Gift to fund UCA student research

Lizard study 1st project to benefit from $300,000 donation

CONWAY — Southwestern Energy Co. has given the University of Central Arkansas $300,000 to finance student research, and the first award will support a student’s studies of the prairie lizard.

The gift, announced Monday at the university’s new Conway Corporation for Sciences building, will support studies by undergraduate and graduate students in environmental science, geography and physics.

“I am deeply honored to be here to announce the creation of the Southwestern Energy Endowed Fund for Student Research as a fund within the University of Central Arkansas Foundation,” George Sheffer, the company’s vice president of Operations-Fayetteville Shale, said in a UCA news release.

The endowment will allow Southwestern Energy to pursue its “advocacy of science, technology, engineering and math education to secondary education in order to expand students’ opportunities and employability, whatever careers they pursue,” Sheffer said.

The first fellowship recipient is graduate student Christopher Robinson, a Texas native. He came to UCA to obtain a master’s degree and to study the prairie lizard with Matt Gifford, an assistant biology professor with expertise in reptiles and amphibians.

Robinson’s $1,500 grant as a Southwestern Energy/ Steven L. Mueller Research Fellow will allow him to quantify his research, UCA said.

Mueller is a former chief executive officer and president of Southwestern Energy. He left the company in May.

Robinson said he is honored that the award selection committee chose him and that its members “thought my work was worth funding and that my study animal, the prairie lizard, is something that was [worth] consideration for conservation and trying to understand how the species interacts with their environment and how temperature change can affect the species.”

The committee of UCA professors will recommend an annual award recipient who will receive at least $1,500.

UCA President Tom Courtway thanked Southwestern Energy for “this most generous gift” and said it reflects “the value of student research in the fields of environment science, physics and geography.” He said the gift also will help UCA attract “the best and brightest students in these disciplines.”

Southwestern Energy now employs 28 UCA graduates.