Thomas Kay ’23 — To begin, I would like to offer my earnest gratitude to all that have helped make my internship experience possible this summer. Most importantly to the Treves Research Fund, which funded my internship and to Dr. Bradley Carlson, who proved to be an excellent and engaging mentor! Thanks to them, my internship has been a tremendous learning experience; from furthering my knowledge of the research process and improving my practical lab skills, to experiencing the campus I love during the summer. Due to the hardships and uncertainty of the past year, I was worried about having the ability to further my chosen career path in ecology, but thanks to the efforts of Wabash I still had the opportunity to explore my passion!
This summer I, along with three other interns, had the opportunity and privilege to be a part of Dr. Carlson’s Box Turtle study, where we would help with a variety of different tasks contributing to his main research goals. Our research focused on evaluating the behavioral differences between box turtles in relation to their immune system’s effectiveness and collecting demographic data on the box turtle population at our research site. A typical day at work in the field started at about 9:30 when our team would meet and prepare our equipment before departing for the 45 minute drive to Allee Woods, a piece of forest on Sugar Creek owned by Wabash which was the site of our work. To pass the time and fight the drowsiness of this morning drive the car ride was either filled with discussions of scientific papers related to our work or with heated debates over Star Wars and Back to the Future. After arriving at around 11 we would don a heavy dose of bug spray before spending the next four to five hours carefully searching the woods for turtles. Thursdays and Friday’s were our break from the field and hot temperatures, but we were still hard at work, preforming various assays using turtle plasma which we had collected days prior.
My personal favorite part of the internship was the side project that I was able to explore and work on by myself throughout the summer! I was involved in designing components and programming electronics with the end goal of crafting a 3-D printed robotic turtle, which would hopefully be used to unveil new social behaviors demonstrated between turtles! Working alongside Dr. Carlson with his research, I was able to act more directly and meticulously on my own research, refining my understanding the scientific process. This independent project made sure I made use of my time management and problem solving skills, developing them so that I may better use them further along my career path.
