Students with Mitchell Center connections receive Edith Patch Awards

Sara McBride
Sara McBride tests for pathogens in ticks and small mammals

Sara McBride, a master’s student in the Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program whose research on tick-borne disease ecology is part of a project led by Sandra De Urioste-Stone and Allison Gardner, has received a 2020 Edith Patch Award. McBride’s research integrates fieldwork, pathogen testing, and spatial analysis and she has created a risk map for exposure to ticks and Lyme disease in Acadia National Park.

Two students who are working with Mitchell Center faculty were also named Distinguished Nominees: doctoral student tish carr and master’s student Ruth Sexton, both in the Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program. Sexton works with Adam Daigneault to develop climate adaptation tools, data and resources targeted to farmers. Carr is working with Darren Ranco on the Mitchell Center project, “Pathways and Barriers to Weaving Indigenous Science with Western Science.”

The Edith Patch Award, named in honor of UMaine’s first woman scientist, is given each year to graduate and undergraduate women in acknowledgement of distinguished work they have done while at the University of Maine, and in recognition of their promise for future contribution to the fields of science, agriculture, engineering, or environmental education.