Past Student Researchers
Graduate Student Researchers
South Dakota State University
Blake Pulse
Blake Pulse is originally from South Dakota and received his B.S. in Agricultural Communications and Political Science from South Dakota State University. During undergrad, he was active across campus, most notably within the Students' Association, where he served as student body president, advocating for 11,500 students to the South Dakota Board of Regents and State Legislature. Additionally, he worked as an undergraduate research assistant within the SDSU Native Plant Initiative, contributing to several grant-funded research projects. Blake is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management at South Dakota State University, where his research examines resilience within South Dakota's local food system through interviews, focus groups, and participant observation across the state. His work explores key organizational support, government programs, and structural challenges shaping the system, with the goal of identifying opportunities for growth. Blake is affiliated with the South Dakota Local Foods Coalition, and his broader intent is to strengthen local food systems and expand food access across South Dakota and the region
Elena Friedman
Elena is from Truckee, California, a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains. She grew up spending time outdoors hiking, swimming, and playing sports. She loved basketball the most and continued playing at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. Here she double majored in Biology and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies and minored in Environmental Studies. Her research is currently focused on the native seed system and how to increase production, and after her master's she hopes to work in sustainability and responsible environmental stewardship.
Previous Graduate Student Researchers
South Dakota State University
Vivian Hulugh
Vivian Hulugh completed her master's degree in May 2026 within the Department of Natural Resource Management at South Dakota State University. Her research interest lies in decision-making processes for natural resource management and climate adaptation. Vivian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry and Wildlife Management from the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. During her undergraduate studies, she conducted research on the economic and environmental assessment of wood-based enterprises. Her work has contributed to existing literature on awareness, perception, and attitude towards urban forestry, as well as climate adaptation strategies for smallholder farmers in Nigeria, with the latter presented at the Commonwealth Forestry Association Conference in Nigeria. Vivian's research focused on understanding conservation planning within federal and state agencies in South Dakota, and the strategies these agencies employ to adapt to climate shocks. Her research aims to provide valuable insights into effective conservation planning measures in the face of changing climates.
Nash Jackson
Nash Jackson received her B.S. degree in Natural Resources Ecology and Management with a concentration in Wildlife Ecology from Louisiana State University. After receiving her degree, she was a research associate at LSU to study Louisianans' opinion and knowledge about the reintroduced nonmigratory whooping crane (Grus americana) flock and the current conservation efforts put forth by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Nash received her master's degree in December 2024 from South Dakota State University. Her research focused on describing how women understand and approach issues of access and mitigate potential safety issues while hunting, and it also explored the role of women's mentoring groups in improving land access and perceived safety for female hunters. Nash's interests are centered around making sustainable partnerships between recreational resource users and natural resource management groups.
Shelby Isensee
Shelby Isensee is originally from southeastern Minnesota where she started her love and passion for natural resources. Growing up she has always been involved in a variety of outdoor activities such as hunting, fishing, trap shooting, boating, and hiking. This led to her attend South Dakota State University where she received her Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Law Enforcement in December of 2022. She is earned her Master of Science degree in Natural Resource Management and her project is focused on maximizing women’s hunting and fishing retention. When she is not working on her project, you can find her continuing her passion in the outdoors or teaching others in a variety of outdoor activities through many organizations and groups. Also, she is a trap shooting coach for the Sioux Valley Trap Club.
Previous Undergraduate Student Researchers
South Dakota State University
MacKinzey Jurey
MacKinzey Jurey is a 2026 graduate of South Dakota State University with a major in Conservation Planning and Park Management and a minor in Spanish. MacKinzey grew up in Nebraska where her love of nature came from camping, hiking, and gardening with her family. She is currently contributing to a study that uses interviews with South Dakota Game Fish and Parks (GFP) managers to understand how GFP can better reach their goal of operational excellence.
Caleigh Loger
Caleigh Loger is a 2026 Graduate of Conservation Planning and Park Management major at SDSU, and a cadet with SDSU ROTC program. She had three minors: Military Science, Rangeland Ecology and Management, and Sustainability. She is worked on the local foods project by transcribing interviews about Farm-to-School. She has also done exploratory research on the potential for local foods to be incorporated into South Dakota prisons.
Nora Peterson
Nora Peterson is a 2025 graduate of the College of Natural Sciences at South Dakota State University with a major in Human Biology and minoring in Chemistry. She comes from Mayville, North Dakota where she graduated her class valedictorian. Throughout undergrad, she has been involved in the university’s human anatomy department as a laboratory intern and subsequent teaching assistant. Nora throws javelin for the track and field team and holds the school record. Currently, she is working on a literature review concerning the diets of adults in low-income countries and how cultural and socio-economic factors differentiate them. Nora hopes to apply her research experience with disparities in income, status, and health to her future career in health science.
