2024 Graduate Scholarship ($2,000) Recipient, Rachel Bares, will graduate from the College of Charleston (CofC) in May 2025 with an MS in Environmental and Sustainability Studies and an MPA.

Rachel maintains a 4.0 GPA and serves as a Research Assistant with the Hollings Marine Laboratory, an Environmental Justice Research Associate with the Charleston Climate Coalition, a DISTEM Committee Member with the South Carolina Marine Resources Center, and is President of the CofC Master of Environmental and Sustainability Studies Student Association (MESSA).

Rachel is currently a Teaching Assistant in the CofC Department of Biological Sciences and worked for two years as a Keeper II with the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium. Rachel’s CofC research advisor shared that Rachel’s thesis involving Atlantic sea turtles “promises to offer important new integrative biodiversity management strategies both locally, where we are collaborating with permit-authorized SCDNR sea turtle conservationists, as well as globally, where there is urgent need for …access to more affordable genomics enabled but low-tech approaches for preventing the accelerated extinction of local populations.”

2024 Undergraduate Scholarship ($2,000) Recipient, Kejsi Gjini, will graduate in May 2025 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of South Carolina (Columbia).

While maintaining a 4.0 GPA, Kejsi has served as the Environmental Justice Team Coordinator for the Sustainable Carolina Leadership Program, is an active member of SEAS (Students Engaged in Aquatic Sciences), contributed to initiatives promoting responsible business practices and sustainability through USC’s chapter of NET IMPACT, and has worked as an Environmental Health and Safety Intern at Samsung.

Kejsi has also received the June Trapp Swanson Award and Environmental Scholars Award while attending USC. In his letter of recommendation, USC’s Undergraduate Director from the School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment noted Kejsi’s enthusiasm and knowledge of the environment as being vast and contagious.