'With a pledge of a quarter-million dollars over the next ten years, the Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation established the George Schaller Fellowship, in honor of an outstanding UAF alumnus.

The fellowship allows international graduate students at UAF to conduct conservation research which contributes to the survival of wildlife and the vitality of human communities with which their fate is linked.

The first recipient, Archana Bali, arrived from India in fall 2007 to study caribou at the Large Animal Research Station and in their arctic tundra habitat.  Her interdisciplinary work is through the Resilience and Adaptation Program at the Institute of Arctic Biology.

Dr. Schaller graduated from UAF in 1957 with degrees in biology, zoology and anthropology, and was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from his alma mater in 1997. He is a vice president at the Wildlife Conservation Society and has spent most of the past 50 years in the wilds of Asia, Africa, and South America, helping protect the mountain gorilla, giant panda, tiger, lion and countless other animals.