Lilia (Lily) Pettit ‘21 is one of 55 scholars this year to be named a 2020 Udall Scholar. The awards are given to sophomores and juniors for their exemplary leadership, public service, and commitment to Native American or environmental issues. Pettit is the first Clarkson student to receive a Udall Scholarship.
The scholarships include funds of up to $7,000 to help cover tuition costs, and all scholars are invited to a five-day conference to learn new ways to collaborate and build community with others working on environmental and tribal issues.
Pettit is pursuing a degree in environmental and civil engineering at Clarkson. Her passion for ocean remediation was fueled by her scuba diving experiences, which began at age 13. She shared in her application that her first dive was exhilarating, and she felt like she was “on another planet.” She has been diving many times since, but “nothing [has] compared” to that first dive when she was “immersed in the ocean’s ecosystem off the coast of Malaysia.” Since then she has seen plastic bottles littering the ocean floor, “discarded fishing nets suffocating coral, and [has] heard the effects of noise pollution from” boat traffic. Her underwater experience not only generated empathy toward our ocean’s ecosystems, it also prompted understanding of people who have not been able to see and feel first hand the harmful impact of humanity. She believes this visceral experience woke her up to the powerful negative impacts even our small actions have on our planet’s health and understands for others, who have not seen the ocean’s pain first hand, it may not hit home. This is why her mission is to raise awareness in an effort to help restore the reefs and ecosystems we have destroyed.
Pettit, a native of New Hampshire, has worked in the Oceanography, Coastal Engineering, and Biological Sciences Departments at the University of New Hampshire, helping to determine the extent of microplastics in the Great Bay sediment and its prevalence to oyster larvae. She has also volunteered for the Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire to identify different stages of oyster larvae in Great Bay water samples, which led her to assess the health of each oyster reef. Both projects contributed to an effort to improve the water quality in the Great Bay.
Her ultimate career goal is to establish a company she has already begun to create: Tilden Tides, an environmental consulting firm designed for innovation and focused on environmental remediation in the ocean. She noted in her Udall essay that “it is important to educate in order to create real change.” She recognizes that Secretary Udall was actively being the change he wanted to see, and Lily strives for the same in her own career.
Pettit will join the other 2020 Udall Scholars in Tucson, Arizona in August for the Udall Scholar Orientation Weekend to learn more about the Udall legacy of public service and to interact with community leaders in environmental fields, Tribal health care, and governance.
The Udall Scholarship Program is administered at Clarkson University through Karyn Crispo, Associate Director of Scholarship Preparation. Karyn holds workshops and meetings between September and January for students interested in applying for an Udall Scholarship; she can be reached at kcrispo@clarkson.edu or 315-268-6006.
About the Udall Foundation
The Udall Foundation awards Scholarships, Fellowships, and Internships for study in fields related to the environment and to Native Americans and Alaska Natives in fields related to health care and Tribal public policy; connects youth from underserved communities to the Nation’s public lands and natural resources to foster greater understanding, appreciation, stewardship, and enjoyment of those lands and resources through photography, positive outdoor experiences, and environmental education through Parks in Focus®; provides funding to the Native Nations Institute for research, education, and outreach on Native American and Alaska Native health care issues and Tribal public policy issues; provides funding to the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy to conduct policy research and outreach on the environment and related themes; and provides impartial collaboration, consensus-building, and conflict resolution services on a wide range of environmental, natural and cultural resources, Tribal, and public lands issues involving the Federal Government through the John S. McCain III National Center for Environmental Conflict Resolution.
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