Scholarships

The Becker Family Graduate Research Fellowship is available annually to support research in biology, ecology, or other environmentally related fields by a student at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. The Fellowship provides up to $2,500 for a student stipend, equipment, room and board, or other research supplies. The scholarship was established in 2017 through a generous gift from the Becker Family, who are long-standing members of the Okoboji community. 

Maximum award amount: $2,500

The G. Dennis Cooke scholarship is available annually to support research in aquatic ecology by a graduate student at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. G. Dennis Cooke studied limnology with Dr. Richard V. Bovbjerg and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa in 1963 and 1965. He attended Iowa Lakeside Laboratory from 1961to 1964, where he took the Aquatic Ecology course and studied the ecology of microcrustacea in West Lake Okoboji. He taught the Field Biology course in 1965. He was awarded a post-doctoral appointment in 1965 with Dr. Eugene P. Odum of the University of Georgia. He moved to Kent State University in 1967 and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at his retirement in 2003. Dr. Cooke is the author of about 70 refereed articles, mainly in the field of lake and reservoir management and rehabilitation, served as the inaugural president of the North American Lake Management Society in 1980, and is the first author of the three editions of the textbook Restoration and Management of Lakes and Reservoirs. He received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001. 

Maximum award amount: $600

The James W. Cravens Undergraduate Research Fellowship is available annually to support research in limnology by a student at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. The Fellowship provides up to $2,500 for a student stipend, equipment, room and board, or other research supplies. 

The scholarship was established in 2015 through a generous gift from the Craven Family in honor of James W. Cravens. James W. Cravens was born on January 15, 1920, in Sanborn, Iowa, to John and Dorothy (Daly) Cravens. Jim graduated from Sanborn High School in May of 1938. He attended the University of Iowa and received a degree from the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin. In 1973, he became associated with the Dickinson County Savings Bank, now United Community Bank. He was active in both institutions until his retirement in January of 2015. Jim made community service an important part of his life. He was active in many organizations in northwest Iowa and in the state serving on the State Banking Board, The Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, Camp Foster YMCA, Okoboji Yacht Club, the Dickinson County Hospital and many more. Jim was a great supporter of Lakeside’s mission to “learn about nature in nature”, and invited Lakeside faculty and students to his Stoney Lake property for field investigations

Maximum award amount: $2500

Dr. Goodall came to Iowa Lakeside Laboratory and the Iowa Great Lakes region to share her reasons for hope in a world marred by environmental degradation, violence, and war, and to encourage young people to make the world a better place for all living things. The Friends of Lakeside Lab established the Dr. Jane Goodall Endowed Scholarship Fund in 2007. Students or visiting researchers may earn up to a full or partial award towards the cost of basic room and board at Lakeside.

Maximum award amount: $500

The John Clayton Kingston Diatom Fellowship was established in 2004 by the colleagues, friends, and family of John Kingston. In his life and career as a biologist, John’s foremost interest was the natural history and taxonomy of diatoms, a topic he was first introduced to as an undergraduate at Lakeside through his interactions with Dr. John Dodd, instructor of freshwater biology. He then took the Laboratory’s diatom course, taught by Dr. C. W. Reimer, in 1969, and returned as an honors research student in 1970. Thereafter he returned regularly to Lakeside as a research investigator and guest scientist. The John Clayton Kingston Diatom Fellowship is available to domestic and international graduate students, advanced undergraduate students, and young professionals. This fellowship is intended for applicants who have previously taken Ecology and Systematics of Diatoms, who show strong potential toward careers in teaching and diatom research, and who embrace the ideals that John had toward science and life.

Maximum award amount: $800 + room and board

The Lakeside Lab Parker/Gentry Scholarship in Conservation Biology is named for the late Theodore. Parker III and Alwyn Gentry, who were outstanding conservation biologists. Students may apply for a $350 tuition scholarship. Parker, an ornithologist, and Gentry, a botanist, were killed on August 3, 1993, when their light plane crashed into a mountainside as they were making a treetop survey of an Ecuadorian cloud forest. 

Parker was the world’s expert on Neotropical bird songs, able to recognize over 4,000 species. Gentry was the world’s expert on Neotropical trees species, comprising fully 1/6th of all the world’s woody plants. These men were irreplaceable. Beginning in 1996, The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago began offering its Parker/Gentry Award, an international award that honors an outstanding individual, team, or organization in the field of conservation biology whose efforts have had a significant impact on preserving the world's natural heritage and whose actions and approach can serve as a model to others.

Dr. Michael Lannoo, a long-time associate of Lakeside Lab, received the 2001 Parker/Gentry Award. He gifted the monetary award to Lakeside to support students interested in conservation biology.

Maximum award amount: $350

The Charles W. Reimer Scholarship was established in 2009 through gifts from the participants in the North American Diatom Symposium and offers an annual award of $650.

In 1963, Dr. Reimer began teaching the summer diatom course in Iowa. He considerably expanded and formalized what had been called the “Diatom Clinic” and established an intensive five-week diatom course. Under his direction, the course served as a forum for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and academic researchers to focus on biology, ecology, and taxonomy of the diatoms. Students were immersed in the field and laboratory study of freshwater diatoms including techniques in collection, preparation, curation, and identification of diatom samples and the study of environmental factors affecting growth, distribution, and taxonomic characters. During the years that Dr. Reimer taught the course, more than 150 students and researchers took part, many of whom would go on to make important contributions to the field.

Maximum award amount: $650

The Eugene F. Stoermer Diatom Scholarship was established by Gene's family, friends, and colleagues following his passing in 2012.  A $650 scholarship is awarded annually to an advanced student or researcher participating in the Ecology and Systematics of Diatoms course at Iowa Lakeside Lab.

Dr. Eugene Stoermer was born in 1934 in Gillette Grove near Lakeside Lab. His childhood included summers at the family cottage on Miller's Bay on West Lake Okoboji.  In 1963, shortly after completing his doctoral degree, Gene's advisor, Dr. John Dodd, suggested he teach a special "Diatom Clinic" at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. At the time, few people and fewer institutions were supporting the study of diatoms. The Clinic encouraged students and researchers to gather annually at Iowa Lakeside Lab in a collaborative atmosphere where learning took place not only in the environs around Lakeside but through participants interacting in the class. Dr. Stoermer taught the Clinic for three years before he was hired as a Research Phycologist at the University of Michigan, Great Lakes Research Division. In 1990, Gene returned to Lakeside to teach the class, now called Ecology and Systematics of Diatoms, through 2000. Each summer he loaded his vehicle with computers, microscopes, cameras, and literature to share his passion for diatoms with the students and visiting researchers from around the world. He transformed the class to include digital photography, research microscopy, and computer databases. 

Maximum award amount: $650