Leonie Casper Awarded The Environmental Science Research Award
Leonie Casper (Environmental Science Major; Sustainability & Biology Minor; University Honors) was one of two seniors awarded the Environmental Science Research Award. This award is given to the senior Environmental Science major who, in the judgment of the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences faculty, has done the most outstanding work in individual environmental research.
Leonie has worked closely with Dr. Virginia Matzek in her lab, beginning with fieldwork in Suisun Marsh and subsequently collaborating on research involving the invasive plant Phragmites australis. Leonie then took on her own project and became the co-lead researcher on the three water-use efficiency experiments that have been the main focus of Dr. Matzek’s lab since 2022. Leonie won a two-year Clare Booth Luce fellowship to support this work as well. Leonie has also shared her work in various settings from poster sessions at the Ecological Society of America meetings (Long Beach, 2024) to presenting to a scientific audience at the California Society for Ecological Restoration meetings (Sacramento, 2025) – Leonie was one, if not the only, undergrad presenting a whole 15-minute scientific talk at the conference!