When people think of their childhood, they often remember their time spent outside. For many of us, that looked like wading in creeks, playing outdoor games like tag and baseball, riding bikes and finding fireflies. For Akilah Chatman, BS environmental science ’22, every day was a new adventure: climbing waterfalls, jumping from cliffs, exploring rainforests, befriending frogs and lizards, inspecting flora, gardening with their mother and so much more. Their grandparents’ beachfront restaurant offered ample time for Chatman to learn the ways of seaside life—catching fish, frying them—and between their two homes in Jamaica and Florida, they essentially grew up outside. Now, as a Drexel alum and Fulbright Fellow, Chatman is about to begin their next journey—to create and uplift a new green space in Cambodia.

Mary Donnelly –who recently earned her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Drexel’s Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science (BEES) department — loves fieldwork. But instead of marshlands, forests, plains or deserts, Mary has been busy working right here in Philadelphia. Besides getting out into the field, her interests lie particularly in wildlife conservation. So, for her senior research project, Mary found a fun, collaborative way to do both while also sharing her findings with the community.