2005 Young Alumni Award

Judy Logback has traveled a long way from Kansas to Quito and into the rainforest of Ecuador, running most of the way, a lot of it barefoot. A cum laude environmental biology and Spanish graduate of the class of 1995, she left Beloit confirmed in the belief that each of our actions has social, environmental, and economic impact on other parts of the world. She has returned to Beloit often to refresh that message and to act as a global conscience for all of us. As the keynote speaker at the Beloit Girls and Women in Science program, she has imbued young girls with an understanding of their responsibility to conserve biodiversity and the people who are part of it. As a convincing marketer, she has sold the crafts of the people in her Rainforest Kallari Collective and Jatun Sacha Foundation in Pearsons Hall and around the world and, in doing so, has had a hand in preserving the ecosystem of the rainforest and the traditions of the people who live there. Through internships and visits to classes, she has inspired new generations of students at Beloit and elsewhere to have confidence in the beliefs and in their ability to change others’ behavior. And she has persevered and set standards for class agents everywhere in her work on behalf of the Beloit Fund, communicating successfully as she does in a region that has very few mailboxes. On this the tenth anniversary of her graduation, she returns a champion of the rainforest, winner of numerous awards including the Bay and Paul Foundations Leadership Award for Promoting and Protecting Biodiversity, and as the recipient of the year’s Beloit College Alumni Association Young Alumni Award.