I began graduate school with one clear goal in mind. I wanted to learn more about microbiology. Rather than focusing on individual organisms, my undergraduate experience (specifically, my Immunology Professor Dr. FUNK) helped shift my interest to trying to understand the community dynamics that exist between important individuals and other members of the population. These other individuals may be overlooked but could still contribute significantly to processes.

What makes this type of interest difficult is that the tools available make it difficult to look at anything beyond just individual organisms. Some tools were slowly becoming available to get closer to making these types of observations possible.

I imagined that my interest would take me more towards a clinical application to the questions I was interested in answering. Although, it makes sense now, at the time I never imagined that my work would center more around the impact of microbial communities on the environment.

My program had many other laboratories whose focus was primarily questions centered around freshwater aquatic biology. So it made sense that my lab’s primary focus was centered around microbes from freshwater ecosystems.

The thing that I loved the most about my field was that I had a good balance between fieldwork and laboratory experiments. It was so much work but I was able to work on and contribute to a number of different projects I really cared about. Things that could make a difference for the environment.

IT WAS OCTOBER

Two years after starting my program I was flying to NY to meet with a scientist who was going to help me set up the main project for my thesis.

I came to the Cary Institute

The goal was for me to get everything ready for a field experiment that we were going to set up in Baltimore. In a couple of different streams that were part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. This was a pivot from my original project, which was supposed to focus primarily on field-applied biosolids. However, the prospect of studying the impact of humans on vital ecosystem processes was exciting.

I stayed at an empty cabin

I was meant for summer interns. I had a couple of long days to get everything together. The second goal was to work with my collaborators to make sure we figured out how to make different parts of our plan viable. Along with some backup contingencies just in case not everything went according to plan.
By the end of the week, we got together with a couple of other scientists from the institute to make the long drive from Millbrook NY to Baltimore Maryland.

The goal of my project was to better understand the impact of human activity (measured by a list of different chemicals) on freshwater microbial communities and their activity.

I woke up the following morning after arriving in Baltimore. It was my 25th birthday and I was standing in shallow water. I was here doing exactly what I felt like I should be doing.

This was at a time of my life when I did not question where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to be doing. Years later I would lose myself again and forget this feeling.

This was my life

For a couple of years.

No day was the same as another. I had one priority. Research. Designing and contributing to projects to answer interesting questions. I focused on conducting experiments, I worked to get results and I analyzed them. The goal was to better understand microbial processes related to nutrient cycling in the environment.

A mix of working in the field and days spent in the laboratory. Collaborating with a mix of researchers from completely different fields. Training and working with undergrads. I was challenged to develop methods that the lab had not run before.

Not having to worry about anything except the scientific process.