Michael Boardman is wildlife artist working in field sketching and watercolor, based in Maine with strong ties to Arctic Alaska. His Eckelberry funded project is an illustrated naturalist's notebook of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska's wilderness. Boardman's book will tell the stories of various creatures, plants and the intertwining web of how each depends on the other, and how they all depend on a habitat that is rapidly transforming due to climate change. His Eckelberry grant will allow for a field sketching residency in situ at the Toolik Field Station, run by the Institute of Arctic Biology, as part of development of content for the book.

Lilian Tendilla Nunez is a Mexican biologist and freelance nature illustrator whose illustration work in her country spans across the fields of natural history education to ornithology to food biodiversity. Her grant award supported a 5-painting project depicting the different ecosystem landscapes and fauna of the Biosphere Reserve of Sierra Gorda in the Queretaro region of Mexico, the work destined for exhibition at the Museo Histórico de la Sierra Gorda.

Annamaria Savarino Drago is a Mexican artist and biologist whose work focuses on the birdlife (and sometimes the people studying the birdlife) of Mexico. Annamaria used her grant award to fund travel, supplies and field work for a comprehensive illustrated poster for the endemic bird species of central Mexico (where most endemic species are concentrated). The poster will be distributed among the local monitoring networks for these endemics, fostering awareness on the ground and a visual documentation of the rich fauna, and the images contributed to Mexican Commission for the Use and Knowledge of Biodiversity (CONABIO) open access, multimedia library.

Rosalie Haizlett is a watercolor illustrator, educator and author from West Virginia, United States. The Eckelberry grant (along with another grant from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History) funded 6 months of travel, research and field work across the length of the Appalachian mountains, the subject of her book Tiny Worlds: An Artist’s Journey Through the Appalachian Mountains (Mountaineers Books, 2024). In her own words, Rosalie uses her illustration “to honor and celebrate the places and creatures that often go unnoticed. I want to remind viewers of the amazing intricacy of our planet in an attempt to encourage environmental stewardship”

Isaiah Scott is the youngest grant recipient to date (age 18 when awarded his fellowship) and his goal is to research and illustrate a cultural and field guide to the historic Gullah Geechee Culture Heritage Corridor (along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Northern Florida). “I have a desire to research the birds of these areas and how they connect to the people. How birds were affected by plantations and slave cultivation, how birds may have played a role in slave agriculture, what kind of birds did slaves see every day on the plantations, and how birds inspired them and are significant to their culture. I will specifically research the Gullah Geechee people whose roots can be traced back to Barbados,” he says. The grant will fund travel expenses for field illustration, potentially taking him to Barbados as part of the book research. He has since traveled regionally from his base in Georgia to research and field sketch for this project.

Claire Giordano is an environmental artist and writer documenting the impacts of climate change on glaciers and other environments. Giordano’s goal is to inspire stewardship by connecting people emotionally to these endangered landscapes. With her award, she meant to travel to remote glaciers to observe and document in art and in writing the impacts of climate change. Her travel was initially delayed by the onset of the Covid-29 pandemic, but she engaged her robust Instagram following through virtual painting sessions, live streaming camera views of the mountain environment she would have been traversing in person with her pallet and watercolor paper. She has since resumed painting in the field and participated in several artist-in-residence programs, using her fellowship grant.

Julio Gallardo, PhD. is an accomplished avian scientist, artist and former birding guide. He combines his scientific knowledge (he is associate faculty at Oregon State University and a biology instructor at Linn Benton Community College) with his artistic expression with the ambition of producing a bilingual field guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, as author/illustrator. Gallardo planned to use his award to cover research trips to two university collections and a field trip to Puerto Rico, and travelled to Los Angeles for research of skin and egg specimens at the Museum of Natural History of LA county and the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. His project is on-going, as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 temporarily shut down his ability to travel and collaborate with his co-author in Puerto Rico.