Integrated Scholar Spotlight: Jennifer Zavaleta

Provided by The Office of the Provost

Jennifer Zavaleta

Irving native Jennifer Zavaleta is fascinated with the natural world.

As a master’s student in the Department of Natural Resources Management, Zavaleta says she benefited greatly from enrolling in classes outside her major, incorporating her knowledge from agricultural education, communications and sociology into her scholarship.

Among her research opportunities, Zavaleta received a grant for her paper that highlighted assumptions made by government agents and researchers in regard to land management, as well as created a literature review about lesser prairie chickens, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act—all through a collaboration with wildlife ecology Adjunct Professor David Haukos.

Zavaleta’s thesis, which was based on data collected over 13 years, evaluated the effect of tebuthiuron herbicide and rotational grazing on shinnery oak, a shrub that is native to Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Since graduating last spring, Zavaleta has embarked on a journey taking her to Chile as part of her selection as a Student Fulbright Fellow. The first half of her fellowship consisted of a program evaluation of the country’s Long-Term Ecological Research Network, and the second half has involved assessing the land management plan for a community that lives in a national forest.

Learn more about Jennifer Zavaleta.