By Ronica Stromberg
The Doris Duke Conservation Scholars program ceased operations in 2024, but Darian Pierre, a Husker junior, said he still benefits from his time in the program's last cohort.
A junior earning a fisheries and wildlife degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Pierre spent the summers of 2023 and 2024 in the state of Washington, learning from and working with conservation professionals through the program. He and Haley Bates from the University of Nebraska-Omaha were the last Nebraskans to serve as Doris Duke Conservation Scholars.
"It definitely gave me more confidence, and I feel like I got a lot of skills that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise," Pierre said of participating in the program. “One of the main things I wanted to do with the internship was see if marine biology was actually something I was still interested in, and it definitely was, so if I had a really cool opportunity to be a marine biologist later, then I feel I would take that."
After going through orientation the first summer, Pierre worked two internships in the second summer, one with the Friday Harbor Laboratories and one with The Whale Museum. The Doris Duke program paid all expenses and provided a stipend.
For Friday Harbor Laboratories, Pierre surveyed marine invertebrates and algae in the tide pools of Yellow Island. Besides identifying and counting the various species, he photographed animals like barnacles, crabs and sea lemons for a final photography project for the labs.
Read the complete article and see more pictures of Darian at https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/what/newstory.aspx?fid=1213