Student Grant Program
About the Grant
The Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada is devoted to the conservation and stewardship of whitebark and limber pine ecosystems through partnerships, science-based active management, restoration, research, and education. In support of this, WPEFC contributes to the annual research grant to an undergraduate or graduate student (MS or PhD) conducting research and writing a thesis on whitebark pine.This grant is administered by our ally, WPEF who is currently also partnering with John Van Gundy to offer a second scholarship for anyone who is doing research in whitebark pine dynamics under climate change.
Monies for the Student Research Grant will only be awarded for travel expenses for field work or consumable research supplies. However, the Van Gundy funding may also be used for analysis. Grants shall not be used to buy equipment that will be used beyond the duration of the project (and thus would be retained by the lab in which the student works).
Proposals will be evaluated based on sufficient objectives, economic feasibility, quality of science, scientific originality, and sufficient justification.
Please send application materials (electronic only) to cyndi.smith@whitebarkfound.org by January 31.
Proposal Requirements
The Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundations annually offers a research grant of $1000 to an undergraduate who is writing an undergraduate thesis or graduate student (MSc or PhD) conducting research on whitebark pine.*
Relevant areas of research include, but are not limited to:
- Threats to whitebark pine, including mountain pine beetle, white pine blister rust, successional replacement, and climate change (only in whitebark ecosystems)
- Interactions with wildlife, such as Clark’s nutcracker or other birds, red squirrels and grizzly bears
- Restoration strategies for whitebark pine, including both field operations and nursery seedling production
- Ecosystem level impacts of whitebark pine die off
- Social or policy aspects of whitebark pine decline and restoration, including wilderness issues
Grant recipients are encouraged to present their research findings at a subsequent WPEF annual science meeting and are expected to publish a research summary in our bi-annual journal Nutcracker Notes.
For further information on the grants click here
* While the WPEF is concerned about all five-needled pines, we are focusing this grant just on whitebark pine.
Previous Awardees
- 2022 – WPEF Student Research Grant – Jeremy Greenberg: Pining for change: Can whitebark pine be restored in Canada’s interior rainforest?
- 2022 – John Van Gundy Student Scholarship – Katherine Sparks: Whitebark pine carbon allocation under drought stress
- 2021 – WPEF Student Research Grant – Chloe Wasteneys: Physiological traits and stress resistances of whitebark pine
- 2021 – John Van Gundy Student Scholarship – Sean Hoy-Skubik: Patterns of whitebark pine carbon allocation: implications for stress resistance and conservation strategies
- 2020 – Henriette Gelink: Grizzly bear habitat management in a changing world: the impact of blister rust, bark beetle and wildfire on whitebark pine, and its influence on grizzly bear habitat management in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
- 2019 – Iain Robert Reid: Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) recovery: use of assisted migration and rust resistance in long-term restoration efforts
- 2018 – Michael Howe: Is whitebark pine more amenable to mountain pine beetle attack behavior than historical hosts?
- 2017 – Kiah Allen: Determine the level of hybridization and introgression of the hybrid pine stem rust Cronartium x flexili and to assess its level of fitness
- 2016 – Maeghan Rochner: Past, present, and future climate change and forest dynamics in a high-elevation whitebark pine ecosystem in Wyoming
- 2015 – Colin Maher: Does whitebark pine have a refuge from mountain pine beetle at treeline?
- 2014 – None
- 2013 – Zolton Bair: Identification of blister rust resistance genes on whitebark pine to facilitate breeding and restoration and the Nutcracker Notes Project Report by Zolton Bair
- 2012 – Signe Lierfallom: Evaluating the effects of seed source mortality on whitebark pine regeneration dynamics after stand-replacing fire