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Posted by kmyule on January 23, 2024 - 4:37pm in Undergraduate Students

Applications are now open for this unique, funded, and hands-on opportunity for students underrepresented in biodiversity science to participate in natural history collections research

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Posted by nfranz on January 5, 2024 - 12:08pm in Undergraduate Students

The Arizona State University, Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center (BioKIC), is offering a new internship for an undergraduate computer science student to develop and maintain the Symbiota software platform code base. Symbiota (https://symbiota.org/) is an open-source software for managing and mobilizing biodiversity data. Over the span of 20 years, Symbiota has developed into a distributed network of theme-based research portals incorporating data from over 1,900 biodiversity collections of preserved plants, animals, fossils, fungi, and more. The... Read More

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Posted by kmyule on August 8, 2023 - 11:02am in Undergraduate Students

This experience was so much more than I ever could have imagined. To build a little
background, I am someone who has always struggled with self doubt when it comes to my
place in the STEM career path. The persistent habit of constantly comparing myself to others is
something I was very acquainted with, and struggle with sometimes still, but this program flipped
some kind of switch within me. The first day of the program I was feeling intimidated like always,
but the level of comfort provided by Kelsey (on top of a REALLY cool introduction tour of the
Natural History... Read More

Posted by kmyule on July 28, 2023 - 9:54am in Undergraduate Students

At the start of this program there were a lot of things I didn’t know. I didn’t know that frogs don’t have diaphragms like humans, and therefore breathe through their skin and manually draw air into their mouths to push towards their lungs. I didn’t know that locusts don’t start out as locusts, but instead, certain species of grasshoppers become locusts when they are in dense contact with others of the same species, triggering chemical changes in the grasshoppers’ brains. I didn’t know that melons and avocados are actually berries, and common fruits considered to be such, such as... Read More

Posted by kmyule on July 18, 2023 - 4:04pm in Undergraduate Students

By Ava Claus

I can still remember the first time I walked into the collections vividly. The classroom where we would spend the next six weeks learning how to identify insects, digitize specimens, and prepare samples to be DNA barcoded greeted me with taxidermy animal heads covering an entire wall. Walking through the rest of the collections is a similarly astounding experience; giant replicas of bugs hang from the ceiling, and the building is full of cabinets upon cabinets of samples. From the moment I stepped foot into the building, I knew the next six weeks would... Read More

Posted by kmyule on July 12, 2023 - 2:43pm in Undergraduate Students

By Alexander Fenlon

During the first week of our program, we visited a lab associated with the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research as part of our campus tour. Gawking at a worktable covered in dusty plant samples, taking puzzled glances at pouches filled with nothing but atmospheric gases, and snaking past each other as we crammed into a room-sized freezer, we were privy to myriad facets of our local ecosystem in perfect isolation: crystal-clear data.

We were waving our goodbyes when a pleading cry was issued from the end of the corridor.... Read More

Posted by kmyule on January 11, 2023 - 11:56am in Collections

Applications are now open for this unique, funded, and hands-on opportunity for students underrepresented in biodiversity science to participate in natural history collections research

Posted by kmyule on August 7, 2022 - 5:40pm in Undergraduate Students

This is a guest post by 2022 JEDI Biocollections Summer Scholars Program alum, Jacob Kerwin.

 

2022 Scholars tour a lab on campus

Herping and Derping:

When I first came to Arizona I never thought I’d see pine trees and running water... Read More

Posted by kmyule on August 5, 2022 - 12:33pm in Undergraduate Students

This is a guest post by 2022 JEDI Biocollections Summer Scholars Program alum, Emi Sarmiento.

Coming into the program, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I’m an undergraduate biological sciences major that loves nature and truly enjoys all aspects of science, but I was confused about what I could do with that information. I had little understanding of what a biocollection was or how it was important. I honestly had just hoped that the program would give me some clarity on where to go next. Fortunately, I learned that you could really do anything if you... Read More

Posted by kmyule on August 4, 2022 - 10:44am in Undergraduate Students

This is a guest post by 2022 JEDI Biocollections Summer Scholars Program alum, Gilma De Leon.

 The scholars learn about paleobotany

Week 1 – First Week

 

            As the first week of the program got closer, I felt relaxed and excited... Read More

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