PhD student’s Arctic passion supported by three fellowships

Michele Remer receives three awards including the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Portrait of Michele Remer

Michele Remer, a first-year PhD student in the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS), will have her interests in the Arctic and the impacts on people and nature across the world supported by three competitive awards. 

Remer has accepted a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF_GRF). The fellowship provides three years of financial support with an annual stipend of $37,000. The fellowship was created to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States.

“CSIS has been honored to host many NSF-GRFs. The NSF fellowship not only provides the financial support crucial to pursuing scientific frontiers, but also is a wonderful acknowledgment of the hard work and creativity students like Michele bring to their work,” said Jianguo “Jack” Liu. “We are very proud of her.”

Remer is part of a research team working on the NSF-funded Arctic Telecoupling Project which examines the interactive effects of multiple distant drivers on Arctic systems, exploring both local and global changes so both people and nature can thrive.

Her work there also will be supported with $2,000 from the Vera M. Wallach Fellowship which recognizes graduate students conducting Arctic and Antarctic research with emphasis on the protection and preservation of wildlife in those regions.

She also has been awarded the $2,500 John Peters and Marietta Peters Fisheries and Wildlife Fellowship which recognizes a student committed to the study of aquatic biology related to fisheries and wetlands resources; an interest in the protection and management of aquatic habitats dealing with issues related to physical changes of channels; water quality; and/or the allocation of water resources. 

Remer started at Michigan State as a Demmer Scholar in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 2022 and is in the Fisheries and Wildlife department and the Environmental Science and Policy program.

Remer is researching coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) and is broadly studying dynamic telecouplings in the Arctic before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. She has already published a peer-reviewed paper on these important issues. Growing up in North Dakota near the Canadian border and mapping Alaska’s wetlands in a previous job has made her interested in researching colder climates to protect these particularly vulnerable natural areas. 

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