen, director of UM’s Blackstone LaunchPad, was named Montana Ambassador Educator of the Year by Gov. Steve Bullock. The award honors those who have made an outstanding contribution to economic development. “His dedication to educating the next generation of entrepreneurs pervades everything he does,” Bullock says. “Paul’s passion and drive have had considerable impact on hundreds of new and aspiring business owners in Montana.” Gladen is co-founder of the Montana Code School and an adjunct faculty member at UM’s School of Business Administration.

Andrew Whiteley, UM assistant professor of fisheries and conservation genomics, received the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious honor, the Faculty Early Career Development award. Also known as a CAREER grant, it’s given to faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholar through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of both. “Receiving an NSF Early Career Award is a huge accomplishment and highlights Andrew’s creativity, productivity and upward trajectory,” says Tom DeLuca, dean of the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation. Whiteley will receive more than $800,000 over five years to work on a project titled “The Influence of Gene Flow on Inbreeding and Local Adaptation: Replicated Experiments in Isolated Wild Populations.” He and his graduate students will experimentally translocate small numbers of trout among isolated natural populations as a window into understanding the effects of this gene exchange.

The Montanan recently earned a Grand Gold Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Region VIII. The award goes to the top written piece appearing in a college magazine for the region that includes the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. The award honors a story about UM alumna and Smithsonian bird detective Carla Dove, who studies “snarge” – the remains of birds that collide with aircraft. The story was written by UM journalism graduate Nate Schweber.