Scientist Spotlight: Field Biology

  • Due May 3, 2022 by 2pm
  • Points 15
  • Submitting a text entry box or a file upload
  • Available Mar 1, 2022 at 12am - May 16, 2022 at 2pm
This assignment was locked May 16, 2022 at 2pm.

Directions 

Choose 1 of the following professional Scientists.   Each scientist has a picture and a set of links you can click to learn about their personal lives, professional work, and academic/career journeys.  Read or watch any of the resources linked that you like. You do not need to use all of them - choose what interests you most.  Feel free to search additional information if you wish to. 

Write a 350 word or more reflection with your responses to what you read/listened to/watched. You can reflect in any way you want. Some suggestions if you need ideas to get started: 

    • What was most interesting or most confusing about what you read?
    • What did you learn about the research area your chosen scientist studies?
    • What did you learn about the types of people who do science?
    • What new questions do you have after reading about this scientist?
    • How did learning about this scientist make you feel about science? 

Submit your spotlight below.

Choice 1: Juan Pablo Culasso

Brazil's 'birdwatcher' who has been blind since birth - BBC News

 Juan Pablo Culasso is a 33 year old Uruguayan. Blind since birth, he has become one of the best "birdwatchers" in South America, in part due to his early music training which helped him develop perfect pitch. This led him into the study of birds and bird sounds. In 2014 he won a TV contest, Supercerebros (Super Brains), due to his ability to identify up to 3,000 different bird sounds.

He now lives in Brazil and creates documentary soundtracks, contributes to the sound collection at the Macaulay Library Links to an external site., the most important nature sounds library in the world, lectures and teaches  on nature in general and birds in particular. He has published more than 12 works portraying the sounds of birds in the Americas.

 

Choice 2: Geerat Vermeij

Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life: Vermeij, Geerat: 9780716729549: Amazon.com: Books

Dr. Geerat Vermeij is a professor of geology at UC Davis. Born in the Netherlands and blind from a young age, he grew up in New Jersey and then went on to study at Princeton and Yale. Curiosity is a key motivating force in his life. He used  his sense of touch first to study shells and then fossils of shells. His research  on  fossils, geology and evolution has been so successful that he received a MacArthur Genius Award in 1992 and a National Academy of Sciences Medal in 2001

 

 

Choice 3. Dr. Robin Wall Kimmererrobin kimmerer.png  

Dr. Kimmerer is a writer and Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York.  She has published scientific papers on the ecology of mosses, restoration ecology, and on the contributions of traditional ecological knowledge to our understanding of the natural world.  She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.  Her books Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss have been widely read, praised and.. beloved!

 

Choice 4: Gaby Arango

Would our list be complete without an SRJC student? Gaby Arango was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico. She started her undergraduate education at Santa Rosa Junior College, where she earned an A.S. During her internship at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, she helped with the identification of 3 new species of fish. She then transferred to Sonoma State University to finish her B.S. as well as herS  studying  the diving physiology of the olive ridley sea turtle. This master’s research was done by collecting blood samples in animals from Oaxaca, Mexico, something she was able to do because she has dual US and Mexican citizenship.

B. Gabriela ARANGO | PhD Student | Master of Science | University of California, Berkeley, CA | UCB | Department of Integrative Biology

Her main research interest is the physiological adaptations for breath-hold diving, specifically those of sea turtles and key differences between  different types of  air-breathing diving animals is whether or not they use their lungs for oxygen storage when diving, She wants to explore the underlying 

UCB lab Links to an external site.- the research lab in which she works at UC Berkeley while getting her Ph.D.  

Crecer ConCiencia Links to an external site. The science education program that she has started to help students become scientists. 

Personal web page Links to an external site. Her personal website 

Twitter: @turtleyscience 

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