Conservation & Ecological RestorationClaire Karban
2020 The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration

Using New Technologies to Maximize Plant Recruitment in Large Scale Dryland Restoration
Claire Karban is a PhD candidate in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. She studies plant recruitment in dryland restoration. Despite the economic importance, high degradation level, and extent of dryland ecosystems globally, seed-based restoration efforts often see very low plant recruitment. Karban will test two restoration methods—seed coatings and microsite creation— to improve plant recruitment in degraded rangelands in southeastern Utah. She plans to evaluate these methods with the ultimate goal of using drones to map microsites and deliver seeds on the large scale at which dryland restoration is needed.
The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
The Garden Club of America (the GCA) offers an annual Fellowship in Ecological Restoration. Established in 2000 with funds from the John B. Young Charitable Trust as well as GCA members and clubs, the fellowship’s goal is to support research that will advance knowledge and increase the number of scientists in the important field of ecological restoration, the active healing of the land. The $8,000 grant is awarded annually to exceptional graduate students to support specialized study in ecological restoration at an accredited U.S. university. Preference will be given to projects that include field research conducted in the United States. A panel of experts associated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum reviews the applications and makes recommendations to the GCA Scholarship Committee.
For the purposes of this scholarship, The Garden Club of America agrees to the definition of ecological restoration as stated by the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER).