I was first attracted to SFS's study abroad program because of its experiential teaching style, interesting and integrative curriculum focused on field and community work, and the opportunity to further explore my interests in the ecology of the New World Tropics.
At The SFS Center for Sustainable Development Studies in Costa Rica, I learned many things about tropical biology, sustainability, natural resource management, Spanish language, Costa Rican culture, and progress and life in the developing world. My fieldwork put many of the theoretical concepts that I had been studying in the classroom into a real-world context.
When I observed Professor Edgardo Arevalo call into the rainforest and I heard a bird call back to him, I knew that I wanted to achieve that same mastery of knowledge about a place. And, for the first time, I felt I had seen a type of job I could envision for myself for the rest of my life. I wanted to be an ecologist.
I discussed interning at SFS with Center Director Gerardo Avalos before leaving campus when I was a student. I was interested in continuing to work specifically with this team of researchers and educators because I admired the way that they addressed problems in an interdisciplinary and integrative manner. I knew that there was a lot more that I could learn.
As an intern, I was involved with the day-to-day logistics of running the program. I worked with the site manager, student affairs manager, program assistant, and center support staff to coordinate activities and trips for our students. I also coordinated several community outreach projects that students participated in including English lessons for community members, stream cleanups, and stream ecology labs for schoolchildren in Atenas.
Eventually, I became more involved in research projects and took on a more academic focus. I began independent study of tropical streams and the aquatic insects that inhabit them. I worked with Dr. Avalos to sample these insects and add to an existing long-term data set on the aquatic insects of two streams in Braulio Carrillo National Park. We also sampled other streams on the Caribbean Side of Costa Rica.
I was always excited to work with SFS students on research in the field. Specifically, I enjoyed teaching a group of students to identify aquatic insects to order and family levels. I think the students enjoyed sampling the lush streams of the Caribbean Lowlands and learning about stream ecology. It was gratifying to see some students really take an interest in the topic which reinforced my aspirations to teach at the university level.
My experiences at SFS have certainly helped me to gain perspective and focus on my professional goals, and they empowered me with a desirable skill set for graduate study of ecology in the tropics. I will be starting my Ph.D. in ecology at Colorado State University this fall, co-advised by Dr. W. Chris Funk and Dr. Boris C. Kondratieff who are both faculty of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. I will be looking at the systematics of aquatic insects of streams in the Colorado Rockies and the Ecuadorian Andes using both genetic techniques and analysis of morphology. This work is part of the EVOTRAC Project (Evolutionary and Ecological Variability in Organismal Trait Response to Altitude and Climate) funded by the National Science Foundation’s Dimensions of Biodiversity Program.
Overall, through my relationships with Center staff and friends that I made throughout my journey, I really feel that I experienced Costa Rica in a way that few other outsiders have, and for that I am very thankful.
