Tyson Research Center has been fortunate to receive funds specifically dedicated to the support of undergraduate research experiences. We thank our generous donors for helping us to mentor the next generation of environmental scientists.

sexton fellowship

The Sexton Fellowship was established in 2004 in honor of Owen Sexton, Emeritus Professor of Biology and key advocate for the purchase of the Tyson property in 1963. Owen served at Tyson's director from 1996 to 1999.

During his academic career in the Department of Biology, Owen was well-known as a world-class wildlife biologist and ecologist. He studied ecosystems throughout Central and Latin America and other parts of the world including Missouri, where his varied research interests included amphibians, reptiles, and the endangered collard lizard in the state’s glades and prairies.

Owen began conducting research at Tyson in the 1960s, where his research interests varied from reproduction of oak trees to snakes and deer. During his retirement, he kept in touch with Tyson's growth and activity through annual visits to the center. Owen was a mentor for numerous students that have gone on to productive academic careers, and who cite him as a major influence in their academic growth and career trajectories.

News pieces about Owen: 

• Effects of major regional floods on snakes

• Grand marshal at WashU commencement 2003

• A tribute to Owen Sexton, 2010

• Obituary

The Sexton Fellowship supports approximately one Washington University undergraduate fellow per summer. Recent recipients include:

2021 - Ben Orlinick, Biology ‘23
2019 - Emma Waltman, Biology ‘19
2018 - Anirudh Gandhi, Environmental Biology '20
2017 - Liam Engel, Biology (Ecology and Evolution) '19
2016 - Madeleine Mullen, Biology '18
2014 - Brianna Tiffany, Environmental Earth Science '16

LENNETTE FELLOWSHIP

David and Evelyne Lennette completed their doctorates in molecular biology at Washington University just before the publication of The Limits to Growth (LTG) — a highly controversial analysis of Earth’s carrying capacity. While their subsequent careers were spent in medical laboratory virology diagnostic testing and research, they tracked closely the issues and debates stirred up by the LTG publication. To this day, the natural environment and conservation biology have remained topics close to their hearts.

The Lennettes have realized laboratory-oriented biology is out-competing field biology for academic support and funding in recent decades. Field biology describes life in nature whereas molecular biology studies life at a biochemical level. The two are not interchangeable and the Lennettes believe we must have knowledge of both. In response, they decided to support an annual award at Washington University to introduce students to summer field projects in biology. These experiences allow students to discover some of the many interesting and unanswered questions that can be answered only with data collected by observations made in nature (the field).

The Lennettes’ career went through a shift after a chance encounter with two passionate Costa Rican conservationists, who rekindled their concern for the environment at large. As result, they have become full time environment advocates, with a mission to regenerate Costa Rican cloud forests — one of our planet’s biodiversity hotspots — to ensure that future biologists will have a place to pursue field biology.

Recent recipients of the Lennette Fellowship include:

2022 - Ben Orlinick, Biology ‘23
2021 - Lawton Blanchard, Environmental Biology ‘22
2020 - Christopher Tomera, Biology ‘21
2019 - Taewon Lee, Biology and Economics ‘21
2019 - Laura Goh, Environmental Biology ‘21
2018 - Emily Dewald-Wang, Environmental Biology '19
2017 - Maya Dutta, Environmental Biology '19
2016 - Julien Weinstein, Biology and Education '17
2015 - Alison Palmer, Environmental Biology '16
2015 - Thomas Van Horn, Chemistry '18
2014 - Maggie (Mary) Gardner, Environmental Biology ‘15
2013 - Micaela Hyams