Scholarships

Bolyard Family Scholarship

The Bolyard Family Scholarship has no restrictions or requirements. The RMAG Foundation welcomes applications in any field of geoscience, and rewards academic excellence and scientific achievement. The scholarship may be awarded to graduate students or to a rising senior at any four-year university or college that offers a degree in geology except for students attending the Colorado School of Mines or Colorado College which have their own dedicated scholarships. This scholarship was established by the Bolyards, longtime supporters of the RMAG Foundation and the geologic community. Dudley recently passed away and will be greatly missed. He served in major leadership positions with the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists and the RMAG Foundation. He is remembered for his passionate success in all his geologic endeavors and unbridled enthusiasm for geologic events.Marion has been a longtime leader in the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists Auxiliary, an organization which provides support for technical conferences, conventions, and various social events for the geologic community.

The 2023 Bolyard Family Scholarship was awarded to:

Shayla Triantafillou, M.S. student, Geosciences, Colorado State University

Shayla’s thesis topic is “Geomorphic factors influencing magnitude of post-wildfire disturbance response.” Shayla’s work is under the direction of Dr. Ellen Wohl. She intends to investigate the factors that contribute to differing post-fire resilience, these include channel gradients and floodplain vegetation. She will describe watershed-scale characteristics using LIDAR-derived topographic parameters, various measures of burn severity, and characterizing mainstem-scale heterogeneity of streams. Pre- and post-burn topography changes will be evaluated at the reach scale. Insights from this research can be used to manage streams in ways to increase resilience to wildfire and associated disturbances.

Shayla has a B.S., Environmental Sciences and a B.A., Geography from the University of Vermont

The 2022 recipient of the Bolyard Family Scholarship was:

Nicholas Ferry, PhD candidate, University of Kansas
“Source-to-Sink Sediment Dispersal of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation, Southeastern Utah”