Oil Creek Chapter of Trout Unlimited

Trout Unlimited Chapters Award Scholarship to Clarion University Student (8/29/11)

Alysha Cypher, a Clarion University Biology major with minors in Chemistry and Sustainability, has won the $1000 Trout Unlimited (TU) Scholarship funded jointly by the Allegheny Mountain, Iron Furnace, and Oil Creek chapters of TU. In addition to her coursework Ms. Cypher is active in research and professional development. She was awarded undergraduate research grants to conduct studies of fish behavior and physiology and spent the summer of 2010 at the University of Akron in an internship studying water pollution as a stress on fish. She spent summer 2011 interning at Clarion University developing a model for an online biology laboratory and researching the affects of heavy metals on the growth and development of the american toad (Anaxyrus americanus). Alysha is the president of the Clarion University Chapter of The Society for Conservation Biology. She is secretary and co-founder of the Center for Conservation Studies, a non-profit cooperating with the Clarion-Limestone Area School District to build an amphibian research and education center that will be the only one of its kind in the world, is a member of The Wildlife Society, and was co-founder of Clarion University’s Scuba Club. Applicants for the TU Scholarship were evaluated based on academic achievement and a commitment to the conservation of cold-water resources.

Clarion University 2011-2012 Trout Unlimited (TU) Scholarship winner Alysha Cypher (left) from Cabot, Pennsylvania with Steven Harris, Department of Biology representative for TU.