Hear from Our Students

What students have to say about the IIC and the CRP

IIC students experience great academic, personal, and professional growth through participating in the Year-Long or Semester-Long Conservation Research Program, the GIS Lab, or by joining our team as a Student Assistant.

Engaging with the IIC makes you a part of a diverse and open community working for biodiversity conservation in myriad ways.

Hear from our students abut how working with the IIC has developed their technical, research, and leadership skills, expanded their professional networks, revealed the diversity of perspectives, practices and opportunities in conservation, and connected them to a supportive community within and beyond W&M.

Application of Skills

“The Conservation Research Program shows students how the skills they are developing in their classes can be applied to urgent, real-world issues across the globe. I think the IIC will be instrumental in this, and I am excited to see how the Institute grows."

- Anna Kashmanian '20

Implementing New Technologies

"This was a super exciting project for me because I got to take advantage of a lot of new GIS technologies and learn how to implement a project like this to advance real conservation solutions".

- Neel Simpson '22

Finding Community

“This experience allowed me to find a lab and community to be a part of at W&M…The IIC has really been somewhere where I feel like I can fully contribute”.

– Sidonie Horn ‘21

Working Directly with Practitioners

"I have really enjoyed working directly with practitioners on these applied problems, and it's been really valuable seeing how data science can be applied to the real world."

- Emilio Luz-Ricca '23