Travel, environmental research, and mangroves—these are just three of Colorado College senior Rayna Ben-Zeev’s passions, all of which she will get to indulge in while she conducts research at the Mangrove Lab at the National University of Singapore this upcoming school year thanks to her recently awarded Fulbright Scholarship.
“I always knew I wanted to go to a liberal arts school,” said Ben-Zeev. “When I visited CC, I was struck by how friendly everyone was. I was also attracted to the idea of the Block Plan for the environmental science major, as it allowed me to get out in the field and conduct research for entire days at a time.”
Ben-Zeev knew she wanted to major in environmental science before she even arrived at Colorado College, and she was given the chance to combine her drive for environmental science and math once she began her mathematical modeling minor.
During her time at CC, she has gotten the chance to travel to the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park for her First-Year Experience course, gone to Utah with a historical geology class, taken day trips to Pikes Peak, and, as part of a hydrology class, collected samples at the Arkansas River before luxuriating in the hot springs nearby at night.
Beyond the United States, she has traveled to Europe, South Africa, and Israel, but she discovered her passion when she studied abroad for a semester in Thailand and explored the tropics.
“That trip was why I decided to go back to Asia next year. I loved being in a place that is so different from here,” said Ben-Zeev.
“I had never seen mangroves before I went abroad,” she continued. “I just thought they were so cool. Then, later, I found out that they were a lot more complicated than one might expect. They sequester carbon to help combat climate change, filter the water against pollutants, serve as habitat for fish, and are excellent barriers to protect people from the threats of sea-level rise.”
Upon being captivated by the opportunity and intricacy of the mangroves, Ben-Zeev felt driven to apply for the Fulbright Scholarship. She saw this fellowship as a chance to study these mangroves while tending to her affinity for foreign cultures.
With the scholarship, she plans to spend nine months using models to study fisheries and their mangrove habitat.
Her research will aim to show how restoring the mangroves through conservation will have positive impacts on the surrounding area as well.
“Different development scenarios in Singapore, how much they restore the mangroves versus how much they are destroying the mangroves, will affect how many fish are available,” said Ben-Zeev. “The government wants to increase their fisheries and the amount of fish they produce locally. As of right now they are very reliant on other countries.”
Despite the competitive hype around these kinds of grants and fellowships, she encourages those at CC to think beyond job applications to grants such as hers because the time between undergraduate and graduate school is the optimal time to explore the world and what it has to offer.