Troy A. Perkins
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
In the Spring semester of 2005 I was reminded that as a student at the University of Tennessee I was breathing air ranked as the eighth worst in the nation and that I regularly hike, fish, and camp in the most polluted national park in the country, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In response to this respiratory and environmental crisis, a group of students at the University of Tennessee successfully campaigned for a new student fee to be implemented in Fall semester 2005 that will fund campus-wide energy efficiency projects and provide capital for clean energy generation in east Tennessee. In addition to the student fee, the university administration committed $100,000 to funding environmental projects proposed by student organizations. I was active in helping groups prepare funding proposals and found the Udall Scholar email listserv to be particularly helpful in generating ideas for projects. The experiences of fellow Udall Scholars inspired such ideas as energy-saving devices for vending machines, energy efficient dorm rooms, and biodiesel powered university vehicles, among others. In addition to the Clean Energy Initiative, I have also been involved with planning annual Campus Sustainability Week and Earth Day festivities to educate the university community about environmental issues in our region and across the globe. Recently the University of Tennessee hosted the second annual Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference. This event brought together over 150 students from the Southeast to learn about energy issues, develop strategies for promoting clean energy at our respective campuses, and provide the tools and motivation to launch a coordinated campaign across the Southeast. The conference was a huge success and I am thankful that I was able to use the Udall Scholar listserv to let people know about this great event.
One thing in particular that I learned at the Scholars weekend last August was the power of interdisciplinary collaboration. Having deep intellectual conversations with students of economics, philosophy, Native American studies, and every other field imaginable was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life. I have since been inspired to take a course in environmental economics and policy, and I hope to incorporate such knowledge into my future research and career.
At the present time I am conducting research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. My mentor, Dr. John Harte of the University of California at Berkeley, is an icon among environmental scientists. He applies principles of all natural sciences (especially biology and physics) and mathematics to solve relevant and pressing environmental problems such as understanding the impacts of climate change on vegetational and biogeochemical systems. Such efforts are crucial to the attainment of a sustainable society for future generations and provide me with inspiration for my career as a scientist. This summer I am studying the response of lodgepole pine saplings to a period of warming that occurred between the years 1999 and 2003. Understanding how such warming affects the germination success and growth rates of lodgepole pine saplings is crucial to making sound predictions about the effects of proposed climate change scenarios on the forests of the western United States. The information I hope to obtain this summer could serve as one of many advanced warnings to society about the dangers we may face as a result of overconsumption of natural resources and poor public policy. I have enjoyed my research thus far and hope to continue meaningful scientific research with practical applications to environmental public policy well into the future.