Student Spotlight

Research, innovation and imagination are common threads for many scholarly undergraduate and graduate students at UM. Here are a few of the many standouts:

By Abigail Lauten-Scrivner

Izabela Garcia-Arce

It took moving from the Southern California seaside to snow-capped Montana for Izabela Garcia-Arce, a lifelong surfer from San Diego, to find blood relatives who, too, have saltwater in their blood.

Garcia-Arce was set on the path to pursue a master’s in environmental studies at UM after reading “A River Runs Through It.” As she voyaged inland, it became clear that Garcia-Arce also is haunted by waters and fueled by writing.

In UM’s environmental writing program, Garcia-Arce explored her interest in outdoor adventure, gender identity, social justice and her Mexican-American heritage.

After becoming editor of Camas, UM’s student-run literary magazine, her successes led to prestigious scholarships for writing workshops held in stunning natural settings. During her last summer as a student, she found creativity kayaking between wooded islands in the Salish Sea.

Later, inspired by UM’s Ethics and Restoration class, Garcia-Arce designed a research project in Mexico that let her explore the best surfing spots on the Baja Peninsula. She ended up finding long-lost relatives who also are creatures of the sea. Garcia-Arce’s deep affinity for the ocean always made her an outlier among her immediate family.

“They were covered with these ocean tattoos and would spend every day in the boat on the water,” she says. “It was awesome to meet other Mexican people who shared passions that sometimes made me feel isolated.”

Sophia Rodriguez

For Sophia Rodriguez, studying communicative sciences and disorders is about more than getting a college degree and finding a good job. It’s personal.

Rodriquez grew up with a cousin, Lauren McDonald, who has level 3 autism, the most severe form that greatly impairs her verbal and nonverbal communication.

“She gets up every day and she smiles, and she has to face a world that judges her and makes things so hard for her,” Rodriquez says. “She is my motivation for so much of what I do.”

Rodriquez came to UM to learn how to help those like her cousin who have specialized needs. She became the student director of MOSSAIC (Mentoring, Organization, and Social Support for Autism/All Inclusion on Campus) and through her work addressing social inequalities and creating more inclusive spaces, she was selected for the 2022 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. Fellows are campus leaders who commit to finding solutions for challenges facing communities locally, nationally and internationally.

After Rodriquez earns her degree, she plans to become a speech-language pathologist and work with children with specialized needs. All of her career plans and passions stem from her cousin, whose strength motivates Rodriguez to make the world more inclusive.

Luke Santore

For seven years, Luke Santore worked on and off as a wildland firefighter. The work was grueling, the conditions dangerous and the lifestyle isolating. But it was the off season he dreaded most, when the mental health issues and chemical dependencies that drove him to drop out of UM’s forestry program several times crept in.

“I had mental health and learning disorders that went undiagnosed for a long time, and I came from a family that had access to care,” he says. “What if you don’t have that access? Undiagnosed mental conditions, of course, aren’t that unusual.”

Santore sought treatment and by 2020, he was back in school for good, switching his major to sociology. After experiencing positive life changes due to mental health care, Santore says social justice became his primary motivation and reason for pursuing sociology.

Santore re-entered the Davidson Honors College and dug deeper into firefighter mental health for his capstone project. Based on his interviews, Santore’s study found possible solutions to make firefighting a more sustainable career.

He graduated cum laude in spring 2022 and began graduate school in fall. Santore will continue his sociological training and likely build on his work studying firefighter mental health.

Nick Mills

Nick Mills didn’t have to look further than his hometown to pursue his passion for the outdoors and wildlife.

“I chose to stay in Missoula because of the University of Montana’s world-class wildlife biology program,” Mills says. “I realized I wanted to protect the areas I loved.”

Mills found a way to do just that by combining policy and science. UM’s Master of Public Administration and Wildlife Biology programs created a joint degree — the first of its kind nationally — to address the need for wildlife biology and public and nonprofit administration professionals.

The program allows students to earn both a four-year bachelor of science in wildlife biology and a two-year master’s degree in public administration in just five years. An internship requirement prompts students to apply their classroom skills out in the wild.

For Mills, that meant working with the White House Council on Environmental Quality to advise the president on environmental justice and climate change policies while advancing job growth and economic development.

“I gained the ability to listen to diverse sets of stakeholders and then to come up with solutions for bigger picture decisions,” Mills says. Together, the program and internship formed a launchpad for his dream career.

Elani Borhegyi

Elani Borhegyi, an environmental science and sustainability student, came to UM to study biology and natural sciences. Over time, Borhegyi discovered a passion for restoration ecology, environmental justice and climate change, and how all three are connected.

“I want to work at the intersection of all three,” Borhegyi says. “I realized I want my career to not just be about science, but about how ecology impacts us in our everyday lives and how we are a part of the ecosystem.”

With minors in climate change studies, wilderness studies, Spanish and biology, Borhegyi dove deep into their passions both on and off campus. They served as president of the Climate Response Club, organizing the Four Sisters Garden at the Missoula PEAS Farm.

Borhegyi also helped draft UM’s Sustainability Action Plan, building collaboration across student groups, raising awareness around social justice and protesting on the front line at a pipeline project through Minnesota.

Their endeavors led Borhegyi to earn an Udall Scholarship, considered one of the top recognitions awarded to students in fields related to Native American nations or the environment.

Now a senior, Borhegyi is writing a thesis on reimagining society’s relationship to the environment in the face of climate change.

Wyatt Walters

When Wyatt Walters retires, he hopes to reflect on his life as one in service to others. That is, if he isn’t too busy starting a whole new career.

