About this blog

I am a second-year student in the Program in Ecology (PiE) at the University of Wyoming, and my hope is that this blog can provide a bit of insight into the student experience in our program and into Laramie and the surrounding area. I completed a MSc in Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming in the spring of 2008. The previous fall I had begun my search for PhD programs with an interest in the University of Chicago. However, shortly thereafter a faculty from PiE advertised a PhD position for a project that lined up perfectly with my interests. I went through the application and interview process with a pool of national and international applicants, and I was very happy to be able to accept the offered position at the end.

Field work for my project began almost immediately, taking me to the north slope of Alaska several times over the next year and a half. I recently returned from 1.5 months in the field (this picture is from mid-October, on the sea ice north of Alaska), and for the first couple weeks back my life has largely focused on catching up on coursework. I am taking biochemistry this semester, and my professor has been great about allowing me to catch up at my own pace and take missed exams. While organic chemistry was one of the hardest courses I took as an undergraduate, I have had a much better time following, and even enjoying, biochemistry because so much of what we cover can be considered in an applied physiology context. I hope to put up more posts as the semester wraps up.