News Release

Local angles: Cincinnati

UNC sophomore Nitin Sekar
wins Morris Udall Scholarship

CHAPEL HILL - Sophomore Nitin Sekar of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has won a Morris K. Udall Scholarship for academic excellence and commitment to preserving the environment.

Trustees of the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in Environmental Policy Foundation in Tucson, Ariz., chose 80 winners from among more than 500 applicants nationwide. The scholarships go to students in fields related to the environment, such as Sekar, and to Native American and Alaska natives in fields related to health care or tribal policy.

Congress established the scholarships in 1992 to honor the late U.S. Rep. Udall's legacy of public service and environmental protection. The awards go to sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated strong academic records and outstanding potential for leadership.

The scholarship will help Sekar realize his goals of studying the connections between wildlife conservation and poverty reduction throughout the world. He also plans to pursue graduate studies in animal behavior and evolutionary biology.

Sekar is in South Africa with the Organization for Tropical Studies. He is spending his spring semester studying savannah ecology, wildlife conservation and resource management in the Kruger National Park.

Sekar, the son of M. Chandra and Padmini Sekar of Cincinnati, Ohio, graduated from Sycamore High School in Cincinnati in 2004. The Udall covers tuition, books, room and board up to $5,000 for one year.

Sekar's award brings the number of Carolina Udall Scholars to nine since the awards began in 1996. Dr. Michael Lambert, an associate professor of African and Afro-American studies, chaired the faculty committee that nominates students for the Udall. He was impressed by Sekar's academic achievements and research experience.

"Nitin's academic record is impeccable, one of the strongest I've ever seen," he said. "What he brings that fits with the Udall Foundation's mission is an interest in working with national parks and the relationships among human groups and the park animal populations."

A biology and environmental science major, Sekar is a Chancellor's Scholar and a National Merit Scholar. In addition, he won a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which he used to conduct ecological research in Siberia alongside European scientists.

"I was in the Altai region of Siberia to help determine whether local practices had disturbed the soil ecology," he said. "I came to understand how soil science could be used to detect problems in societal practices and to prescribe solutions."

Dr. George Lensing, professor of English and director of the UNC Office of Distinguished Scholarships, said that Sekar has already distinguished himself as a scientist with his work such as that in Siberia.

"Nitin aspires to create a nexus between balanced ecosystems and the needs of the poor in places like Darfur and South Africa," Lensing said. "The Udall Foundation agrees with us that Nitin is an emerging scientist committed to wedding science and ecology with the needs of those who are the most extreme victims of poverty."

Among his many activities at Carolina, Sekar started a Measles Initiative that sought to raise awareness among his fellow students as well as funds to provide measles vaccinations for children.

Working with a high school classmate enrolled at Duke, he got the leaders of both universities to announce a competition among the two schools to raise money. The "Beat Measles/Beat Duke" campaign raised $5,000 and - when combined with Duke's campaign - helped vaccinate more than 7,500 children against what the Red Cross calls the world's most preventable childhood killer.

Sekar has co-chaired the health focus committee of the Campus Y at UNC, and he co-founded the Campus Y Millennium Village Project. He was policy chair for Sangram, UNC's South Asia awareness organization.

Given his conviction that wildlife conservation and poverty eradication are closely connected, Sekar hopes to study communities that are learning to benefit economically from preserving the ecosystems around them. He is an admirer of the ecologist Dan Janzen, who has established numerous programs to help people in Costa Rica benefit educationally and economically from local biodiversity. In addition to Costa Rica, Sekar hopes to study similar efforts in India and even in the Great Plains of the United States, where the return of bison have promoted tourism.

"Integrating conservation practices into sustainable, profitable enterprises will be best for both nature and people, and I want to learn how to do that," he said."

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For more information on Udall Scholarships, visit www.udall.gov.

Udall selection committee contact: Dr. Michael Lambert, (919) 962-3536, mlambert@unc.edu
Office of Distinguished Scholarships contact: Dr. George Lensing, UNC, (919) 843-7764; lensing@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu