What starts here preserves the biodiversity of Texas. With her world-changing gifts of land and financial resources, Lorraine “Casey” Stengl has given students in the College of Natural Sciences what they need to conduct high-level research at The University of Texas at Austin.

“Field stations played a huge role in my decision to come to UT,” says doctoral student Colin Morrison, a recipient of a Stengl-Wyer fellowship to study the diversity of life and organisms in their natural environments. “They’re a place where people can exchange ideas and learn from their colleagues about why what we do matters in the real world.”

Stengl Lost Pines Biological Station is part of UT’s growing network of field stations — living laboratories that provide the hands-on research base needed to understand our critical resource systems and how to sustain them.

This video is part of World-Changing Gifts, a series highlighting the impact of transformational investments made during UT’s What Starts Here fundraising campaign.