I have been a member of the wildlife lab here at Ball State University since April 2023, upon my election as Membership Coordinator for our chapter of The Wildlife Society. Beyond my duties within the club, I am responsible for participating in the lab for a minimum of 30 hours per semester. My regular duties include monitoring our Russian Tortoise, Ball Python, Gray Tree Frogs, Green Tree Frogs, and Fowler's Toad enclosures on a weekly basis. I am also responsible for providing our Russian Tortoise with a variety of greens and tank maintenance on a weekly basis. 

Our lab works with the DNR to collect Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) samples from across eastern Indiana. We partnered with two local meat processing businesses to sample harvested deer populations in our area. My role was to interact with hunters for data collection and communicate sampling information. I also assisted in sample collection and labeling.

I also participate in outreach and education programs with our professor, Dr. Carter. We are fortunate to have two Big Brown Bats as program and educational resources. We attend grade schools, nature centers, and a wide variety of events to educate the public about bats in a safe and controlled environment. 

As Membership Coordinator I have also had the pleasure of giving speeches to introductory Biology courses for recruitment. Our wonderful animal caretaker, Dee Hoffman, allowed me to bring our Ball Python, Clyde, with me for a "Brittany Spears-esque" speech (in the wise words of Dr. Carter). 

In the Fisheries Digital Science Lab of Dr. Paul Venturelli, Associate Professor of Fisheries, I am responsible for maintaining databases that include creel surveys and the various metrics used in them. I then compare those metrics to those provided by Fishbrain, a popular catch tracker app through which anglers report the location, weight, species, and length of their catch. Our Ph.D. student, Josef Hrabowski, and I are currently developing a method to gauge the effectiveness of Fishbrain as a tool to inform fisheries management decisions in the light of catches regular creel surveys may not be able to monitor. 

I presented this research at the 2024 Indiana American Fisheries Society Conference. As the only active undergraduate assistant in the lab, I contribute to various projects of the seven graduate students and have gained insight into their research. I have also gained excellent mentorship in R Studio software, public speaking and research methods. I have learned a great deal about handling extremely large data sets and navigating their organization. I am responsible for performing a direct comparison of methods used in creel surveys and those found in our FishBrain data set, such as reported lengths, weight, and species.

During May 2024, I participated in a Ball State field experience as part of my meteorology and climatology minor. I went storm-chasing with meteorology professor Dr. Dave Call and geography professor Dr. Reuben Allen, alongside nine other meteorology majors. We had a week-long course to refresh the basics of forecasting and modeling with an emphasis on severe storms. We then had two weeks in the Great Plains, where we were responsible for partaking in a daily role, completing assignments, and maintaining a blog and a case study. Daily roles included chase leads, Twitter, trip planner, and navigator. 

During the days leading up to being a chase lead, we were responsible for looking at models to see what areas we might target for severe storm activity on our given chase day. We looked at upper-level air maps and annotated various jet stream movements to help predict upcoming weather patterns. During the chase, the two lead students called the shots, so to speak, and used various radar applications to monitor storm cell activity.

During my time as a secondary life science education major, I taught biology and chemistry at Burris Laboratory School. Biology was my content focus, and I taught lessons on meiosis, mitosis, and gene editing. Chemistry is not a strong suit of mine, but my background struggling with chemistry ended up being beneficial to my students. I was able to break things down into the smallest parts to walk my students through simplified equations and procedures, as I knew exactly where and why they might get confused. 

After I transitioned from my role as a Secondary Life Science Education major, I retained a minor and certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. As part of this program, I taught two semesters at Northside Middle School, tutoring Afghan refugees. My first semester, I worked with two boys on their English and mathematics curriculum. The second semester, I had a rotating group of 7 girls ranging from beginner to advanced English proficiency. I balanced vocabulary, pronunciation, reading, writing, and speech lessons, ensuring each lesson was adaptable for each proficiency level.