Jules Vastine ’03 Named Chesapeake Bay's 2024 Watershed Champion for PA
Jules Vastine '03, the longtime director of ALLARM, works with community partners to assess the health of the Yellow Breaches Creek. Photo by Dan Loh.
Honor comes as ALLARM's director concludes nearly 20-year run with Dickinson's community science center
After being the director of Dickinson’s Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) for nearly two decades, Jules Vastine ’03 has been named the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay's 2024 Watershed Champion for Pennsylvania, an honor culminating an impactful tenure.
“The award is a nice punctuation point to my ALLARM experience,” says Vastine, who leaves Dickinson this summer to become the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first agencywide participatory science coordinator. “It means a lot to be seen by my and ALLARM’s collaborators and have our approach in the field be celebrated.”
The award is given annually to an individual who has made a long-lasting impact on the restoration and protection of the Chesapeake Bay, someone who has—through dedication, innovation and initiative—advanced environmental stewardship in the Chesapeake watershed.
“Your commitment to cleaner water and equitable environmental outcomes, and our longstanding work with you across many different programs and projects, make you deserving of this award,” said Liz Chudoba, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s water-quality monitoring initiative director, in the award notice.
Through ALLARM, Vastine has worked with more than 150 Dickinson students, providing a space for them to build their professional and environmental skillsets and receive continual mentoring—while also bringing ALLARM, its mission and its reputation to the regional and national levels and raising more than $4 million to enhance and expand the organization's reach.
“Dickinson was pivotal in building my skillsets to make an effective, positive impact in community spaces and the environment,” says Vastine. “Being able to be the ALLARM director these past 17 years, I have continued to learn and build resources that can be leveraged at the national level. I love my work at ALLARM and I am heartbroken to leave, but I know I will maintain these connections, experiences, and I strive to become one of ALLARM’s super volunteers.”
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Published July 8, 2024