Meet Outstanding Transfer Student Tam Tran

Tam Tran, a December 2025 graduate with a major in wildlife and minor in aquatic sciences, has been named FNR’s Outstanding Transfer Student.

“Being selected for FNR Outstanding Student means so many things to me,” the South Bend, Indiana, native said. “It means that the work I have put in towards my classes, extracurriculars, and career has been recognized by my colleagues. To me, it means that by following my passion to leave a positive impact on the environment, I am doing something right, and that above all else means the most to me.

“As someone who transferred into this department, and compared myself to my peers, I felt inferior. I feared I wasn’t doing enough in the department, and that I was behind in experience, especially as a nontraditional student. I feared that due to my background, I was going to fail. Being named an outstanding student of the year validates that I, a first-generation, non-traditional, Vietnamese American woman, who is in a field dominated by white cis men, must be doing something right. I feel fortunate and privileged enough to have the ability to attend a university, and to study a major that I want, not because it will bring me financial riches, but because it will enrich my life. I feel honored to represent my cohort, and to inspire other people using my passion for conserving natural resources.”

Tam was involved in the student chapter of The Wildlife Society, the American Fisheries Society student chapter and the Vietnamese Student Association during her time at Purdue. She acted as the treasurer for TWS, the student council representative for AFS and as a marketing intern for the VSA.

In addition, Tam gained valuable certifications and hands-on work experience while in FNR. She earned the Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow Hunting for Conservation program certification as well as the animal use and biosafety qualification, wildlife research, working with the IACUC and working with amphibians in research settings certifications.

She gained experience as a volunteer in live trapping of mammals and turtles, avian point count surveys, bird banding, small mammal necropsy, powder tracking, acoustic monitoring, radio telemetry. She also utilized skills in invasive species removal, fish sampling, electrofishing, dip netting and seining, prescribed burning and disease sampling.

After transferring from Saint Mary’s College in January 2022, Tam got involved with several FNR research projects. In the summer of 2024, she began working as a hellbender husbandry technician at the Purdue Aquaculture Research Lab. In that role, she helped care for eastern hellbender salamanders in all life stages. She assisted with construction, repairs and cleaning of aquatic systems, monitored the health of hellbenders by measuring and weighing as well as medicating. She also assisted with the releases of hellbenders back into the wild.

Tam also worked on a turkey vulture project in the Zollner lab, counting oil droplets in turkey vulture eyes to analyze vision and light detection in the fall of 2024.

Beginning in January 2025, Tam joined the FNR Flight Crew as a flight crew technician in the Zollner lab, conducting nocturnal infrared and RGB video surveys of white-tailed deer, coyote and turkey to estimate population density and to study epizootic hemorrhagic disease in white-tailed deer.

In the summer of 2025, Tam acted as a wildlife and habitat management intern at the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area in Minnesota. In that role, Tam worked with various departments within the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, conducting prairie management, forest management, wetland management, population management and facility management.

Tam assisted in monitoring water levels of the various areas around the WMA, which are managed for wild rice, waterfowl and game species. She removed invasive species like garlic mustard and spotted knapweed, conducted wildlife surveys (goose banding and wood duck banding) and assisted in disease surveillance (chronic wasting disease testing in deer and swabbing turkey heads for diseases like avian pox, avian influenza, etc.).

Tam also had opportunities to work with different departments within the Minnesota DNR throughout her internship. With the Fisheries Department, she assisted in fish surveys that included gill netting, seining, electrofishing and net trapping. With the Parks and Trails Department, she assisted in nature carts, plant surveys and even a mussel survey. Tam also helped manage hunter walking trails to assist the wildlife staff, which was preparing for hunting season.

Since graduation, Tam has been assisting with white-throated sparrow research and the bird banding lab under Dr. Patrick Ruhl. In the future, she intends to find a career working with birds.