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My five-year-old self would think I’m currently living the dream -  looking at and sorting insects. Back then, I was collecting ants in a cardboard box. Now, I’m looking at them through a microscope in a research lab. My undergraduate honors

Having always had a passion for both mountainous regions and the little things in life, my interest in tundra flora may have been foreseeable. I would spend weekends and summers botanizing along trails in the alpine. If I wasn’t sure about a plant’s

The more we look, the more we see. This is what attracted me to EBIO in the first place – wheresoever we study we find more species, more interactions, more consequences. Every class I've taken at CU has reinforced the magnitude of this phenomenon;

I’ve always loved animals, and I’m fascinated by birds in particular. So, when the opportunity to research birds arose during my junior year, unsurprisingly I took the offer. I’ve been working with barn swallows ever since. Barn swallows build their

Calcium oxalate crystals, otherwise known as “raphides” are microscopic needle-like structures within the tissues of a variety of plants. It is concluded that these crystals help protect the plant from herbivory. In large quantities, raphides can

For a first-year undergraduate, the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department presented seemingly endless research opportunities and focuses for a student, regardless of their interests. I can’t say that parasitology has been my childhood

One Fish. Two Fish. Red Fish. Purple Fish?I have always loved evolution and genetics since first learning about it many years ago. Lessons on Charles Darwin and his Theory of Evolution and the genetics behind designer babies intrigued me enough to

All my life I have had a deep interest in picking apart the mechanisms of the world around me and figuring out how everything is interconnected. So, when I discovered ecology as a field, I felt like I could finally channel my curiosities into

One of my mother’s favorite plants is the beautiful flowering plant Lantana camara. It bloomed nearly year-round in my backyard growing up, loving the Texas heat and not caring about the lack of rain. Years later, once I reached ���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������, I

At the age of five, I began spending summers at my grandfather’s house on Cape Cod, where he taught me to fish in a small pond down the street from his house. When I was ten, my father bought a small boat, and we began fishing in the waters that