Three Maui students earn conservation scholarships from Friends of Haleakalā

Three students with roots on Maui—a Maui High graduate researching plant-based fire suppressants, a Seabury Hall senior focused on native plant restoration and a college student who found her calling working with the Maui Invasive Species Committee—have been selected as the 2026–2027 recipients of the Friends of Haleakalā National Park’s annual memorial scholarship.

The Don Reeser, Mary Evanson and Dr. Fern Duvall Memorial Scholarship awards $2,000 each to students pursuing fields related to ecology or conservation of Hawaiʻi ecosystems.

Dominic Guiwa, a Maui High graduate heading to Santa Monica College to study Environmental Engineering, earned the scholarship based on research that took first place in the Grand Award category at the International Science and Engineering Fair in February. His project explored whether compounds derived from native Hawaiian plants — including Colubrina asiatica, Xylosma hawaiensis and Zingiber zerumbet — could serve as environmentally compatible alternatives to conventional firefighting foams, many of which contain “forever chemicals” that persist in soil and water.

“My findings showed that certain native plant extracts demonstrated promising foam formation and resistance to re-ignition,” Guiwa said, “suggesting potential for further development.”

He hopes to return to Maui and apply environmental engineering to challenges including environmental degradation and the impacts of climate change.

Christian Pelletier, a Seabury Hall senior who co-led the school’s Environmental Alliance, spent more than a year studying how post-sugarcane soil conditions affect the growth of the native ‘a’ali’i plant. He presented his findings at the 2026 Maui County Regional Engineering and Science Fair, where his project won first place in the senior plant sciences division and second place overall in the senior division. It also earned recognition from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with its “Taking the Pulse of the Planet Award.”

Pelletier is enrolled at Willamette University to major in Environmental Science, with plans to pursue environmental law afterward. He said his goal is to ensure that scientific research isn’t lost in translation but instead shapes policy.

“I am dedicated to returning to Maui to apply my knowledge specifically toward environmental policy-making and enforcement,” he said, “to ensure that the scientific findings of researchers are codified into laws that protect our fragile island home.”

The third recipient, Serene Gunnison, took a less conventional path to conservation. After stints as a café manager, surfboard saleswoman, social media manager and magazine writer, she found her direction when she took a job managing social media for the Maui Invasive Species Committee.

“The more I learned about invasive species and conservation in Hawaiʻi, the more I fell in love with it,” she said.

That curiosity eventually drew her to the history of her own neighborhood. Gunnison grew up in Kokomo — a name she learned derives from Koakomo, meaning the “entry to the koa forests” — and found that the hills and gulches she knew as a child, now thick with eucalyptus and pine, were once dense with koa, ‘ōhi’a, ‘iliahi, māmaki and maile.

The discovery launched her Koakomo Project, an effort to provide free native trees to residents in the Kokomo and Kauhikoa areas to help restore the original forest cover. She is starting by propagating hardy species including ʻaʻaliʻi, ʻūlei and māmaki.

Gunnison is on track to earn an Associate’s Degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College in 2028 and plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Science or Botany.

More information about the Friends of Haleakalā National Park and its scholarship program is available at www.fhnp.org.