In its second year of participation in the Morris K. Udall Scholarship competition, Cornell University has produced three undergraduate winners of the prestigious awards for the 1999-2000 academic year.

The three winners from Cornell are: Heather T. Clark, a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; William K. Cornwell, also a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Peter Velez, a sophomore in the College of Engineering.

Last year Cornell garnered more Udall awards than any other institution in the country -- four -- and this year only one institution, Kansas State University, had more student winners than did Cornell.

This year's Udall Scholarships were awarded to 75 students from 42 states. Established by Congress in 1992 to honor Congressman Morris K. Udall and his legacy of public service, the scholarship program provides opportunities for outstanding U.S. sophomore and junior students with excellent academic records and demonstrated interest in, and potential for, careers in the fields of environmental public policy, health care and tribal public policy. The scholarship supports one year of undergraduate study, covering expenses for tuition, fees, books and room and board, up to $5,000.

Heather T. Clark, of Canton, N.Y., a general studies major with a focus in natural resources, ecology and community design, hopes to assist urban residents and make neighborhoods environmentally sound places to work and live. She already has tested some of her eco-ideas on the Cornell and Ithaca communities.

Clark led a 1998 pilot study of energy-efficient shower heads in Cornell campus residences. Now all dormitories on campus are being retrofitted with new shower heads. Then, as founder and president of Cornell Students for Composting, Clark spearheaded a campaign to develop community compost facilities and interconnected greenhouses in Ithaca. The greenhouses are warmed by excess heat from the composting reaction, while finished compost is blended into soil for year-round community gardens under glass.

A graduate of Hugh C. Williams High School in Canton, Clark expressed her gratitude to the Udall Foundation, saying: "This scholarship confirms to me that people support improving the environment. With some effort and thought, we all can have less impact on the environment while enjoying all that nature has to offer."

William Cornwell, of San Anselmo, Calif., is a natural resources major and a research assistant in natural resources. He also won a Udall Scholarship in 1998 as a sophomore, and he applied again this year -- a second year of the scholarship not being granted automatically. Cornwell's current focus is wetland ecology; his senior thesis is on the role of mycorrhizal fungi in maintaining plant biodiversity in wetlands.

His extracurricular activities include membership in the Cornell Greens; Earthrise, an environmental activism group; and Ecopartners, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable international development. He is a member of Cornell's Ecology House steering committee and has worked on the Dilmun Hill Student Farm.

Cornwell's work with Ecopartners led to a summer as a volunteer in the Dominican Republic. In the spring of 1996, he was a volunteer with the Costa Rican National Park Service and while there also worked as a naturalist at the Monteverde Butterfly Garden and taught English at an elementary school. In the summer of 1998, he worked as a field biologist in the Fremont National Forest in Paisley, Ore. He is spending the current semester in Venezuela studying tropical stream ecology.

On the dean's list in each of his semesters, Cornwell, a graduate of University High School in San Francisco, is a Cornell Tradition fellow, a National Merit Scholarship finalist and a California Regents' Scholar.

His career goal is to serve as a scientific adviser to policy-makers. "It is a great honor to win the Udall Scholarship again," he said. "It would not have been possible without the myriad of environmental opportunities offered by Cornell."

He added: "It is a meaningful step that Congress has begun to recognize the importance of environmental public policy through the establishment and continued funding of this scholarship. This action acknowledges the fact the environmental problems in the coming years will need to be addressed with innovative and strong solutions and that finding people to come up with these solutions is a important goal for our nation."

Peter K. Velez, of Kenner, La., is an environmental engineering major and an administrative assistant at the Cornell Center for Materials Research. His work experiences have included employment as a field intern for Texaco on a West Delta offshore drilling platform in the summer of 1998, testing the quality of water being discharged from the platform, and working at the

company's offshore production operations office in 1997. A graduate of Jesuit High School in New Orleans, he also has served as a volunteer at the East Jefferson General Rehab Center in Matairie, La., a physical therapy hospital, and he has been a lab assistant in the Occupational Toxicology Laboratories in Kenner.

At Cornell, Velez has been honored with the McMullen's Dean Book Award from the College of Engineering, and for the past two years, he has been on the college's dean's list. He also has been a Shell Company Scholarship recipient and a Texaco Inroads to the Stars Scholar, and in 1997, he was a National Hispanic Scholar Finalist.

"The Udall Scholarship serves as both an honor and a way of supporting my interest in environmental policy," Velez said.

Following graduation, he plans to earn a master's degree in environmental engineering.

"I would like to work at, and possibly found, an environmental consulting firm," he said of his career plans. "Specifically, I am interested in controlling the pollution caused by our current sources of energy and would like to work with the petroleum industry in controlling the damage it causes to the environment and ensure that its future developments have a minimal impact on the environment."

Students at Cornell applying for the Udall Scholarship must be endorsed by the university to participate in the national competition. This year's endorsement committee consisted of Professor William Crepet, chair of the L.H. Bailey Hortorium; Professor James Lassoie, chair of the Department of Natural Resources; Associate Professor Jane Mt. Pleasant, director of the American Indian Program; and Senior Lecturer William Rosen, of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management.