Ewel Postdoc Fellowship: Investing in Earth’s Future

Posted: September 11, 2024

With Postdoctoral Appreciation Week 2024 at the University of Florida running September 14-20, the UF Office of Postdoctoral Affairs is gratefully mindful of the many stakeholders — postdoc and otherwise — that make UF’s postdoctoral enterprise not only possible, but a powerhouse.

Among those movers and shakers are Drs. John J. and Katherine C. Ewel, who substantially boosted postdoc support at UF with the creation of the Drs. John J. and Katherine C. Ewel Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in Ecology and Environmental Science in the Tropics and Subtropics.

The Ewels (pictured here — John left and Katherine right, with UF postdoc biologist Cindy Cosset, center) — husband-and-wife donors behind this fellowship — are no strangers to the Gator Nation. Both are UF alumni and retired faculty members. John graduated from UF with a master’s degree in botany and taught ecology here for 23 years. Katherine graduated with a UF doctorate in zoology in 1970 and worked on campus in wetlands ecology and management for almost 23 years.

Fueled by the same love of scientific inquiry, discovery, and impact that drove their education and careers at UF, the Ewels’ fellowship aims to support enterprising postdocs whose curiosity and passion are bent on exploring their very own ideas at the University of Florida.

The Ewels see their fellowship as an investment in ensuring a robust future of science and scientists — something on which the health of Earth’s ecosystems, and the populations that depend on them, will very much need for solutions to present-day problems and perils.

To learn more about the Ewel Fellowship, the donors behind it, and the UF postdocs whose research it’s impacting, click these links:

• A Case for Optimism
• John & Katherine Ewel Postdoctoral Fellowship
• UF Office of Postdoctoral Affairs
• UF Advancement