2025 Hook Fellowships Awarded
Four outstanding student research projects have been funded through the Hook Endowment.
We are pleased to announce six 2025 Allan W. Hook Wild Basin Fellowship recipients! The Hook Fellowship supports research projects or creative endeavors within Wild Basin and/or Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. This year, we funded four outstanding projects through the Hook Endowment and the generosity of several donors.
Two Hook Fellowship projects will focus on watershed studies throughout the Balcones Canyonland Preserve System. Annie Odom, a St. Edward’s environmental science and policy student, will use satellite imagery, GIS, and vegetation indices spanning 45 years (1980-2025) to analyze land use/land cover changes and quantify vegetation density shifts surrounding Bee Creek. Further, she will update the Bee Creek watershed map through field data collection to inform habitat quality assessment and conservation management of our essential Austin waterways. A second St. Edward’s environmental science and policy student, Logan Kirk, will examine whether nature preserves such as Wild Basin benefit plants and animals by improving habitat conditions, specifically through the environmental filtering of chemicals within waterways that flow through the preserves. Kirk plans to include Bee Creek and several other streams within and around the BCP in his study.
We also awarded a joint Hook Fellowship to Harsh Vibhuti, a St. Edward’s mathematics and mechanical engineering student, and Analee Maharaj, a St. Edward's computer science student, to study growth and water stress in two dominant tree species of Wild Basin using high-resolution dendrometers. By correlating trunk diameter fluctuations with microclimate and soil moisture data, the students aim to better understand these species’ responses to water stress and how trees respond to altered weather patterns associated with climate change.
Finally, we awarded Ariana Marrero-Massa, a St. Edward’s behavioral neuroscience student, a Hook Fellowship for a project aiming to enhance science education for bilingual fourth-grade students. Ariana’s project uses Wild Basin's arthropod curriculum to leverage students’ Spanish language skills to build English vocabulary. Her approach includes translating Wild Basin education lessons, adding targeted vocabulary exercises, and reinforcing learning through hands-on field experiences at Wild Basin.