Here’s a taste of the research that our grad students are conducting this summer:
Katrina van Raay“This summer I’m studying really tiny things (viruses, toxins produced by bacteria) kill slightly bigger tiny things (bacteria), how the really tiny things can join up to form super tiny killers, and how the slightly bigger tiny things can evade the really tiny things through evolution.”
Will King“I’m playing plumber, electrician, and chef to an escargatoire of predatory snails. I want to find out if snails’ appetites for barnacles change with warmer temperatures. (what a fun word)”
Meera Lee Sethi“This summer I am surveying insect herbivory in Mount Rainier’s subalpine meadows; I spend my days staring at thousands of leaves and deciding how chewed up they are, collecting bugs, and occasionally being attacked by chipmunks.”
Gideon Dunster“In September I will be going to Argentina for several weeks to collect data from the Toba community, a group of indigenous Argentinians, half of whom do not have access to electricity. The goal is to collect follow up data to assess the affect electrical lighting has on your body’s biological clock and how those changes relate to sleep. We will be deep in the rural section of the country, far away from most modern technology. Very few, if any, people will speak English. I currently do not know Spanish…”
Cooper French“I’m cataloging 100 year old museum specimens, getting them ready for the New Burke Museum. I’m also extracting DNA and analyzing feather color. All with the help of my trusty minions undergraduate research team.”
Molly Roberts“I’m spending time on Whidbey Island on top of shellfish farm rafts maintaining my mussel attachment experiment, and while there watching the fish feed, seals fish, and sailboats race.”
Lyda Harris“This summer I’ll be stretching my muscles at coercing (my other) mussels to eat not-food items in the hope they get seriously stressed out but don’t die too early.”
