Maven Mercado
- Degree/Program
- BS environmental science
- Minor
- geoscience and biological sciences
About Me
Maven (they/he) graduated in spring 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, with a minor in geoscience. They are a student in the Liberty Scholars Program, which awards underrepresented students with a full-tuition scholarship for twelve academic quarters. During the summer after their freshman year, they interned with Heights Philadelphia as a teaching/administrative assistant. For their first co-op, they were awarded funding in the amount of $6,000 from the Steinbright Partners Program to complete an unpaid co-op at the Philadelphia Zoo. Between January 2023 and October 2025, they worked as a research assistant in the Invertebrate Paleontology department of the Academy of Natural Sciences, which resulted in a publication in the journal Frontiers of Marine Science.
They are also a recipient of DAAD-RISE, which allowed them to spend three months in Hamburg, Germany researching body size changes in ostracods across the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. In 2024, Maven was a recipient of the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship, which led to a 10-week internship with NOAA's Deep Sea Coral Research Technology Program and a subsequent poster presentation on the development of a deep-sea coral sponge habitat guide at AGU2025 in New Orleans, LA. Maven also received a 2024 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) Summer Student Fellowship and a 2026 GeoCUR Award for Excellence in Student Research from the Council on Undergraduate Research.
Maven is a queer, Hispanic, first-generation North Philly native who takes pride in all of these identities. When they're not focuses on school, work, or research, they love reading, watching horror movies, and playing games on their Nintendo Switch.
This Fulbright Study/Research Grant will fund the first year of a master's degree in oceanography. In addition to their fellowships applications, Maven has been involved with the Pennoni Honors College as a member of the SuperNova Undergraduate Research Fellows program.
Last updated: May 2026