Charlotta Jornlid ’12

Hometown: Miami, Florida

There’s no relaxing for Charlotta Jornlid when summer comes around. For the past three years, she’s traveled abroad to study and work on ecological projects.

Her first experience involved a monthlong program at Oxford University, where she studied photography and bioethics, a subject she’s now considering as a major. In 2007 she traveled to Costa Rica to help protect the endangered Lora sea turtle. During nightly “turtle walks” Jornlid searched for the reptiles and monitored their nests for signs of animal scavenging; she and her group also created a hatchery to protect the nests from being washed away by the high tide.

This past summer, Jornlid spent time in New Zealand cleaning up a beach and a tussock reserve, and planting and pruning trees at a reserve for yellow-eyed penguins. “They’re considered the rarest penguins in the world, with only 4,000 alive today,” she said.