This is the first post in our Montana blog series. All 15 of us will take turns writing posts, so check back often!
With just over half a day before our arrival in Billings, we’re pumped to kick-off our blog series with a post introducing the fifteen of us who will be heading to Yellowstone National Park and American Prairie Reserve for 5-8 days of research, filmmaking, volunteering, and exploring.
Before we do that, we offer a hearty thank you to the sponsors, who’ve given us either the financial means or the love and administrative support necessary for this truly one-of-a-kind endeavor. They are:
Program in American Studies
Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
High Meadows Foundation Sustainability Fund
Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students
Princeton Class of 1995
Princeton Environmental Institute
Princeton Progressives
Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP)
Elias Berbari is entering his senior year, an EEB major, pre-med, and on the Men’s Basketball team. He’s from Long Island, and can be found on SoundCloud under “DJ Baby E.”
Devon Block-Funkhouser is a rising junior in the EEB department, hailing from Santa Barbara, California. She runs for Princeton’s track team, but “only a lap.” A very impressive 56.87 seconds lap though! When not training, she enjoys trying to do her EEB homework during Conservation Society meetings.
Will Brown is a history major entering his junior year, from Richmond, Virginia. Will was disappointed that no other history majors would be attending this trip.
Heather Callahan is a rising sophomore and prospective EEB major, from Delaware! In 2010, while Heather was in fifth grade, she “swept” an academic quiz tournament for grades five through eight at the Charter School of Wilmington!
Sierra Castaneda is a CEE major entering her junior year. She’s from the beautiful outlying parts of Northern New Jersey, and like the state we’re going to, has a name that comes from Spanish (which she’s getting a certificate in!). She runs for Princeton’s Cross Country and Track & Field teams, and ran a 17:31 5K in April!
Adam Chang is a rising junior, also from Northern New Jersey (but from the more built-up, more dystopian, inner suburb ring). He’s part of the Latin American Studies program, and his hobbies include running and asking for forgiveness rather than permission. His favorite ocean is the South Pacific!
Andrew Kaneb is a prospective EEB major who just finished his first year at Princeton, from Cambridge, Massachusetts! Andrew has one endorsement each for “Data Analysis,” “DNA Extraction,” and “Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)” on his LinkedIn profile.
Grace Kortum is a rising sophomore hailing from New Haven (but really Chicago). She’s a prospective Geosciences major, and outside of school enjoys meeting with Kate Harmon at ODUS and tagging the same three Facebook friends in posts involving cute animals.
Daniel Lee is a rising junior from Wisconsin, west of Milwaukee (not east of Milwaukee, that’s a body of water), and studies in the Woodrow Wilson School.
Janette Lu is “from orange county, california but currently based in princeton, new jersey,” and almost wrote this bio herself (the quoted section is from her personal website, lowercase and all). She studies in the Woodrow Wilson School!
Vienna Lunking is a rising junior from Charlotte, North Carolina. She’s majoring in EEB, and the president of the Princeton Pre-veterinary Society. In high school, she started “The Amazing Bake” blog where she attempted to craft 26 different cupcakes, one for each letter of the alphabet (find the news article “Providence Day junior has fun with cupcake challenge on baking blog”).
Noah Mihan is a rising senior from Vermont, part of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, the president of Conservation Society, and all-around role model for us all. He’ll be spending several weeks in Kenya this summer at the Mpala Research Centre! Isn’t that cool? Noah also is involved with Princeton Tonight, and if you google “Noah Mihan Princeton Tonight” you’ll get around a dozen videos whose titles all end in “SCARE PRANK.” If Noah had two fairy godparents, they’d be Ian Deas and Kate Harmon from ODUS.
Zoe Rennie is a rising sophomore from the East Bay! She’s a prospective EEB major, and on her LinkedIn profile lists her only job as “Performance Tracking Assistant” for the Office of Sustainability! How are we doing, Zoe!
Jonathan Salama just finished his freshman year, and hails from Westchester County, New York. He was in six honor societies in high school (Tri-M Music Honor Society, Math, Science, Social Studies, English and Foreign Language Honor Societies)! He’s a prospective Computer Science major — original!
Crystal Wu is a rising junior from New York (the city!), and studies in the Woodrow Wilson School. In high school, Crystal had several spectacular performances in the 1500m Racewalk, her best being a 8:16.29.
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