What are you up to now?

Susie Irizarry
Summer Research Program '09

Mentor: Audrey Barker-Plotkin
Project: Resilience of Acer rubrum after sustaining damage in an experimental blowdown (abstract)
Hometown: Palm City, FL
College: Clemson University, class of 2011, Environmental and Natural Resources

What you miss most about the Summer Research program:
I miss seeing the friends I made that summer. I also enjoyed being able to easily access Boston on the weekends.

What you miss least about the program:
While I was very appreciative of living onsite and having a minimal commute to work in the morning, the social dynamic in the Fisher House with 25 students living in the house was too much for me to handle.

What about the program has stuck with you:
Confidence in doing physical field work and collecting accurate data. The HF summer program was my first real experience in experimental design as well. The skills I gained that summer definitely helped me progress as a student and now as a researcher.

Have you stayed in touch with other Summer students?
Yes, four of my girlfriends from that summer.

Did your Summer Research experience support or change your school/career plans?
My REU experience supported my career plans as an undergraduate. It motivated me to look for more ecological research-based internships as an undergraduate. Ultimately, I have decided to pursue a different area of research, but I am in a master's program now designing my own field study, which my time at HF contributed to.

What are you up to now?
I am currently a masters student in the University of Idaho's Conservation Social Science Department. I am researching wilderness day users at Yosemite National Park for my thesis research, and I am supported by a grant from Yosemite National Park to do this data collection. I currently live in Idaho during the school year and Yosemite National Park during the field season.

What are you up to now?

Alex W. Ireland
Summer Research Program '06

Mentor: David Foster
Project: Post-Settlement Forest Dynamics of a Central New England Basin Examined by Pollen, Tree Ring, and Historically Documented Records (abstract)
Hometown: Indiana, PA
College: Clarion University

What you miss most about the Summer Research program:
A life of scientific immersion with no other responsibilities.

What you miss least about the program:
Communal living quarters, which was fine at the time, but does not seem appealing now.

What about the program has stuck with you:
I have continued along the same research path.

Have you stayed in touch with other Summer students?
Yes. My wife (Alison Grantham) and I met as REUs in 2006. Another 2006 REU alum (Meagan Woltz) was in our wedding.

Did your Summer Research experience support or change your school/career plans?
Yes. My REU experience led me to graduate school.

What are you up to now?
In May, I earned my Ph.D. in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department at Lehigh University. I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate and a new father. I do not know what comes next...

What are you up to now?

Stephanie Day
Summer Research Program '06

Mentors: Aaron Ellison
Project: Historical and Contemporary Research into Sarracenia Moth Associates (abstract)
Hometown: Memphis, TN
College and major: Howard University, class of 2007, Biology

What you miss most about the Summer Research program:
Ability to do research and camaraderie.

What you miss least about the program:
Mosquitoes.

What about the program has stuck with you:
The things I learned throughout the research process.

What are you up to now?
I am a government contractor in cultural resource management; I'm trying to get into the environmental compliance field.

What are you up to now?

Kate Farley
Summer Research Program '08

Mentors: Primrose Boynton / Anne Pringle
Project: Dispersal of Yeasts in the Sarracenia purpurea metacommunity (abstract)
Hometown: Rye, NY
College and major: Harvard University, class of 2010, Environmental Science and Public Policy

What you miss most about the Summer Research program:
I miss living in such a beautiful natural environment and getting to learn about all the cool projects other REU students were working on.

What you miss least about the program:
Mosquitoes. Also, since I didn't have a car of my own, limited transportation.

What about the program has stuck with you:
A lot of the methods I learned about have been very useful, even after I graduated from college.

Did your Summer Research experience support or change your school/career plans?
I continued my summer work at school, but ended up going in a very different direction with my career plans.

What are you up to now?
I am a research assistant at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a think tank based in Washington, DC. I focus on industrial and agricultural energy policy. I'm hoping to go to grad school for a MPP in another year or two.

What are you up to now?

David Franklin
Summer Research Program '03

Mentor: David Orwig
Project: The effects of the hemlock woolly adelgid on throughfall N concentrations
Hometown: West Caldwell, NJ
College and major: Lehigh University, class of 2004, Earth and Environmental Science

What you miss most about the Summer Research program:
Being surrounded by so many talented, unique, and motivated individuals.

What you miss least about the program:
Giant Western Massachusetts mosquitoes.

What about the program has stuck with you:
The summer program was responsible for setting me down the path that would eventually lead me to a masters degree and teaching positions at local colleges and universities.

Have you stayed in touch with other Summer students?
Yes, it has been great having a network of students that I was at HF with. I have met up with a few, especially on long road trips across the country.

Did your Summer Research experience support or change your school/career plans?
My summer experience supported and motivated me in my academic career.

What are you up to now?
I am currently bouncing between teaching environmental science at the local community college and ecology the local university, depending on their needs in different semesters. I am also managing a small brewery.

What are you up to now?

Bennet Leon
Summer Research Program '05

Mentors: Audrey Barker-Plotkin
Project: Evolution of pit and mound microtopography 15 years after a simulated hurricane (abstract)
Hometown: Sudbury, MA
College and major: Bates College, class of 2007, Geology

What you miss most about the Summer Research program:
Being around enthusiastic students with similar interests and spending all day in the hemlock forest or simulated hurricane experiment.

What you miss least about the program:
Having Lyme disease--check for ticks!

What about the program has stuck with you:
A better understanding of our dynamic landscape and renewable forest resource.

Have you stayed in touch with other Summer students?
Yes.

Did your Summer Research experience support or change your school/career plans?
My experience at HF added a unique element to my geology major at Bates and gave me a different perspective on my work with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife after college. When at Harvard Forest, I did not expect that I would end up studying forest ecology and applied forestry as a graduate student.

What are you up to now?
I am a Masters of Forestry Candidate at the University of Maine School of Forest Resources. I am looking forward to a career as a consulting forester, and possibly seeking a policy role some day concerning the forest resources of New England, the nation, and the world.

What are you up to now?

Dunbar Carpenter
Summer Research Program '07 and '09

Mentors: Kristina Stinson, David Foster, Jonathan Thompson
Project: Landscape-scale Ecological Drivers of Alliaria Petiolata Invasion in Western Massachusetts  (2007); Biomass Energy and a Changing Forest Landscape: Modeling the Effects of Intensified Harvesting of Massachusetts' Forests for Biomass Energy Production (2009)

Hometown: Portland, OR
College and major: Harvard College, class of 2008, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

What you miss most about the Summer program:
Being at Harvard Forest surrounded by great peers and scientists. Working closely with mentors. The exposure to a wide range of ecological research.

What you miss least about the program:
Petersham, while charming, can be a bit isolating.

What about the Summer program has stuck with you:
A lot - learning about the scientific process, the tedious and hard work necessary for scientific learning and discovery, many of this skills involved in field work and analyzing data, and scientific collaborations.

Have you stayed in touch with other Summer Program students?
Yes.

Did your Summer Research Program experience support or change your school/career plans?
My first summer in the program opened my eyes to the world of environmental science and ecological research. The following year I got a bit academically burnt out, but when I came back for another summer I had a great experience and it confirmed to me that I wanted to continue in ecology.

What are you up to now?
This summer I'm working as a field assistant at the Teakettle Ecosystem Experiment in the Sierras in California. In fall 2011 I'm starting a masters in forest ecology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eventually I would like to be doing applied research and education in forest landscape ecology.