A senior biology student with a biochemistry minor, Walters also is completing a Franke Global Leadership Initiative certificate and is in the Davidson Honors College. He’s worked in an Alzheimer’s care center and helped research the disease, volunteered for youth-geared organizations and is a certified nursing assistant. Each pursuit builds on his dream of becoming a pediatrician serving kids in rural Montana.

“Kids crack me up; they’re so darn funny,” Walters says. “It never feels like work.”

Walters hails from a small town near Great Falls. His career dreams stem from growing up on a cattle ranch and being raised by two medical professional parents.

The GLI certificate’s “Beyond the Classroom” learning requirement tested Walters’ ambitions, taking him into rural villages around Kabale, Uganda, for a medical internship. Volunteering at pop-up HIV and maternal clinics, he cared for lines of patients while making do with a lack of resources.

Walters’ experience confirmed he’s on the right track and inspired him to serve with Doctors Without Borders in the future. But for now, he plans to take a gap year after graduation to earn his EMT license before applying to medical school.

Walters has his “retirement plan” figured out, too: teaching high school biology and inspiring more students to love science.

Katherine Wendeln

Katherine Wendeln lives and breathes wildlife and the outdoors. Her majors are in ecology and organismal biology, coupled with environmental science and sustainability, a wildlife biology minor, plus certificates in the Franke Global Leadership Initiative and Northern Rockies Outdoor Leadership programs.

That passion took Wendeln to remote landscapes where the flora and fauna seldom see a human face. After completing her freshman year at UM, she journeyed via floatplane from Kodiak, Alaska, to Shuyak Island to conduct backcountry conservation work.

“I saw more bears than people that summer,” Wendeln says.

Her next two summers were spent river guiding throughout Alaska, showing tourists the natural beauty of the rivers and the creatures who rely upon them.

While Wendeln treasures her remote adventures at Shuyak Island, she realized it’s human connections from shared outdoor experiences that drive her. As she prepares for graduation in spring 2023, Wendeln hopes to continue spreading her passion for wildlife and the environment through outdoor education.

“If I look back and know I’ve even impacted one person, they see value in these ecosystems, that would be really special,” Wendeln says.

Holli Holmes

Waterfowl enthusiasts travel far and wide to feast their eyes upon the colorful plumage of an aptly-named harlequin duck. Wildlife biology graduate student Holli Holmes sees the sight regularly, thanks to her research in Glacier National Park.

Harlequin ducks are hardy arctic or subarctic seabirds that migrate inland to breed in fast moving whitewater mountain streams. Despite that hardiness, populations are declining. Holmes’ research aims to discover why.

“Managers feel like they don’t really have their fingers on the pulse,” she says.

Holmes’ work investigates noninvasive survey methods for studying harlequin duck populations in their breeding range. The research compares environmental DNA, game cameras and foot surveys to find which method is the most effective — and practical — tool to guide management and conservation.

Holmes began her master’s at UM in spring 2023 to learn about the analytical side of being a biologist and derive deeper meaning from her data. She says the program’s faculty, resources and reputation made UM a no-brainer.

Long term, Holmes’ goal is to become a land manager and get involved with place-based conservation.

“One person can’t change the world, but one person can start to make ripples in a community,” Holmes says.

Melanie Sandoval

Despite working in Salish language revitalization for over two decades, Melanie Sandoval would never call herself fluent.

There is always more to learn.

Learning is Sandoval’s lifelong passion and purpose. It’s reflected in her relentless pursuit of both learning and teaching Salish — a language that she, like many tribal members, didn’t learn growing up. Only about 11 speakers, all elders, are left at the Flathead Reservation.

“That’s when we get to a crisis state,” Sandoval says. “It’s like a race against time.”

Sandoval threw herself into that race over 20 years ago by earning an associate’s degree in Native American Studies at Salish Kootenai College and an elementary education bachelor’s at UM. She then co-founded Nkwusm, the Salish Language Immersion School in Arlee. Since 2018, she’s been a language instructor for Salish Kootenai College’s Salish Language Educator Development Program, helping future teachers develop their skills.

Sandoval has since returned to UM for a linguistics master’s degree. The program is helping her better understand Salish and develop more effective methods of teaching it to her community, a journey that is difficult and emotional, but also healing.

“I would love to be able to hear Salish spoken freely in the community at any event, or at the store, or from grandparent to grandchild or from husband to wife,” Sandoval says.

Liqin “Shirley” Tang

Liqin “Shirley” Tang, an international educational leadership Ph.D. candidate, is no stranger to higher education, having taught English for 20 years at China’s Jilin Normal University. Tang says she’s learned new ways to conduct and understand her research at UM, largely thanks to support and guidance from her college of education faculty.

“They are really amazing,” Tang says. “So helpful, really friendly and most importantly, they’re full of erudition.”

Tang discovered a second hometown in Missoula, finding rhythm in teaching classes at UM, publishing papers, giving presentations and getting involved with the Chinese Students’ Association of UM.

In China, Tang taught under the International Scholarly Exchange Curriculum, a method of higher education reform. Her research at UM is a comparative study of ISEC teachers and non-ISEC teachers. Tang is curious if there’s a difference between the critical thinking skills of the two groups, and if distinctions like age, years teaching, discipline or gender play a role.

Tang hopes her research can help Chinese professors improve their education practices and critical thinking. “My research results will offer some reference for these stakeholders,” she says.

Tang is on track to defend her dissertation in spring 2023. After, she plans to teach in the U.S. •