Amil Brown chose Iowa after being impressed by the wealth of academic opportunities in environmental sciences. On campus, she found a community of scholars, social clubs, and her career interest.
Story: Richard C. Lewis
Photography: Tim Schoon
Videography: David Scrivner
Published: Dec. 10, 2025
As a newcomer to the Hawkeye State, Amil Brown was not familiar with the University of Iowa when she was considering where she’d go to college. Brown, who had just moved to Davenport, Iowa, learned about the university by perusing its offerings in environmental science, the subject that interested her the most.
She saw that Iowa offered a wealth of classes about the environment, including experiential learning opportunities such as restoration field work at Ashton Prairie and surveying biodiversity through BioBlitz, which brings together scientists, students, and nature enthusiasts to explore and document Iowa’s prairie ecosystems.
“As I was searching for colleges, I loved the look of Iowa’s campus,” Brown says. “And I also like the degree variation that was here. Iowa was offering a lot more than other places in my area. I thought, ‘This looks good. Let me do this one.’”
Four years later and on the cusp of graduating, Brown says Iowa fulfilled all she was seeking in higher education. She found a community of scholars. She made lifelong friendships. She found a home away from home at the university’s cultural centers, notably the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center and the Afro-American Cultural Center. And she found her career path in ecology and entomology.
“I understand now what it means to have pride in where you came from, have pride in where you got your education,” Brown says. “Even if I go somewhere else, I know where I came from. I know where I got my degree.”
Amil Brown
Hometown: Davenport, Iowa (most recently)
Degree: BS in environmental bioscience
What’s next: Aiming to go to graduate school and pursue a doctorate in ecology, perhaps with a specialization in insect morphology.
How did Iowa match your interests?
There is a living laboratory near Coralville called the Ashton Prairie that a lot of students go to for BioBlitz and prairie restoration classes. I loved those opportunities. I don't think any other college I've seen had a living laboratory that was actively trying to restore a lost part of our American ecosystem, and where we as students could actively participate in surveying this ecosystem. I thought it was amazing.
What are some of your favorite early memories of being at Iowa?
I'd say one favorite early memory was trying to join my first club. I was trying to go into a running club because I did a little bit of running in elementary and middle school. So, I thought, sure, let me try that. And even though I was nowhere on the level of the people in the club, they were so supportive of me. They’d slow down and talk with me as I’m trying to catch my breath. It was super nice.
I was nervous for my first few classes. I'd never done this before. I'm out here (at Iowa) by myself. But the teachers, the staff, the students who were in my classes, they were really nice and understanding. I really liked it.
I managed to find a lot of people who were into the same things that I was. I was so happy for that because I thought a lot of my interests were kind of niche. It was good to find my own circle of people.
What is one of the environmental sciences classes that you remember well?
I want to say it was an intro to environmental science class I took my sophomore year. For one of the labs, we had to go out in the field for a BioBlitz, where we go out and catalog all the organisms we could find in a prairie ecosystem. I found a lot of insects. I found a lot of plants, a lot of trees.
It felt like a career checkmate in my head. I was like, “Oh, yep, I'm doing this, and I like this, and this is what I want to do.” If I were to spend the rest of my life doing something, it'd be related to the environment.
What are your post-graduation plans?
I definitely want to go into the ecology field. I aim to go to graduate school and pursue a doctorate in ecology with maybe a specialization in insect morphology.
Did Iowa help you determine your career path?
Yes, definitely. I was working in (biology professor) Andrew Forbes' lab under one of the postdoctoral researchers, Louis Nastasi. And one day in the lab, as I was in the middle of some work, Louis brings up that he's looking for graduate students to work with him in his lab as a new faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And I was like, “Oh shoot, is he asking me the question?” Because, yeah, I really want to take on something like that. It would be a great transition from earning my undergraduate degree and going into something bigger.
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