The Foley Graduate Fellowship provides graduate students the ability to live, educate, and learn with Walking Mountains as their home. This year, we are excited to introduce the 2024-2026 Foley Graduate Fellowship cohort who will begin their Master of Arts in Science Education in conjunction with their new role as a Foley Graduate Fellow at Walking Mountains on May 20th. Check out the passion and enthusiasm for lifelong learning that this cohort will bring to Walking Mountains the next two years and three months. If you would like to learn even more about the 2026 Foley Graduate Fellowship Cohort you can find their bios on the Walking Mountains website.
Sarah Noyes (she/her) is passionate about inspiring learning, stewardship, and connection with the natural world – and is thrilled to be returning to Walking Mountains Science Center as a Foley Graduate Fellow! In her free time Sarah enjoys skiing, swimming, hiking, biking, painting, being on boats and making soup.
Sara Lynch (she/her) is thrilled to be a part of the Walking Mountains team and mission. She is very excited to continue to hone in on her teaching skills/style and to become a leader in the field. In her free time, Sara enjoys concerts, reading, hiking, backpacking, trying new things, snowboarding, and hanging out with friends.
GG (she/her) chose Walking Mountains Science Center because she is ready to explore a new place, while sharing her passion for the outdoors and having fun. Outside of work GG can be found running and biking on the trails, painting birds, and playing with her dog Lima Bean.
Rylee Bundee (She/Her) loves making connections in her community and challenges herself to be joyfully present in everything she does. She is incredibly excited to meet new people and grow as a human and as an environmental educator at Walking Mountains! When she’s not working, Rylee enjoys road tripping to new places, fly fishing, macro photography, scrapbooking, cold water swims, and snuggling up to a good movie.
Over the last five years of overlapping graduate cohorts, fellows have worked hard to develop a mentorship program. This program enables fellows that have just completed their first year to mentor an incoming cohort member. The mentorship program has been a significant bonus to the Graduate Fellowship and our 2023-2025 team is excited to mentor this upcoming cohort. This is what they have to say about the transition from mentee to mentor.
~ “The past 11 months have flown by and it feels like I just got here myself! That being said, I think mentoring the new cohort is the next step I need to take to continue growing as an educator. I'm excited to guide them down the crazy, exciting - yet incredibly rewarding - path of being a Fellow.”
~ “I am looking forward to giving my time and energy to an incoming fellow the same way my mentor supported me.”
~ “I'm so excited to have new voices on our team and to watch them grow and settle into being educators on our team! I'm also excited to form new relationships!”
Regardless of their different paths to get here, their passions, and hobbies, the 2024-2026 Foley Graduate Fellowship Cohort is ready to start their new adventure and we couldn’t be more excited to have them. While it may seem too soon to say, in only one year's time, this group of educators will be getting ready to welcome the next cohort and continue the mentorship program that continues to evolve each year, passing along teaching tricks, hidden gems of the valley, and support the transition to becoming educators at Walking Mountains.
Written by Ryan Walton. Ryan Walton is a Walking Mountains Foley Graduate Fellow and is looking forward to the path ahead as they prepare for graduation in July, 2024.