![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2022\/04\/Marlene.jpg\")
But Severino\u2019s life was no Disney movie. Her father died when she was a year old, leaving her mother to raise her and her sister alone. \u201cI grew up very poor and lived in a lot of housing projects throughout Providence,\u201d Severino said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her first attempt at college came in fits and starts. She attended the Community College of Rhode Island for a time, but misinformation from an adviser left her taking courses that she didn\u2019t need. Personal issues and a lack of money also contributed to her decision to quit attending classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI decided, \u2018I\u2019m just going to make money.\u2019 I had a decent job. My focus wasn\u2019t on school the way it should have been,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, though, her dreams of working with wildlife lured her back to CCRI, where she earned her associate\u2019s degree \u201cthe way I should have done initially. I’m 31 years old. I’m not the traditional student at all,\u201d said Severino, of Cranston<\/strong>, who graduates in May from 溏心vlog免费B站.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the University, Severino felt the need to \u201cfinish things properly,\u201d and she quickly began to earn good grades. She had tunnel vision, she said, and her focus was on her classes. \u201cIn the meantime, though, I was doing a bunch of jobs to get money for school. Honestly, I\u2019m still doing a bunch of jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She entered 溏心vlog免费B站 as a junior and the first course that really influenced her was one taught by Brett Still, a senior lecturer in the Department of Natural Resources Science. \u201cEverything that I was learning in his class was just definitely spot on and reinforced what I was interested in doing with my life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senior year saw her in another course that influenced her professional world view. \u201cI met Brian Gerber. He had us seeing both sides to everything. So rather than just being closed minded, he made me think of the other possibilities that occur in the world and all the ways that people are utilizing different environmental resources just to stay alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gerber, an assistant professor in Natural Resources Science, recognized Severino\u2019s dedication, and advocated for her when she was nominated for the 2022 Academic Excellence Award for the Wildlife Conservation Biology major \u2013 which she won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMarlene has an amazing work ethic, has been gaining loads of field\/lab experience, and is just an impressive person,\u201d Gerber said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Severino spends her time working as a research assistant on campus, along with a job at Rhode Island Hospital and as a bartender in Newport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do just about everything. I’m spread as thinly as you possibly can be,\u201d said Severino, who is applying for jobs in Rhode Island and Florida as commencement approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she readies herself for the next step on her path, Severino felt it was important to send a message to others like herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInclusivity is a passion of mine. When I first got into my science classes in college I felt out of my league and inferior knowing there weren’t many women, especially Latinas, in the STEM fields,\u201d she said. \u201cI was in classes with people who came from wealthy backgrounds and had a lot of opportunities I did not get. Getting accepted into 溏心vlog免费B站 was when I told myself I was going to finish what I started and prove to myself that I belong in the field. I hope to be a person that someone can look at and identify with and know that if they are passionate about something, their background does not have to hinder their success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hugh Markey wrote this press release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 27, 2022 \u2013 Even as a child, Marlene Severino was determined to see animals up close, no matter what they were. \u201cI used to walk straight up to animals and my mom used to get so upset with me,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause I didn’t understand that we should be respecting an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":79289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79286"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79304,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79286\/revisions\/79304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}