Tatiana Espinoza
Master’s of Natural Resources Stewardship

Last week, Tatiana Espinoza headed north from New Mexico to receive her Master’s of Natural Resources Stewardship (MNRS) degree at CSU. The chance to receive her degree in person is just one of the many opportunities she has taken advantage of in her academic and professional careers.

Espinoza moved to the U.S. from Ecuador at 17 years old and soon found herself in a college setting. She discovered her calling in Environmental Science after taking her first ever environmental class that first semester. She soon applied for a summer internship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).  The internship turned into a year, which has since turned into five-years of continuous employment and professional development.

Tatiana Espinoza, at right, takes measurements in the field. (Photo courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory)

She conducts environmental compliance for projects from many scientific fields at this multidisciplinary research institution that encourages student employees to develop their education. When Espinoza took on her own wetland project colleagues, some of whom are also CSU alumni, inspired her to look into advanced degree options at their alma mater. She soon found the MNRS program.

“This program was a perfect fit,” Espinoza said. “It reminded me why I began studying this field in the first place. I wanted to help the environment somehow and be part of the change that was needed.”

During the program, she connected the underlying purpose for measurements she was taking with the ecological processes she documented. Her colleagues and professors offered generous support when some of these broader concepts were still new to Espinoza.

“I didn’t take ecology as an undergraduate, but I was surrounded by professional biologists and ecologists, and their support was great,” she said. “Jayne Jonas-Bratten at CSU also answered many questions that helped me with my wetland project at the lab.”

Tatiana Espinoza shakes hands with CSU President Tony Frank at the Fall 2017 Graduate Commencement ceremony.

Espinoza embraced another type of collaborative learning through discussion forums with students in the online program. It was eye-opening for her to learn about the environmental work happening all over the country and of all the many opportunities available to apply natural resources management principles. This platform gave her the confidence to look at science more analytically and communicate it with others.

“I’ve become more talkative and share more of my knowledge with colleagues now,” she said. “I make more critical analyses of research in natural resources and of how we use various methods to collect and analyze data.”

Espinoza looks forward to permanent opportunities at LANL or she may take advantage of new ones in Washington state where the rest of her family lives.

A large number of master’s students in Forest and Rangeland Stewardship are part of the department’s MNRS program that is offered online and on-campus. In Fall 2017, there were 105 online students and 27 on campus students in the program. 

Congratulations to our other MNRS graduates: Sarah Bangert, Jeremy Block, Ashleigh Boice, Hannah Brown, Rebekah Cranor, Trisha DiPaola, Emily Kijowski and Lena Schnell!

On-campus MNRS graduate Hannah Brown shakes hands with Warner College of Natural Resources Dean John Hayes.