Every year it is our honor to choose an ENVS graduating senior who displays significant leadership, presence and service within the ENVS department and Emory community. The Hickcox Award is named in honor of ENVS distinguished Emeritus Professor (and Waffles King), C. Woodbridge Hickcox, or Woody as we know him. Every year it is a difficult decision to choose just ONE student, but is is our pleasure to announce that Nick Chang is the 2024 Hickcox Award winner. We asked Nick to reflect on his time as an ENVS student and he graciously provided the following reflection:
My time in ENVS started in the fall of 2020 when I met Dr. John Wegner on the green roof of the Math and Science Center to discuss opportunities to get involved in the department. Emory had just re-started under strict COVID-19 restrictions, and after missing out on the end of my high school experience, I was itching to find ways to engage with work happening at Emory. The next thing I knew, I was a student in John’s Field Botany course and his research mentee, gaining experience navigating and exploring Emory’s campus forests. Around this time, while surveying salamander populations on Emory’s campus, I discovered that one of the larger spotted salamander breeding wetlands I had identified was in the path of a federal sewer relining project. Under John’s guidance, I worked to protect this site and advocate for mitigation measures from the construction contractors to prevent disturbance.
My work to protect these salamanders led to me joining the University Senate Committee on the Environment (COE), where I have assisted with developing an update to Emory’s forest management plan. In addition, I joined Dr. Eri Saikawa’s lab and conducted summer research searching for heavy metal contamination in urban streams. I served on the ENVS DEI committee, TA’d for two classes I had taken as a freshman, and even had the chance to travel to Egypt to attend the UN climate negotiations with Emory Climate Talks. In between it all, I conducted Honors research with Dr. Carolyn Keogh where I explored the habitat utilization of the Talladega seal salamander (Desmognathus cheaha).
However, the work I am proudest of over the past four years has been with the Emory Ecological Society, which conducts student-led research, restoration, outreach, and advocacy on Emory’s campus and in the surrounding community. I have been blown away with the initiative that so many emerging leaders in this organization have shown, and am proud to have worked alongside so many students to draw attention to a destructive PATH proposal, assess the conservation status of American Stavine (Schisandra glabra) on Emory’s campus, and spearhead invasive vegetation removal in Baker Woodlands.
I am so grateful for the faculty who took a chance on me, pushed me to learn and explore, and taught me how to be an ethical scientist. I am equally thankful for Emory’s forests, streams, and salamanders (the greatest teachers of all), and for those who have stewarded and protected them. Thank you to Leah, Kim, Melissa, and Jerry for keeping ENVS afloat, and thank you to the Waffle Crew who made every Wednesday a blast! I am also grateful for the mentorship of so many amazing upperclassmen who guided me in my first years here, and I am honored to have worked alongside so many rising leaders in this department.
“That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.” – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Department of Environmental Sciences 