Associate Director for Education and Outreach
As the academic year draws to a close, two laurels go out to NIMBioS Associate Director for Education & Outreach Suzanne Lenhart.
At the end of March, Lenhart was named Disability Champion by UT’s Student Disability Services. Lenhart directs the UT-NIMBioS STEM Alliance and is also a partner of the South East Alliance for Persons with Disabilities in STEM.
Lenhart was nominated by graduate student Larissa Weaver who stated at the Student Disability Services Recognition Dinner: “Dr. Suzanne Lenhart went above and beyond in founding a chapter of Alliance in STEM here at UT. This is a peer-mentoring group for disabled math and biology majors considering pursuing STEM careers. Dr. Lenhart listened to us and educated herself in issues disabled and chronically ill students have when trying to be successful as students and in the academic marketplace. She leads students to conferences and guides them on applying to grad school. I would not be in grad school without Dr. Lenhart.”
The other laurel is for a paper that Lenhart co-authored, which won the 2019 Rollie Lamberson Research Award Medal from the Resource Modeling Association. “Assessing the economic trade-offs between prevention and suppression of forest fires,” published in the journal Natural Resources Modeling, explores the trade‐offs between prevention management spending and wildfire suppression spending. The results support the conclusion that prevention management efforts offset rising suppression costs and increase the value of a forest.
A successful spring for Dr. Lenhart. Congratulations!