Taken together, these students will be conducting research to better unlock the links between human health outcomes and environmental conditions, ecosystem functioning and conservation. This year we awarded four fellowships.
2025 Planetary Health Undergraduate Fellows
Mack Hamilton
Mack Hamilton is a rising senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and will be working with Dr. Cheryl Frank Sullivan on helping to develop fungal-based biopesticides to manage ticks that provide a more sustainable alternative to synthetic chemical approaches for human and environmental health.
Kat Rutkowski
Kat Rutkowski, a rising senior in the Rubenstein School will be working with Dr. Peter Brewitt to try to better understand how framing the conservation goals of Vermont's Act 59 as human health policy affect public acceptance of the act.
Sarah O'Leary
Rising senior Sarah O'Leary will be working with Dr. Ellen Martinsen and Ph.D. student Carlos Amissah in the Department of Biology, studying the interaction between recreation and tick-borne pathogens in the University of Vermont's Natural Areas.
Jenna Lopez
Jenna Lopez will be working with Dr. Elise Lauterbur to investigate host-pathogen evolution between Plasmodium species and bamboo lemurs by examining adaptation in Plasmodium-interacting protein genes across lemur species, contributing to a deeper understanding of malaria's evolutionary history and adaptation dynamics.