Autum Wittstruck
Autum Wittstruck is a 2026 graduate from South Dakota State University in Agronomy with a minor in Rangeland Ecology and Management. Autum grew up in Lennox, South Dakota where she actively participated in FFA, as well as various outdoor activities such as hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking. Currently, she is working as an undergraduate research assistant with Shelby Isensee to maximize women’s hunting and fishing retention. She has assisted with transcript coding, building a database for women’s organizations and groups, and a map of women’s organizations and groups across the landscape. Outside of her studies, Autum's heavily involved in the hunting and fishing community where she takes on a mentoring role and works with various companies.
Kendall Larson
Kendall Larson is a 2024 graduate of the Natural Resource Management Department of South Dakota State University majoring in Conservation Planning and Park Management with a minor in Rangeland Ecology and Management. In the past, he has contributed to reports for the Climate Adaption Science Center (CASC) and South Dakota Game Fish and Parks (SDGFP). Currently, he is contributing to a study focused on finding solutions to challenges of SDGFP managers identified in earlier research and is assisting in research focused on conservation challenges in Peru and a statewide study in South Dakota focused on planning and reacting to climate change.
The University of Illinois
Anneli Cers
Anneli Cers is a junior in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. As a Global Food Security Scholar, she studies how and when women influence dietary diversity in forest-dependent families in India. She has also collected data to determine global trends in funding women-related development projects. Along with colleagues at the School of Information, we have used topic modeling and other machine learning methods to determine how the goals of development projects focused on women’s empowerment have changed throughout time. Additionally, she has worked as a research assistant to analyze global trends on financing forest-related projects and presented her results as a poster in the Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Nikolas Merten
Nikolas Merten earned a B.S. in Earth, Society, and Environmental Sustainability and B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois. He has contributed research on capacity development and has entered data related to a workshop activity from Madagascar. He is now involved in a project about the methods used to validate theories of change within the field of biodiversity conservation. Nikolas will assist with a systematic review of this literature before starting a graduate program at Ohio State University.
Cynthia Segura
Cynthia Segura is a graduating senior studying Natural Resources and Environmental Science with a concentration in Human Dimensions and a Spatial and Quantitative Methods minor. Her research focuses on how the narrative on women's empowerment has evolved over time analyzing policy reports from international organizations, academic documents, and media articles.
The University of Michigan
Samantha Russel
Samantha Russel is an Information major with a focus on Information Analysis and a minor in Applied Statistics. Sam worked with Jennifer my freshman and sophomore years through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and the Women and Gender Summer Fellowship Program. During our time together, she studied the livelihood and climate adaptation strategies of farmers in rural India, utilizing NVivo, OpenRefine, and R along the way. Her main focus was data cleaning and model development in R. She has presented three posters at UROP symposiums and has given oral presentations at the Sustainable Development Conference and the Michigan University-Wide Sustainability and Environment Conference.
Hanna Droessler
Hanna Droessler is majoring in Economics and minoring in Sustainability. She worked with Jenn from 2017-2019 during my freshman and sophomore years as part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and through an independent study through School for Environment and Sustainability. Her research included coding interview responses in NVivo and compiling 375 articles on income diversification in order to analyze trends in the literature and write memos. During her experience she had the opportunity to present at the Sustainable Development Conference, the Michigan University-Wide Sustainability and Environment Conference, and the UROP symposium.
Zoe Engle
Zoe Engle is an Erb Undergraduate Fellow majoring in Environmental Studies and Organizational Studies. Zoe was a funded research assistant during her freshman year through University of Michigan’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). She studied the impact of women economic empowerment initiatives on households in rain-fed, agricultural dependent regions of India. She conducted a literature review on intra-household bargaining and time allocation to learn how they affected female empowerment. Our research opened her eyes to pressures put on disfranchised groups for social development. She has presented her results at the UROP symposium and at the Michigan University-Wide Sustainability and Environment Conference.
Pia Lu
Pia Lu studied Ecology, Evolution, and Biodiversity at the University of Michigan. Pia worked with Jenn in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the Women and Gender Summer Fellowship Program (WAGSFP) from 2018 - 2019. Pia's conducted a literature review about unexpected disturbances faced by rural smallholder farmers and wrote memos about emergent themes across the 200 articles she collected. Pia also helped analyze data related to how quickly people in rainfed regions of India could rebound from a shock. Pia presented at the UROP symposium, the Michigan University-Wide Sustainability and Environment Conference. She was also accepted to present a poster at the 2019 Global Conference of Capacity Building for Conservation and secured a travel grant from UROP to attend.
Shuichi Tomobe
Shuichi Tomobe is majoring in Computer Science. He worked with Jenn his junior year through University of Michigan's Changing Gears Program, which is part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). As part of his research, he conducted a literature review on capacity building in biodiversity conservation. He also processed data for a nutritional database as part of a wider research about seasonal food security in rainfed regions of India. He presented results as part of a summer symposium through the UROP and he created a poster that was presented at the Capacity Building for Conservation Global Conference in 2019 in London.
