Henry Morse went to Tahiti while Marlene Maeusli traveled to Moorea. Jacob Weverka trekked through Kings Canyon National Park and Lauren Croshaw visited UC Santa Barbara's Sedgwick Reserve in the Santa Ynez Valley. Not a bad way to spend a summer vacation.

These UCSB undergraduates are among a group of students who had the unique opportunity to conduct research in the field thanks to Worster fellowships.

Funded by alumni Bruce and Susan Worster, the program in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB) provides stipends to teams of undergraduate and graduate students that enable them to collaborate on original research. During the summer and into the academic year the undergraduate/graduate pairs worked together on projects of their own design.  

Some of the undergrads wrote senior theses based on their works or prepared posters for UCSB's 2014 Undergraduate Research Colloquium; others worked toward publishing their results in scientific journals. And all gained invaluable research skills.