Colony grad only Alaskan to earn Goldwater Scholarship

College of the Atlantic junior Kaija Klauder has received a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship.

The award, from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, is given annually to second- and third-year college students planning careers in science and math based on academic merit.

Klauder, a 2007 graduate of Colony High School, plans to obtain a Ph.D. in wildlife biology with the hope of conducting field research.

Her interests lie in carnivore behavior and the relationships between predators and prey, with an eye to the creation of more comprehensive and effective wildlife management plans.

In addition to biology, ecology and public policy, Klauder has been studying literature, partly because she recognizes that writing is essential to successful management planning, but also because, she says, “I’ve chosen to pursue all of my passions — that’s why I came to COA.”

John Anderson, faculty member in biology, is her adviser. He applauds Klauder’s multidisciplinary interests.

“Kaija epitomizes what I see as the core of human ecology,” he says. “She has a tremendous range of knowledge.

She is the sort of student for whom it would be impossible to predict what books were in her backpack — science, literature, philosophy — but one could safely predict there would be a lot of books and you would want to be reading them too. Kaija is just as comfortable hiking outdoors in midwinter as she is debating a point of evolutionary theory over coffee. The world needs more Kaijas.”

This year, 1,111 students applied to the Goldwater Foundation for the scholarship, which comes with a $7,500 academic stipend; 278 were awarded. Klauder was the only student from Alaska to become a Goldwater Scholar.