Two Montana State doctoral students win $25,000 scholarships

BOZEMAN - Anna French studies invertebrate creatures that dwell in freshwater environments. Her fellow Montana State University doctoral student Elise Loggers studies apex predators in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Both of them, identified by the philanthropic education organization P.E.O. as women of high academic achievement who will make significant contributions in their fields, have been awarded $25,000 P.E.O. Scholar Awards for 2026.

The wildlife biologists are two of only 115 recipients of the competitive scholarships, selected from nearly 900 nominees in all disciplines from across the U.S. and Canada. Each is pursuing a Ph.D. in MSU's Department of Ecology in the College of Letters and Science, where Anna Kusler - a 2025 P.E.O. Scholar - also studies. All three students were nominated by a P.E.O. chapter in Bozeman.

For Loggers, the scholarship provides funding for her to spend this summer in Yellowstone National Park, directly observing grizzly bears in the field to enhance her analysis of 30 years' worth of data collected by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team that she is examining for her dissertation. One of the objectives of her research is to determine how grizzly bears will fare under predicted ecosystem changes, and she said the fieldwork will allow her to match in-person observations with current activity readings from bears' radio collars. Those data will help her develop models to better predict bear behavior, a significant part of her doctoral dissertation, and help scientists better understand what monitored bears are doing when they aren't being watched.

"I'm fortunate to work with an absolutely incredible set of historical data for my Ph.D., and the project that we're working on this summer is going to supplement that really well by looking at it on a different scale," said Loggers. Her research also will integrate data and observations about bears' movement, diet and energy use.

Loggers began working for the National Park Service in Yellowstone after earning her bachelor's degree in wildlife biology at the University of Washington in 2016. Her work in the park led her to pursue a master's degree in fish and wildlife management at MSU, which she earned in 2022. It was a path she had never considered as a youngster growing up in northeastern Washington state, reluctant to follow in the footsteps of her mother and father, who worked respectively as a botanist and a biologist in the Colville National Forest.

"My earliest memories were hunting pheasants with my dad and counting botrychiums with my mom," she said. "At the time I wondered why anybody would do this, but then I realized it's really cool that we can understand the world in this way."

French, originally from Minnesota, is a 2020 graduate of MSU with degrees in biological sciences and chemistry. As an undergraduate, she was both a standout student and track and field athlete, and the recipient of the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provided a paid internship and tuition support. She chose MSU for graduate school and was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her doctoral studies.

Through her research, French aims to better understand how macroinvertebrate ecosystem engineers affect their physical environments. Specifically, she studies crayfish who dig burrows and mix up streambed sediment, as well as net-spinning caddisflies.

"I'm understanding how their behaviors influence nutrient cycling in freshwater environments. It has implications for nutrient pollution, and also for understanding the cycling of nitrogen, which is an important nutrient for other organisms in the stream when it's not in excess," French said.

"Anna's experiments will allow us to quantify just how much these animals are affecting two global change issues related to erosion and nutrient cycling," said her adviser and associate professor Lindsey Albertson, who said French's expertise in both ecology and biogeochemistry make her well suited for the project.

French is currently finishing a study of how temperature and stream nitrate levels affect the net-building activities of caddisflies. When that's done, she will move into the writing phase of her Ph.D. Now a competitive biathlete, she said the P.E.O. scholarship will allow her to focus on her writing while she trains with her biathlon team, Team Soldier Hollow. For two seasons, French competed internationally as a member of Team USA's International Biathlon Union, or IBU Cup, squad. She sustained an injury in 2024 but is once again preparing for high-level, international competition.

On campus, French has worked as a TA for ecology professor Steven Kalinowski. Off campus, she volunteers as a firefighter for the Hyalite Rural Fire District.

"Anna has a really strong desire to make the world a better place and take care of people and serve her community," Kalinowski said. "I can't think of anyone so capable who has so many possible paths she might follow. I hope she ends up in the classroom - she would be a great teacher."

French is interested in pursuing a career in academia. After finishing her Ph.D., Loggers would like to work as a biologist for a federal agency. Though their career aspirations differ, both view themselves as scientists who will use their expertise to effect positive change.

"I really care about stream environments and places that I train and go running and skiing. It's inspired me to do some advocacy work and see what little things I can do to make some sort of positive impact on the environment and my community," French said. "The more that we can get people connected to nature and appreciating the ecology around us, the more we can protect these places."

Loggers, too, aims for her work to be useful to agencies making wildlife management decisions. For her master's research, she evaluated the efficacy of Yellowstone National Park's bear management areas, where human activity is restricted to protect resources for bears and to reduce human-bear conflict. She also created complex analytical models to understand the responses of bears to human recreation. Based on her findings, park biologists updated the bear management areas to improve the safety of bears and people.

"Few graduate projects lead to direct management change, and this one did, which was really exciting," she said. "It's a good feeling knowing your science is useful."

Professor Andrea Litt, her adviser and director of MSU's Fish and Wildlife Ecology and Management program, said Loggers has and will continue to make significant contributions to science, to women and to society.

"I am thrilled that Elise has been named as a P.E.O. Scholar, in recognition of her achievements to date and her promising future," Litt said. "She represents an important and inspiring role model for others, especially given her accomplishments in the research domain of bears and other large carnivores."