Nine University of Georgia students, including ecology undergraduate Malavika Rajeev, were awarded the William Moore Crane Leadership Scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year.
The $1,000 award is available to third-year honors program students and is renewable for a fourth year of undergraduate study as long as a student maintains a 3.7 cumulative grade point average. Applicants must have a record of outstanding leadership in co-curricular activities and/or community, civic or religious organizations. Malavika Rajeev is a third year ecology major from Tifton, GA. She is co-president of the Ecology Club, which – through various field trips, tours, retreats, and service events on campus, in the Athens community, and within the state – works to build an undergraduate community of ecology majors, minors, and non-majors interested in ecology and natural history. Malavika is co-chair of UGArden, the campus community garden, which promotes local organic agriculture by providing fresh produce to student volunteers and also to the wider Athens community. Through her involvement in UGArden, in February 2011, she helped to organize the UGA-hosted Southeast Youth Food Activism Summit (SYFAS), which brought together students from universities and colleges across the Southeast to explore food issues through workshops, conversation, tours, and delicious food! She is now part of the student organization that evolved from the summit, Real Food UGA, which as part of a larger national campaign, aims to get local, organic, humane, fair food into the UGA dining halls. Her ecological interest is in infectious diseases, and she has participated in projects in various labs, including research involving butterflies, gazelle, and domestic horses. She intends to complete a dual BS/MS in ecology, with her master’s project focusing on disease at the wildlife-livestock interface in the Laikipia District of Kenya. After graduating, she hopes to pursue a PhD in infectious disease ecology related to efforts in conservation, specifically in areas of wildlife-human conflict.
The other recipients, their hometowns and majors are:
Agni Chandora, Snellville, biology and public health
Wells Ellenberg, St. Simons Island, political science and history
Heather Hatzenbuhler, Lawrenceville, economics and management and international affairs
Sara Intner, Atlanta, biology and psychology
Matthew Passarello, Marietta, economics
Shayna Pollock, Atlanta, environmental economics and management and political science
Brianna Randall, Macon, marketing
Taylor Watts, Kennesaw, music education
The scholarship is named in memory of William “Bill” Crane, a 1921 cum laude graduate of UGA who was instrumental in founding the UGA Alumni Society, now known as the UGA Alumni Association. The award is jointly administered by the UGA Honors Program and the Center for Leadership and Service.