UM professor appointed 2009 Guggenheim Fellow

University of Montana wildlife biology Professor L. Scott Mills has been named a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow by the board of trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Fellows are appointed annually by the foundation on the basis of impressive achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. The 180 winners this year were chosen from 3,000 applicants from all areas of the sciences, arts and scholarship.

“It is an incredible honor to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that unexpectedly puts me in the rarified air of the country’s top scientists, scholars and artists,” Mills said. “It speaks highly of the world-class status we have here at The University of Montana, in the Wildlife Biology Program and the College of Forestry and Conservation.”

A major focus during his fellowship period, Mills said, will be to help build local capacity to incorporate ecological science into conservation planning in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.

Mills has dedicated more than 20 years to motivating students, conducting research and inspiring people about the natural world and the interplay between science and conservation. Since his arrival at UM in 1995, he has expanded his ecology and genetics research to determine how that research can be used for conservation practices.