Meet FNR Outstanding Sophomore Lydia Pultorak

Sophomore wildlife major Lydia Pultorak has been selected as FNR’s Outstanding Sophomore for 2024-25.

The Brazil, Indiana, native was honored as FNR’s Outstanding Freshman in 2024. Since then, she has added a minor in aquatic sciences and added to her already impressive resume of undergraduate research and field experience.

“It means a lot to have been selected for this award two years in a row,” Pultorak said. “To me, this shows that I am accomplishing my goal of becoming a leader in conservation.”

Dr. Elizabeth Flaherty agrees that Lydia has already established herself as a leader in conservation.

“Even though this is only her second year here at Purdue, Lydia has become extremely active on campus,” Flaherty said. “She is the current treasurer for the Student Chapter of Environmental Education (SCEE) and is an active member of the Purdue Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society. She also is involved in wildlife research projects in the department and currently works in two research labs on campus. She has already contributed a significant amount of time and effort to our department while maintaining a notable GPA and receiving a long list of academic honors. Lydia is truly dedicated to making the most of her time here in the College of Agriculture.”

Lydia jumped into FNR with both feet as a freshman, joining Dr. Barny Dunning’s bird banding lab, the Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding Station and the Purdue Bird Collision Prevention Project. With the bird banding lab, she sets up mist nets, extracts birds from the nets, measure individual specimen and records data for use in the US Fish and Wildlife Service national bird banding database.

After training her freshman year, Pultorak has learned to extract owls from nets, measure individual specimens, record data and band owls. This year, she is one of two project leaders for the Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding Station.

Lydia began her involvement in the Purdue Bird Collision Prevention Project in September 2023 and became the project leader in fall 2024. In that role, she has coordinated volunteers and created bird-window collision monitoring survey routes. She also monitors buildings for deceased birds and records data for the iNaturalist project. She also is in communication with the architecture department to implement bird-safe window practices on campus.

In the spring of 2024, Pultorak worked in the Purdue FNR Specimen Lab. In her role, she learned to prepare study skins of small bird and mammal species and organized specimens donated to the lab.

Lydia joined Dr. Esteban Fernandez-Juricic’s Avian Ecology Lab in January 2024. Since joining the lab, she has analyzed over 700 photos of birds in flight using ImageJ software for a project regarding bird vision and collision with manmade structures.

In the summer of 2024, Lydia gained hands-on field experience as a bird atlas field technician for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. In that role, she conducted bird surveys by kayak, by foot and by truck on both public and private land, documenting bird behavior such as nest building territoriality and adults feeding young birds. She also searched for nests and young of all present bird species to document them for the bird atlas, which aims to find proof of where bird species are breeding in a particular region.

In November, Lydia expanded her undergraduate research portfolio to include the role of lab assistant in the Geoinformatics, Ecosystem Management and Soil Sustainability Lab. She has collected soil core samples for calculating bulk density, weighed soil samples, recorded moisture content, grinded samples for chemical analysis and cleaned and organized lab equipment.

Academically, Pultorak is a College of Agriculture Dean’s Scholar, a member of the Dean’s list and is a member of John Martinson Honors College. Lydia also participated in the Natural History study abroad trip to Costa Rica during spring break 2024.

Outside of the classroom, Lydia has completed the Project WET and Project WILD training programs with the Student Chapter of Environmental Education, learning how to deliver educational programs in aquatic science and wildlife curriculums to K-12 students. She has put that knowledge to use educating the public at outreach events for high school and middle school students. She taught a lesson on bird adaptations to fifth and sixth graders, spoke with children of various ages about aquatic invertebrates at the Step N2 Stem event and assisted with leading scout merit badges at Purdue’s Day of Scouting event. Outside of Purdue, she led a two-hour hike for beginner and intermediate birders for the Indiana Audubon Society.

With Purdue’s chapter of The Wildlife Society, Lydia attended the North Central Section Student Conclave, which Purdue hosted in 2024. She also has participated in a field trip to Cook County, Illinois, where she observed and assisted with trapping, examining and collecting samples from white-tailed deer, coyotes and raptors.

This summer, Lydia will be attending the FNR Summer Practicum and then completing an internship with the Terre Haute Parks Department.