Michael Redmond

This summer I hope to continue to build the skills that will allow me to take part in and contribute to meaningful research in the future. I want to deepen my understanding of how big, open-ended questions about the functioning of our environment get answered, how to investigate the complex interactions that link cause and effect in the world around us.

With this internship I also hope to push my scientific communication skills to the next level by writing a paper on the effects of the CZU wildfires on trace metal cycling and chemistry in local streams and rivers. I want to learn how to make a clear and concise argument that is relevant and readable to people with little scientific background, but is still thorough and quantitative enough to engage established researchers and contribute something meaningful to the field.

On top of all that, I want to experience working in research full time. One of my main goals for the summer is to do some self-reflection and see what it is I really want to do after I graduate. Since academic research is a career I’m seriously considering, I feel like it’s important for me to get a taste of what that would actually be like on a day to day basis.

How will attending AGU advance your academic and career goals?

I feel like AGU is the best possible place for me to go in order to broaden my horizons in the geosciences. As a fourth year undergraduate who both wants to go to graduate school and doesn’t quite know what I want to study when I get there, AGU seems like the perfect opportunity to expose myself to a large number of people doing interesting and important work in the fields that I’m most passionate about. My short term goals generally revolve around finding an interesting, research based graduate school program, and the networking I plan on doing at AGU will be invaluable in my search for a passionate advisor. Also, one of my biggest personal challenges since I got to college has been feeling like I belong in the realm of academia, and science in general. I feel like attending a major conference like AGU, and presenting a poster that might add something constructive to the scientific community, would really make me feel like I belong in the geoscience community. Similarly, my number one long term goal is to add to the substance of humanities knowledge about the environment, and the first step in that is to learn everything I can about the way the our world’s natural systems function, and I can’t think of a better place to do that than at AGU.

What have you learned so far in your internship? (Week 3 update)

My internship experience so far has been eye opening to say the least. One of my primary goals going in was to experience what it’s like to do academic research as a day job, as opposed to something that simply complements my coursework. I feel like I’m getting a really good sense of what this type of work entails on a day to day basis, and I’ve learned so much in just a few short weeks. I taught myself how to use ArcMap/GIS in order to obtain relevant geospatial data. I’ve learned how to filter and acidify samples for trace metal analysis, and how to take the UV visibility spectra of a water sample. I learned how to process water samples in order to obtain numbers for TSS, and how to process soil samples and water filters for stable isotope analysis. Through all of this, however, I think the biggest skill I’ve developed has been my organization. I’ve learned that perhaps the most challenging thing about research is staying organized. Keeping track of dozens of soil samples, close to a hundred filters, and hundreds of parceled out water samples, all of which are processed and analyzed in different ways, has been an unexpected challenge. I feel like I’m getting a good sense of what doing a PhD is like; I have at least a dozen things to get done in the span of a few weeks, all of which are necessary and some of which have to happen at the same time. Keeping track of everything that has to get done while also processing and interpreting the data I have gotten back feels like putting a puzzle together with half the pieces facing down, and while I do have some preliminary findings, it’s really hard to put them in the proper context without the data that still has to come in. For example, I know that the trace elements more closely associated with biologic life (Al, Fe, Cu, etc..) are more strongly correlated with stream flow and dissolved organic carbon, however without knowing the origin of this carbon (natural vs pyrogenic) or accurate historical data, there’s really no way to say for sure whether or not the recent wildfires are responsible for this. As more data comes in, the context for what I have already will become more clear. In the meantime, I’m really enjoying the day to day, and I feel like both my ‘hard’ laboratory skills and my ‘soft’ research skills (organization, time management) are improving each and every day.