Women and Wildlife: A Special Recognition
Patricia Shapella
With a cool breeze blowing and the marsh grass and blue water glistening in the afternoon sun, Conserve Wildlife Foundation gathered together more than 40 friends, family and colleagues of Stacy Moore Hagan on July 11, 2008, to celebrate her achievements as a outstanding woman wildlife scientist. Stacy was nominated posthumously for the 2008 Women & Wildlife Awards. A special Outstanding Achievement Award for her leadership as a marine scientist and a mentor for women for nearly two decades was presented to her family. Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS) in Tuckerton, New Jersey, provided the picture-perfect site for this event.
Lisa Auermuller, Watershed Coordinator for the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve, and a close friend of Stacy’s nominated Stacy for a Women & Wildlife Award in January after her death in December of 2007 at the age of 36 from complications associated with breast cancer. Roland Hagan, Stacy’s husband and their two children, Rutger, 7, and Ryland, 5, accepted the award, a framed print of a mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus) that represented an important subject in Stacy’s research.
Through her career at RUMFS, Stacy had worked her way through the ranks from volunteer to senior research technician. She distinguished herself with hard work and a focused approach to every task. She took on additional responsibilities like organizing all the field and laboratory technicians and helping graduate students accomplish their research. Dr. Ken Able, director of the marine field station, described her as “an unsurpassed role model” for many of the young students who passed through RUMFS. He also went on to say, “While she never made any distinction about the gender of the individual she was mentoring, it was clear that she had a profound impact on women undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.”
Over her career, Stacy was senior author or co-author of 17 peer-reviewed publications, more than 20 presentations and three technical reports. In addition, she managed to complete a Masters of Science at Rutgers University despite a full time job at RUMFS and two lively children.
This special posthumous award to acknowledge Stacy for her exceptional achievements was made in addition to the 2008 Women & Wildlife Awards that honored Dr. Barbara Brummer, State Director of The Nature Conservancy and Diane Nickerson, Executive Director of the Mercer County Wildlife Center, earlier in March of this year.
At Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, we are honored to have had an opportunity to hear about and recognize a special person who contributed to wildlife science, lead others into the field and showed young women that they too could be wildlife biologists. During the awards ceremony, we heard from Lisa, her friend, Dr Able her boss and, Roland her husband and learned about her tenacity at work, her grace under pressure during her illness and the many aspects of her legacy that will continue in that wonderful building at the end of Great Bay Boulevard.
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Staff
Margaret O'Gorman
Executive Director
Michael Davenport
GIS Specialist
Maria Grace
Education and Outreach Manager
MacKenzie Hall
Private Lands Biologist
Brian Henderson
GIS Specialist
Debbi Nichols
Executive Assistant
Todd Pover
Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager
Patricia Shapella
Director of Development
Larissa Smith
Assistant Biologist
Ben Wurst
Habitat Program Manager
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