VCU Student Named NSF Graduate Research Fellow

By Sathya Achia Abraham

A Virginia Commonwealth University graduate student has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Julie Charbonnier, a native of Paris, France, who grew up in Philadelphia, Pa., was selected based on her abilities and accomplishments and her potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the United States science and engineering enterprise. Charbonnier received a master’s degree in biology from VCU this spring.

Charbonnier, who will pursue a Ph.D. in Integrative Life Sciences at VCU, will use the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to examine how global climate change will impact amphibian population dynamics. She will conduct a research project in Southern Spain, which is a known climate change “hotspot” and a region particularly vulnerable to changes in rainfall and temperature. Charbonnier will use field and laboratory experiments to construct demographic models, which can quantify the population level impacts of climate change on amphibians.

In 2010, Charbonnier joined the lab of mentor, James Vonesh, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at VCU, where she has been involved in several research projects – even traveling to Panama to study amphibians of the region.

“I have never seen a student as actively engaged in leadership and outreach as Julie is,” Vonesh said. “Julie is a remarkably accomplished young scientist. She has an outstanding track record already in integrating research with teaching, training and learning for a diverse audience.”

“This fellowship will enable her to further develop the links she has forged between our lab, our collaborators at Donana Biological Station in Spain, VCU outreach education and Richmond and international public schools,” Vonesh said. “Julie has the curiosity, motivation, intelligence and leadership to become a leader in ecology.”

Charbonnier serves as president of the Graduate Organization of Biology Students and is a member of the VCU Graduate Student Association. She serves as a mentor for students through the Graduate School Mentoring Program at VCU. Charbonnier is actively engaged with the Life Sciences Environmental Outreach Team at VCU, through which she has collaborated with classes at Clover Hill High School in Richmond. She has been a part of the team that has introduced high school students to ecological research through hands-on field activities at the VCU Rice Center.

Charbonnier has presented her findings at several national and regional meetings, including the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, the Virginia Academy of Sciences and the Ecological Society of America Mid-Atlantic Chapter.

NSF Graduate Research Fellows receive three years of graduate support, including a $30,000 annual stipend, a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance, opportunities for international research and professional development and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education that they choose.