2005 Celebration of Graduate Student Excellence

Graduate Student Leadership Award
This award, co-sponsored by the Office of Graduate Studies and the Congress of Graduate Students, recognizes an outstanding graduate student leader who has made extraordinary contributions to his or her scholarly, campus, and/or wider communities. The recipient, selected by a faculty committee, has demonstrated strong leadership skills through such activities as peer mentoring, teaching, research, publishing, creative work, and service, and/or participation in professional association activities.

Matthew Aresco (Biological Science) won this year's Graduate Student Leadership Award. Matthew has an outstanding record as a graduate student and concerned citizen, and is an emerging leader in environmental and conservation biology. In the course of doing his research, he founded the Lake Jackson Ecopassage Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit group that is working with state and local governments to obtain funding to build permanent barriers that will guide animals under the highway as they move between Lake Jackson and Little Lake Jackson. Matt has championed the importance of conservation and controlled development in the press, the local schools, and at state and local government agencies. While actively involved in conservation issues, Matt has also been an active presenter at conferences and professional meetings, a graduate teaching assistant, a peer reviewer for several conservation and scientific journals, and first author on 15 research articles and book chapters.

(left to right) Dianne Harrison (VP Academic Quality & External Programs), Matthew Aresco (Biological Sciences), Damian Nastri (Speaker, Congress of Graduate Students)

©2005 office for distributed & distance learning
florida state university