Congratulations to Noelle Foster, Mongolia ‘23 alum, for being named by The National Science Foundation (NSF) to its 2026 class of Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) scholars.

The GRFP is a prestigious program that supports outstanding graduate students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in more than 100 NSF-supported STEM fields with three years of financial support.

Noelle’s fellowship will support her doctoral research in wildlife and fire ecology — a career path that her Round River experience helped set in motion. Here’s what she had to say about her research plans and her time with Round River:

“I am currently pursuing my PhD in Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University, where I study how wildlife respond to wildfire using passive monitoring efforts. I plan to focus on how severity and land management affect re-establishment of bird and bat species in postfire environments. 

I was a student on the Mongolia Summer 2023 program. The program, instructors, and fellow students have made such a lasting impact on how I have made career decisions since. It was my first opportunity to go through the entirety of the research process, from question formulation to data collection and analysis, and finally dissemination. I dream to one day go back to the Darhad Valley.”