Picture a windswept farm in the desert of Namibia, where birds open every morning with cacophanous screaming and squeaking geckos close out each day with a sunset chorus (yes, some geckos do make sounds!). Over the last ten months, three students and I, under the direction of Dr. Noah Gordon, have analyzed over a thousand hours of overnight recordings spread over three years in order to understand the habits of these little lizards. Our work is focused on figuring out how environmental conditions- in particular, the season and light conditions- impact calling and chorusing, or the simultaneous calling of multiple geckos, and understanding how these patterns may be different between closely-related species. All of this has required a lot of organizational skills and attention to detail, and my skills in these area can be almost entirely attributed to work I have done for the Sternberg Camps. From managing data collection and input as a Headwaters Intern to organizing gear, my experiences at the camps prepared me to be an effective researcher who will be able to publish as an undergraduate.

Let's travel back to 440 million years ago.... Imagine you are in Ohio, an Ohio that is covered by ocean! During this time, ocean life included large squid-like creatures, early fish and plants, and invertebrates like brachiopods. An invasion event occurred that wiped out much of this ocean life. For the past 4 years I have been working with Dr. Max Christie on a research project investigating how this invasion event affected brachiopods so that we can better understand how species react to invasion events. To do this we digitally collected brachiopod specimens and created 3D models so that we could analyze how their shapes changed through space and time. Exciting preliminary results have shown that some brachiopod genuses become more similar to each other in shape after the invasion event. I have been able to present this research at various departmental research symposiums, as well as at the Geological Society of America National Conference. My project with Dr. Christie is important and exciting because using 3D modeling technology to collect and analyze specimens will help advance the paleontology field. Being able to use such technologies to answer large scale ecological questions is an important milestone.