Ellen Christina Steffensen Cannon Scholars, 2026–2027
Established in 1989 by Hugh Cannon to honor his mother, the Ellen Christina Steffensen Cannon Scholarship supports outstanding University of Utah students in Education and Humanities, enabling them to pursue excellence free from the burden of outside employment. Ellen Cannon was one of 22 women in the U’s class of 1895, and a mother who ensured all nine of her children earned university degrees. This year’s undergraduate recipients are Cecily Ross and Abby Williamson, both majoring in International Studies.
Cecily holding a banner at a demonstration with the Sierra Club.
Cecily Ross: Finding Her Way Home
Cecily Ross grew up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, shaped by mountains and rivers and an appetite for the outdoors that continues to expand. A rising junior at the U, she is double majoring in International Studies and Environmental and Sustainability Studies—a combination that reflects both where she comes from and where she’s headed.
Her academic path has been anything but conventional. After one semester at UNC Chapel Hill, she joined Seamester, a sail-based academic program, for three months at sea—sailing a 112-foot schooner from Cape Town, South Africa, to the Caribbean, earning credits in marine biology, oceanography, and nautical science along the way. “You can never have privacy or alone time on a sailboat,” she says. “It taught me a lot of patience and compassion for people who you might be super different from.” She then transferred to the U, drawn back west by the landscape she’d missed. “Being outdoors is my biggest coping mechanism,” she says.
At the U, Ross has been equally active off campus. She guides whitewater rafting trips for Adrift Adventures on the Colorado River out of Moab, and she spent last semester as a legislative intern for the Sierra Club, lobbying and testifying at State Capitol committee hearings. The experience, she says, transformed her sense of civic agency. “I felt a lot of political apathy before. But realizing that my state legislators would see me and hear what I had to say—that was very inspiring.” The fate of the Great Salt Lake has become a particular passion.
Her international dimension is personal, too: her mother is originally from Zambia, and Ross grew up in a family that prioritized travel. This summer she’ll sail from New York to Nova Scotia as a Pan Explore fellow, producing a podcast to document the voyage. Looking ahead, she hopes to work in environmental policymaking and use her International Studies degree to work globally. “I hope to become fluent in Spanish and be able to travel and use my expertise across the globe,” she says. The scholarship, she adds, will allow her to pursue unpaid internships that would otherwise be out of reach. “It’s very helpful to be able to focus on my studies and pursue opportunities that maybe wouldn’t get paid otherwise.”
Abby sitting on floor with therapy dog from CTHS.
Abby Williamson: Always in Motion
Abby Williamson doesn’t have a hometown in the conventional sense. Raised in a military family, she grew up across Montana, Colorado, and Germany—always moving, always adapting. It’s an upbringing that shaped both who she is and what she studies. “I feel generally split between cultures and places,” she says. “This is part of what drew me to International Studies and Geography, and to migration research more specifically.”
Now a graduating senior, Williamson is completing a double major in International Studies (BA) and Geography (BS), with a minor in Political Science and certificates in GIS, Quantitative Analysis, and International Relations. Her path into migration studies began at Montana State University, where a human geography course taught by Beth Nelson—who would become a mentor—opened a door she walked through without hesitation. Nelson then invited her to a special topics course on refugees and forced migration. “After a few weeks,” Williamson says, “I knew that I was meant to go into this field.”
Her commitment has moved well beyond the classroom. Last summer she spent ten weeks in Halle, Germany, teaching English and German to refugees at The Excellence Center, where she studied Arabic under Muaz Alabaid—a Syrian refugee who had navigated an arduous journey to Germany in 2015, integrated, earned citizenship, and become a teacher. “Although he has faced adversity that those of us with the privilege of living in the United States cannot even imagine, he has overcome it while maintaining his free spirit and sense of humor,” she says. “He reminded me that helping others means nothing if I don’t also appreciate the life I am lucky to get to live.”
This summer, Williamson will research climate migration monitoring with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Hanoi, Vietnam, work she’ll continue at the U this fall us. ing GIS techniques. Her focus is a gap she finds both troubling and urgent: “climate refugees” have no legal standing in international law, leaving people displaced by natural disasters without formal rights or protections. After graduation, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in global development or migration studies. She is investigating programs in the UK, Denmark, and the Czech Republic and ultimately hopes to work for the UN or a related international body in migration and refugee policy. “That’s what I’m here for,” she says simply.