{"id":630954,"date":"2026-05-08T13:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630954\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:15:10","slug":"zavarce-shines-as-leader-researcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630954\/","title":{"rendered":"Zavarce shines as leader, researcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zavarce is a member of UNG’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholars (STEMS) Program<\/a> funded by the National Science Foundation. STEMS provides scholarship funds up to $10,000 per student per academic year for students in STEM fields, excluding health care. Zavarce is also a member of the UNG Honors Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She was selected in spring 2025 as UNG’s first recipient of the StemNetX Fellowship<\/a>, a program she took part in from May through December of that year. STEMNetX is a STEM initiative supported by\u00a0CCL-US.ORG<\/a>, a nonprofit organization with a vision of empowering future STEM leaders through innovative experiential learning. The opportunity included a one-week paid bootcamp at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, in May 2025 with training in data analysis, coding and software tools.<\/p>\n

For the fellowship, Zavarce conducted research on the deadly summer 2025 flooding in Texas. She has since presented the research at the Georgia Resilience Conference, a STEMS Program research conference at UNG, and the Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers<\/a> (SEDAAG) annual meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, in fall 2025. She secured a Center for Undergraduate and Creative Activities<\/a> travel grant for the SEDAAG meeting. Zavarce insists that she thrives most under pressure, noting that her first 4.0 GPA of college came during that same semester.<\/p>\n

Zavarce has served as president of Students for Environmental Awareness and was a member of the Geospatial Alliance student club. She was also a tour guide for Undergraduate Admissions<\/a> and served as a peer mentor for other STEM students.<\/p>\n

Dr. Amber Ignatius<\/a>, associate professor of geography and geospatial science, has enjoyed watching Zavarce’s growth while at UNG.<\/p>\n

“I have seen her skillset evolve tremendously. She has gained momentum each and every year,” Ignatius said. “It’s inspiring to other students.”<\/p>\n

Ignatius said Zavarce makes sure to take advantage of her opportunities, both for herself and so she can share those experiences with others.<\/p>\n

“Albany is ambitious. In addition to her research abilities, she excels in soft skills: project leadership, communicating and presenting. She is brave and takes on challenges even when she’s nervous,” Ignatius said. “Today, more than ever, soft skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking are crucial for our students to succeed at UNG and beyond.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zavarce is a member of UNG’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholars (STEMS) Program funded by the National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-630954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}