After my exam, I jumped (unfortunately) into a busy spring term of teaching a new class (Field Sampling in Fisheries and Wildlife), finishing my final two teaching courses, and advising two undergraduate research students, all while trying to apply for an EPA STAR fellowship again and analyze data for my dissertation. I have to say the best part of the term was working with the undergrads! Danielle and Katie both made my job easy! Even in my busy and frantic state, both students came up with really interesting projects on their own based around our "dead bird project" (terrible name which has apparently stuck). This project has grown from our collective curiosity about what mercury concentrations in feathers mean for songbirds. In seabirds, many researchers use feathers as a proxy for body burden of mercury, but no one has tested whether this also applies to songbirds. Working with a variety of collaborators, we have acquired specimens of songbirds where we can sample all feathers to see how feather tracts compare in mercury concentrations (something we can't do in live-caught birds, leading to the "dead bird project" moniker). Katie and Danielle both decided to work within the thrush specimens that we have acquired and determine how mercury concentrations vary between primary and body feathers. Katie and Danielle are going to continue their projects in the fall, but have summarized their data to include in guest blog posts to follow. I'm so excited to see how this will turn out! Hooray for little bursts of fun science in the middle of a long PhD.
This was a very busy winter and spring for me! I passed my comprehensive exam in March, which means that I'm now a PhD candidate. Those of you who haven't gone through it probably don't think that sounds all that fancy (I agree) and those that have been through it probably still have scary stress dreams about the whole process. I can say the preparation and exam was a completely humbling experience - realizing how much I don't know and how little my brain is capable of absorbing, even when I've been cultivating this mental muscle for so many years. All I can say with certainty is that I'm very glad it's over!
After my exam, I jumped (unfortunately) into a busy spring term of teaching a new class (Field Sampling in Fisheries and Wildlife), finishing my final two teaching courses, and advising two undergraduate research students, all while trying to apply for an EPA STAR fellowship again and analyze data for my dissertation. I have to say the best part of the term was working with the undergrads! Danielle and Katie both made my job easy! Even in my busy and frantic state, both students came up with really interesting projects on their own based around our "dead bird project" (terrible name which has apparently stuck). This project has grown from our collective curiosity about what mercury concentrations in feathers mean for songbirds. In seabirds, many researchers use feathers as a proxy for body burden of mercury, but no one has tested whether this also applies to songbirds. Working with a variety of collaborators, we have acquired specimens of songbirds where we can sample all feathers to see how feather tracts compare in mercury concentrations (something we can't do in live-caught birds, leading to the "dead bird project" moniker). Katie and Danielle both decided to work within the thrush specimens that we have acquired and determine how mercury concentrations vary between primary and body feathers. Katie and Danielle are going to continue their projects in the fall, but have summarized their data to include in guest blog posts to follow. I'm so excited to see how this will turn out! Hooray for little bursts of fun science in the middle of a long PhD.
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I don't think we all consider how much taking a few hours, days, or weeks off from work can make you feel so much better about your project, your life, and your future. Or maybe this is me? I often wonder if my love of time off means I'm in the wrong profession. I see others who seemingly work constantly and I don't really understand how they do it. I need my random afternoon hikes with the dog when it's unexpectedly nice out. I need my evenings of cooking and cleaning and quiet time. I definitely NEED my long nights at the bar, enjoying the social aspect of being a grad student and being surrounded by people that make you laugh. Without fulfilling these needs, my scientific drive starts to give out completely. This has been a little bit of a hectic term (heck, this has been a hectic 2 years), but I guess the point of this thanksgiving blog post is that I feel like I'm finally starting to be able to balance my life and work a little better. This fall, I'm finishing up my coursework and finally starting to analyze my data. I just got a big manuscript sent to press, successfully gave presentations at two national conferences, and am excited about the future directions for all of my projects. Although somewhat exhausting, both conferences made me very excited to be in the field that I'm in. Meeting with collaborators, talking to old friends, and seeing cool science happening reinforces that, though I need to be careful to not burn out in the next few years, this is the right field for me to pursuing. What's around the corner now? I'm psyched to be working with Colleen on our next manuscript - it seems like remarkably good luck to be able to work with people that you genuinely like so much. I'm going to be recruiting new undergraduate students to help with some lab projects. I'm gearing up to take my qualifying exam this winter, which means lots of studying during the dreary part of the Corvallis winter. Lots more lab work. Many more battles with R. Many manuscripts to write. But most importantly, more long walks with the dog and fun nights at the bar. the dma lives! I never thought that I would be so happy from seeing a string of seemingly nonsensical numbers displayed on a laptop screen. But these aren't nonsensical numbers... no, no. These are the numbers that a mercury analyzer shows when it is actually running properly! We have been struggling big time with our direct mercury analyzer (more like indirect and useless mercury analyzer) for almost a year now. After being sent a brand new one that also didn't work consistently, I had pretty much given up hope. Luckily it seems like the technician who came out to fix this one actually made some progress and it is slowly chugging out beautiful, beautiful lines of data... And I probably just jinxed it just by writing this. I'm getting so superstitious about this machine that I'm steps away from needing lucky underwear and doing incantations before each run. the end of summer party
By Danielle Ramsdem OSU Fisheries and Wildlife Student Intern
By Melanie Ripley OSU Fisheries and Wildlife Student Intern
By Noelle Moen OSU Fisheries and Wildlife Student Intern
Not that it's this little Yellow Warbler's fault, but our permit hasn't come through for Olympic National Park, so we are stuck in a holding pattern until the people who can sign off on it come back to the office after the holiday. We were all really excited to leave on Sunday, but hopefully we will be out of here on Monday morning like a bird being released from bander's grip (do bird banding similes work on this blog's audience?). We are headed up to Olympic to get bird samples to pair with dragonfly larvae, water and sediment samples that my lab is collecting to see differences in mercury across all parts of the food web, in all parts of the park. Olympic is a really interesting place because it gets a ton of rain from the Pacific on it's west side but the east side is in a rain shadow from the mountains. I've never been to the park yet so I'm very excited! Plus, I figure we will get to see vampires*.
In the meantime, I uploaded more photos from our adventures. Beware there are a ton of them and might only be interesting to our crew. *for those not up on tween literature, Twilight was set in Forks, Washington, which is where we will be staying.
Look at that! Welcome to the Hg Blog, a chronicle of my adventures in mercury, birds, and the Pacific Northwest. My crew and I have already gotten to see some of the amazing habitats and species that Oregon has to offer and we want to share our adventures with you! I'm two years into my PhD at Oregon State University, but starting now, I plan to keep a record of the research I'm doing, including both field and lab work.
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AuthorThis blog chronicles the sometimes wandering course of my PhD and then my life as an Environmental Studies professor at Purchase College.. Some blog entries will be guest-written by summer interns working with me. Archives
January 2018
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