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Breanne Bessette '26 Wins Ryan Environmental Prize for Excellence in Research
VWU benefactors Prudence and Louis Ryan support third annual symposium
University News | May 2, 2025
At the third annual Louis and Prudence Ryan Environmental Research Symposium held May 1, Batten Honors College student Breanne Bissette was awarded the Ryan Environmental Prize for Excellence in Research. Bessette, a junior from Salt Lake City, Utah, is double majoring in Hispanic studies and political science with a prelaw track, while working on a certificate for international organzations and diplomacy. A campus ambassador for the Office of Enrollment, she spent a semester studying away in Spain. Bessette is leading a new campus pre-law society and is a member of the Political Science Honors Society. She has attended Model United Nations, presented at regional and national conferences, and is a VWU Global Citizen. Bessette plans to apply to law school in the fall and pursue a legal career with a focus on international law.
During the symposium, students from the Batten Honors College presented research on innovative approaches to addressing issues of the environment and sustainability. The event featured a poster session showcasing the work of all the participating students, as well as presentations from the three finalists: Bessette, who presented “More than Sex Ed: Empowering Women Through Comprehensive Sexual Health”; Jalen Major who presented “Wasting Away: Optimizing Food Waste Management with Bacterial Composting”; and Marco Molino, who presented “Redefining the Lawn: Implementation of Eco Lawns On Virginia Wesleyan’s Campus.”
Jalen Major, who hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia, will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology with a minor in chemistry. He studied away in Tokyo, Japan, and presented his research in Virginia and Tennessee. Major is president of TriBeta, the Biology Honor Society, vice president for Sigma Zeta, the Math and Science Honor Society, and is a VWU Sustainability Leader. After graduation, he is headed to a post-baccalaureate research program at the University of Houston.
Marco Molino, a senior who claims Alexandria, Virginia and Torino, Italy, as his hometowns, will graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology with a focus in ecology and a minor in Earth and Environmental Science. He pursued his love of the outdoors through a study away course in Alaska and has conducted research around the country. Molino completed his major thesis research on songbird communities in the White Mountain National Forest. Last summer, he accepted a position with James Madison University's East Africa research and learning course and has treasured the past three years of experience in the AREC entomology lab.
Dean of the Batten Honors College Travis Malone provided information about the research process and introduced each finalist. "The students in the HON 480 Senior Seminar course were given a simple task: develop a research project, paper, and poster that addresses one of the United Nation's 17 goals for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which also serve as a guide to VWU's own Environmental Guiding Principles. The simple elegance of the SDGs are the ways that the goals address human problems on a global and local scale to provide hope for a more sustainable and healthy future."
Once the papers were completed, a campus panel—using blind review—adjudicated the papers to recognize the three finalists whose recorded presentations were sent to three community judges.
Bessette was selected as the winner by the panel of three community judges: Chris Moore, Virginia Executive Director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; Lacy Shirey, Executive Director of the Elizabeth River Project; and Theresa Augustin, Vice President of Education at Norfolk Botanical Garden. As winner of the top award, Bessette received the top cash prize and a donation in her name to the nonprofit environmental organization of her choosing.
Attendees to the event had the opportunity to place their votes for one of the research projects. The Audience Choice Award went to Harrison Smith for his research on "The Effects of Overhead Shades on Coral Bleaching of Agaricia tenuifolia, Porites astreiodes, and Porites divaaricota."
Before the awards were presented, VWU President Dr. Scott D. Miller reminded students of the guidance he offered when they were accepted into the Batten Honors College. “I told them that their education and experiences in the Batten Honors College at Virginia Wesleyan would prepare them to solve problems creatively, think globally, make connections, and work towards a better world.”
Dr. Miller explained that the evening's symposium and prize helped realize the vision of philanthropist Jane Batten for an honors college with a global mission. "We are so grateful that the Ryans believed in Mrs. Batten's vision," he said, "and generously created an endowment to fund this symposium and the Ryan Prize."
Dr. Miller was referring to longtime Virginia Wesleyan friends and benefactors Prudence and Louis Ryan. Along with serving on the VWU Board of Trustees since 2007, Louis Ryan has served since 2006 on the board of directors of the Elizabeth River Project, an important partner of VWU and the Batten Honors College. In his opening remarks presented via video, Ryan explained why he and his wife, who share the philanthropic passions of education and the environment, chose to create a $150,000 endowment to support the research symposium and fund its prizes.
“What a good education does,” Ryan said, “is teach you how to think. And what I mean is learning to think critically, creatively and holistically. Doing that is really necessary to guarantee the survival and thriving of humanity.” Environmental research, he said, is the perfect place to both learn those skills and to practice them.
“This symposium creates a natural opportunity for students—and faculty, for that matter—to engage in this kind of thinking and to hopefully do meaningful research that will add to our knowledge of the issues we face with our environment and how we should go about dealing with those issues.”