August 7, 2020
Females in Fisheries Conservation Scholarships Awarded
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The fourth annual Noreen Clough Memorial Scholarships for Females in Fisheries have been awarded to Katherine Abbott, of Amherst, Mass., a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Audrey Baetz, of Northville, Mich., who is studying at Nicholls State University.
Noreen Clough blazed many trails in the field of fisheries. As the first female regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and later as the B.A.S.S. Conservation Director, her long and distinguished career was dedicated to the conservation and management of fish and wildlife. Clough passed away in January 2015 from pancreatic cancer. As a tribute to her, friends and colleagues established an endowment to provide a scholarship for female students working toward a career in fisheries conservation.
“Both of these young women have a bright future in fisheries, but in addition to their academic strengths, they stood out from many of the other applicants because they were avid anglers,” said Gene Gilliland, B.A.S.S. Conservation Director.
Gordon Robertson, retired Vice President of Government Affairs for the American Sportfishing Association and a long-time colleague of Clough’s, added, “Noreen put a high value on lessons learned from recreational fishing from both a resource understanding and appreciation perspective but also from a perspective of understanding anglers and how they think and react to resource and social issues. She saw this basis as being valuable to researchers, field managers and administrators when attempting to get resource user groups to respect and understand one another and be able to work toward a common goal for the resource in a constructive manner.”
Abbott and Baetz will each be awarded a $1,000 scholarship to be used for college expenses.