Described by his sister as “a man of action,” Isaac Nehring ’26 has been a champion for rural issues at Stanford, from organizing a panel of rural speakers to working in rodent patrol for the O’Donohue Family Education Farm. On April 18, Nehring received the 2025 Truman Scholarship. 

The Truman Scholarship is a $30,000 graduate fellowship awarded by the Harry S. Truman Foundation to undergraduate students demonstrating leadership, academic excellence and a commitment to public service. 

Nehring, majoring in American Studies, is driven to answer questions regarding public lands, legislature policy and its intersections with his home state Montana. Nehring plans to study civil and environmental engineering for his coterminal degree and attend graduate school elsewhere with the Truman Scholarship, before pursuing a career in conservation advocacy.

Nehring’s passion for rural issues is exhibited in the discourse he fosters. Luke Terra, resident fellow of Nehring’s freshman dorm Otero — the university’s public service theme house — described Nehring as “wired from the beginning to want to create ways for students to connect and engage on topics that really didn’t get a lot of attention.” 

Within Nehring’s first two months at Stanford, he drafted and submitted a grant proposal to the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE) to launch the first annual rural panel with the Stanford Rural Engagement Network, also known as Rural Club, which he has helped organize every year since then, according to Terra.

The latest panel was held this Thursday, featuring economic revitalization and cultural preservation in small-town America.

“I’ve worked with a lot of students, but never someone who, very immediately upon arriving at Stanford, has a clear sense of what’s missing in our community conversations. And more than that, [who] has the kind of wherewithal to generate resources and organize an event and bring students together,” Terra said. 

Nehring will conduct research with the Bill Lane Center to investigate how Montana is conceptualizing change, a research question that he hopes to refine through interviews in rural communities in Montana and develop as his senior thesis topic, he told The Daily.

“There [are] a lot of communities and demographics in Montana that are isolated, specifically rural communities. And there’s actually quite a bit of data that I want to use, but I also want to hear people’s stories,” Nehring said.

Nehring traces his interests in conservation and policy back to his roots in Montana.

Growing up in Helena with his two younger siblings, Annika Nehring ’28 and Eli Nehring, a big part of Nehring’s childhood was hiking the trail by his mother’s front doorstep, camping, floating on river in a raft and skiing at a local hill. 

His foray into politics began in eighth grade. “Our state really loves guns, and I grew up in a household that owns a lot of guns,” he said. “I learned early on how critical compromise is [and] what the particular challenges are in a red state, in a small state and just any Rocky Mountain libertarian-minded state.

Nehring enjoys learning in a “hands-on” capacity and has been involved in many immersive programs at Stanford that have deepened his learning. One of them is his Sophomore College (SoCo) class CEE 17SC: River and Region: The Columbia River and the Shaping of the Pacific Northwest, which included a trip around the Pacific Northwest, with Donald J. McLachlan professor emeritus of history David Kennedy and associate professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering David Freyberg. 

After his own SoCo experience, Nehring continued to lead a SoCo as a course assistant the summer before his junior year with the Bill Lane Center: POLISCI 29SC: Coastal Resilience: Problems and Solutions to Extreme Weather Challenges on the West Coast.

Nehring also spent sophomore winter in Washington D.C. through Stanford in Washington and junior fall abroad in Australia through the Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP).

“D.C. opened my eyes a lot and weirdly made me more confident,” Nehring said, especially in getting to know policymakers “as real people.” In Washington D.C., Nehring worked under Jon Tester, former U.S. senator from Montana and former president of the Montana Senate. Nehring also met U.S. Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker ’91 MA ’92, who gave him a hug on the Senate subway upon sharing he was from Stanford, Nehring said. 

Erik Bradley ’25 MS ’25, Nehring’s roommate from Stanford in Washington, described him as “laser-focused on world issues” and “really lov[ing] his state.”

“He loves his state’s public lands and will spend a good amount of time talking about repairing laws, just because he feels deeply in his bones it’s super important,” he said.

When Nehring is on campus, he enjoys volunteering at the O’Donohue farm. 

“It’s so beautiful,” Nehring said. “I’m trying to find more hours to work there and or just hang out.” He shared his enjoyment putting in T-posts and listening to his go-to podcast, “The Session.”

Jessie Bough ‘27, also a Montana resident and involved in rural club, said that Isaac was one of the only students from Montana who “really welcomed me.”

“He is also a super passionate and strong leader. He’s been really huge in transforming the club into something that now a ton of people know about and really love,” Bough said.

Anna Rose Robinson ’26, another close friend of Nehring’s, said “[Isaac] loves to take conversations outside of the classroom, bringing them home with the people he cares about, then bringing other people in as well.”

Outside of rural issues, Nehring has also weaved his love for the Educational Farm into Otero community events. For the last two occasions of the dorm’s end-of-year celebrations, Nehring was the pizza chef, operating the farm’s outdoor pizza kitchen “pumping out 50 pizzas for us at the event, which was just a really kind service that he gave to all of us,” Terra said.

Reflecting on his Stanford career, Nehring said he has become more open-minded to solutions to issues from electoral politics to conservation as well as growing in empathy and ability to accept failure.

“One of the things I’ve gotten a lot better at is also just being totally okay with receiving a no,” Nehring said. “I’ve been pretty happy and personally successful at Stanford in just putting my name out there and genuinely failing so many times, from my acapella audition to rejections from serious applications.”

“The Truman is one thing I have gotten, but it takes a million things to get to that and not win all of them,” he said. “I think people should always put themselves out more and use the resources more.”

Annika Nehring similarly noted her brother’s guidance, encouragement and ambition. 

“Growing up, he was always the one coming up with crazy ideas, his mind was always running on a higher gear than the rest of us. I was always the pessimist, but somehow his projects always would work,” she said. “He just proved me and the world wrong every time, and he’s always hustling.”

A previous version of this article had an incorrect caption and also claimed that the Truman Scholarship would fund Nehring’s summer research project with the Bill Lane Center. The Daily regrets these errors.