Megan Schutt

Duke Energy Fellow

Department of Marine Sciences
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
16 November 2014
I am a fellow graduate of the University of Tennessee with Hannah, and am now pursuing a Masters of
Science in Marine Science at the University of North Carolina. I have worked with Hannah in and out of
the University of Tennessees Chancellors Honors Program (CHP) for almost five years. I worked in the
CHP office for several years, and her name and accomplishments were always visible. I was not directly
involved in her academic culture, but all of us in the program were well aware of her reputation. From
the blog she kept during her study in Malta to the publishing of her honors thesis senior year, it was
hard to ignore her work. I first met her during a CHP-sponsored geology field camp, in which her
unbridled passion for learning made the other honors students and me seem like we were just there for
the scenery. I say this not to mock myself, but to depict, in truth, a student whose appetite and drive for
scholarship are well beyond her years and current experiences.
While Hannahs academic prowess and gift for writing should be evident by her collection of
publications, one facet that may not be so visible is her vigor for change-making. Most students,
especially those in the disheartening fields that she has chosen to define her life, easily become
overwhelmed or pessimistic when thinking about the future of our society. Hannah, though she is a
realist, remains ever progressive in investigating ways in which she can affect change in systems of social
inequality and environmental degradation. She is able to speak and write about the nuances plaguing a
particular area, to make you feel acutely the problems with which these areas are stricken, but
nevertheless instill hope within you: that if only we could come up with the right idea, these problems
would be solved.
I believe that a graduate program in biogeography would light a fire under Hannahs feet, and I
guarantee you that once this happens to people like Hannah, the work they produce remains
unmatched. I know she would be indelibly interested in bringing her skills in studying people over to the
spatial and geographical realm. The opportunity to study ecology and human impacts with professionals
who truly care would offer Hannah the chance to work with the type of person she has always been to
those of us in the Honors Program a vivacious researcher bent on world-changing who serves as the
goal we all hope to reach one day.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.

Megan Schutt
schutt@live.unc.edu