The Student Programs Committee of the WFO Board of Directors had a tough decision this year—17 talented students applied to receive scholarships for the 2024 WFO Conference in San Diego! With only 10 spots available, the committee looked at each applicant carefully and selected a great group of students for this year’s scholarships.

The Student Programs Committee thanks the many donors who have contributed over the years to build the programs of our Student Programs Committee. The scholarship program supports registration and hotel costs, and provides a special field trip and scholars’ reception.

Scholarship recipients will attend field trips during the conference, so please be sure to say hello and get to know these next-generation ornithologists! Here is a brief introduction to our 2024 scholarship group.

Siddharth Baradhwaj lives in Houston, Texas, where he participates in monthly surveys of the Willow Waterhole Greenspace through Houston Audubon. He is working on another project with the group called Lights Out Texas, with the goal of reducing bird window collisions. This summer he is helping Dr. Cin-Ty Lee with measuring wing formulas of flycatchers for the third volume of Field Guide to North American Flycatchers.

Kira Blick, of Mission Viejo, California, participates in the Junior Naturalist program of Sea and Sage Audubon Society, and has attended the chapter’s Advanced Bird Camp. She participates in the Tree Swallow nestbox monitoring program at San Joaquin Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary.

McKenzie Brown lives in Renton, Washington. She enjoys employing her artistic skills to create art in public spaces, such as murals and stained glass. She hopes to raise awareness about conservation of threatened species and the beauty and diversity of birds. McKenzie enjoys teaching younger birders about beginning birding skills and has taught groups at her local library.

Santiago Tabares Erices, of Littleton, Colorado, is an undergraduate student at Cornell University, where he majors in Natural Resources. He is currently working on a project surveying grasslands in the Ithaca area to inform management decisions that benefit the birds that live there. Santi is president of the Birding Club at Cornell.

Chris Henry lives in San Jose, California, and has volunteered with the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, monitoring endangered California Least Terns at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve. He also volunteers as an assistant trip leader at the Monterey Bay Festival of Birds and with the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. He enjoys sharing videos about birding adventures on his YouTube channel.

Lucy London, from Santa Barbara, California, is the student representative on the board of Santa Barbara Audubon Society. She has volunteered on the Lake Cachuma eagle survey and the Santa Cruz Island CBC. A participant in the Quasars to Sea Stars program at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, she helped guide visitors through a game illustrating the relationships of birds and dinosaurs in the museum’s Hall of Birds.

Annabel Meng is a resident of Irvine, California. Introduced to birding at summer camp, she now teaches others at camp and participates in surveys and Christmas Bird Counts. She also participates in the Junior Naturalist program of Sea and Sage Audubon Society. Annabel’s paintings of birds have appeared in the newsletter of the Junior Naturalist program.

Song Han Ngo is a resident of Bellevue, Washington, where he participates in a number of volunteer efforts with Birds Connect Seattle (formerly Seattle Audubon). He has volunteered on the Puget Sound Seabird Survey, a project of Puget Sound Bird Observatory. Currently Song Han is working on a project with Professor Douglas Robinson of Oregon State University collecting data on vocalizations of the five types of Evening Grosbeaks across the continent using eBird and the Macaulay Library archives.

Aubrey Phipps-Parnay lives in Healdsburg, California, where she participates in the Young Ancient Murrelets. The group is surveying a block for the Marin County Breeding Bird Atlas on the Point Reyes National Seashore. Aubrey writes regularly for the newsletter of the Redwood Region Ornithological Society.

Elliott Steinfels, from Petaluma, California, is a member of the Young Ancient Murrelets group, with whom he has participated in several census projects. Elliott’s interest in birds is global, but he also volunteers to clean up his local patch, a riparian area important to birds and other wildlife.

We congratulate all of our applicants for their accomplishments and their passion for ornithology. In addition to the scholarship students, we will also welcome additional students who are not receiving a scholarship. We are equally excited to meet and interact with students of all ages at the conference in San Diego. The students will have two special events specifically for them so they can learn about different types of ornithological-related careers. We have a talented group of next-generation ornithologists and are lucky to have them joining us in San Diego!