Marine Biology Student Receives Scholarship Award
MELBOURNE, FLA.—Florida Institute of Technology student and marine biology major Allison Randolph received the Dr. Kerry Bruce Clark Endowed Scholarship in Marine Biology. Randolph, a junior, was publicly recognized on April 11 during the Honors Convocation in the Gleason Performing Arts Center on campus.
Randolph earned the award for her strong academic record; involvement in campus organizations; assistance in graduate student research; and fulfillment of volunteer internships with Operation Wallacea in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.
On campus, she is a member of the Tri Beta Biological Honor Society and the Marine Biological Society. A scuba-certified, scientific diver, Randolph was the Florida Tech women’s swimming team captain last year and is a member of the Florida Tech women’s surfing team.
In her undergraduate research, Randolph is studying the long-term history of coral reefs in Panama. By analyzing the abundance of sea urchin spines and tiny “spicules” from sponges over the last 5,500 years, Randolph is helping to determine how coral reefs change over time and how climate change affects life on coral reefs. She recently presented her work at the 42nd Benthic Ecology Meeting in Savannah, Ga.
Clark, for whom the award is named, was a member of the Florida Tech biological sciences faculty from 1971 until his death in 1999. A full professor, he was named a 1996 Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in honor of his work documenting rare species of sea slugs. His research on mollusks, marine, ecology, psychological ecology and biodiversity was widely published in scientific journals.
