Charlotte native Katie Barton participated in the Oceans 17 MarineQuest program while in high school, staying on campus for three weeks, which imprinted UNCW on her.
“UNCW felt like home the moment I stepped foot on campus,” she said. “UNCW was the best place for me when I first toured, and that’s UNCW for me now as I prepare to graduate.”
After the double major (biology and environmental science with a concentration in environmental conservation) graduates this month, she will start a six-month position with Disney as a conservation education presenter at Animal Kingdom.
“As a Wilderness Explorer Troop Leader, I’ll be educating guests from all over the world about animals and conservation - but in a fun, Disney way,” she said.
Barton has always wanted a career centered around animals, so a biology major was her first choice. Participation in the First Year Research Experience program made her “fall in love with wildlife field work” and paired her with Dr. Rachael Urbanek, professor and chair of the UNCW Department of Environmental Sciences, who convinced her to pursue an EVS degree as well.
“My biology degree gives me a great background in the theory, while my EVS degree gives me a lot of practice in the application,” Barton said.
Her first project as a FYRE student involved setting up game cameras to monitor mesocarnivore presence throughout New Hanover County. She continued working with Urbanek as an undergraduate assistant on a joint project with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission examining the wildlife use of Highway 64 underpasses, for which she was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research and Creativity grant.
She also worked on a DIS project that became her Honors thesis, “Indirect Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Wildlife Activity on an Urban Campus.”
Barton has received numerous grants and scholarships, including the EVS Taggart Applied Research Scholarship, the Don Eury Scholarship from the Davis Island Fishing Foundation, and a North Carolina Wildlife Federation Scholarship.
She served as a research intern at the North Carolina Zoo and a conservation intern at the Bald Head Island Conservancy. Barton studied abroad in Australia with The School for Field Studies, an environmental science-based study abroad organization. Her program “Rainforest to Reef” allowed her and 23 other students to live in the middle of the old-growth rainforests of Far North Queensland for 14 weeks.
“I shared a cabin with five others and woke up to the sound of kookaburras cackling and fell asleep to the sound of chorusing frogs,” she said. “It’s far from a traditional study abroad program, but it was the greatest experience of my life.”
While on campus, Barton worked as a tour guide, an academic peer mentor at the University Learning Center, and a teaching assistant for the EVS class “Wildlife Field Methods.”
“All three positions have given me good experience being on the educator side of things, which will surely help me disseminate scientific knowledge to the wide and diverse audiences of Disney. I truly enjoy educating others and the mental stimulation a university setting provides, which is probably one of the reasons my college experience has resonated with me more than I could have ever imagined,” she said.
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