Grossman Scholar Spotlight: Michaela Perez

My name is Michaela Perez...

...And I've lived on the Front Range my whole life. I grew up witnessing these mountains, rivers, and open spaces. Over the years, I've watched them change. Lower snowpack, dry conditions. More wildfires. Species I would always see in certain places that I don't anymore, springs and streams dry. The pressures from people moving to Colorado, water stress, and habitat loss; these changes have made me deeply invested in doing and learning all I am able to be in support of our habitat.

My path to university wasn't a straight one. I spent years doing tangible work in my community, caring for many plants, animals, people, and recently, my father through serious illness. Those experiences taught me that real care takes patience through showing up even when it's hard and the outcome is beyond me. My decision to return to school after a fourteen-year break came through a remarkable animal named Llucca.

She was my mom's best friend's dog, a German shepherd from Arizona, who turned out to be part Mexican gray wolf. I had the privilege of knowing her during the 23 years she lived. Through her, I observed the utter nobility and intelligence of wolves as social animals and her intuitive communication with other animals and people on the land. She also taught my dog Chaya and the other dogs how to open doors, which was annoying but amazing to witness. Llucca led me to learn about the challenges that Mexican gray wolves face. By 1973, they were almost completely extirpated, with only seven individuals left on Earth. Those seven were captured from the wild, and the genetic diversity was luckily enough to support successful breeding programs, allowing Mexican gray wolves to be released back into parts of their historical habitat in the 1990s. Hearing about the binational recovery efforts changed everything for me. It showed me that people may still be able to correct course and that we are a species capable of positively interacting with our habitats.

I acknowledge that many current conservation challenges in the Americas stem from European colonization, and that long-term ecological and cultural healing will require addressing the consequences of Indigenous land displacement, ecosystem disruptions, apex predator eradication, and habitat loss. Peer-reviewed research shows Indigenous-managed lands are far more biodiverse and ecologically intact than those managed in other ways, making it clear to me where ecological leadership needs to center. I am pursuing scientific training, but I want my future work to be guided by Indigenous leaders and knowledge keepers and informed by relationships with these landscapes rather than by extraction. This perspective was shaped in part by learning from Diné scholar Lyla June, who describes how Native peoples have actively cultivated landscapes for thousands of years, positioning humans as a keystone species capable of increasing biodiversity and ecosystem health.

I started at Front Range Community College and took hands-on natural resources classes from seasoned teachers there. Now at CU Boulder, I am pursuing a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I am especially interested in how reintroducing engineer and apex predator species can repair ecosystems. I currently volunteer building beaver dam analog (BDA) structures across the Front Range. I became inspired by beaver-dam analog building during an FRCC field trip. We visited MacGregor Ranch and saw a BDA that beavers had actually moved into, added onto, and were raising a family in! Other experiences include assisting with post-wildfire fish monitoring with the CSU Fisheries Society and volunteering at Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation. My undergraduate research has involved monitoring bison interactions with montane vegetation and mammal communities, and analyzing the coyote microbiome for insights into human-coyote coexistence.

As my Fish and Wildlife Management teacher often says, animal management is largely about managing people. My varied professional background, from organic gardening and nonprofit work to leading teams in horticulture and working as a caregiver, has honed that ability, and now getting my degree can bring it all together. Being a recipient of the VOC Grossman scholarship greatly boosts my morale and supports me through the last stretch of undergrad. With this education, I can turn my lived experience, curiosity, and resilience into a lifelong contribution to conservation. I am incredibly grateful.

Michaela is one of six students to receive VOC's Grossman Scholarship for the 2026-27 school year. VOC awards a total of $45,000 in scholarships annually to eligible Colorado residents who have demonstrated a commitment to caring for our environment's natural resources and intend to pursue post-secondary education through an accredited environmental, natural resource, climate, or outdoor industry-related education program in Colorado.