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This is a guest post by 2022 DEI 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 find the right people. Everyone is doing something very niche and exciting. I know this is just the beginning of the adventure, but I’m excited to see where I’ll end up. 

Our first week of the program was absolutely packed with activities. We met so many amazing people in just the first week and would come to meet many more as the weeks went by. The third day in week one was by far the most exciting. We met some really cool people at the Cease Lab who are working on locusts and studying their diet, flight patterns, and trying to see how we can prevent or work around locust outbreaks all across the world. This lab, at first glance, didn’t seem all that interesting. However, listening to how passionate the nice folks from the Cease Lab were about their work made me so excited to learn more about everything they were doing. 

Learning about the CAP-LTER lab and the work that everyone was doing with water samples was also quite interesting as it was fairly different from what we saw at the Cease lab. The people from the CAP-LTER lab gave us some really great advice on how to navigate through the early stages of our careers and it was truly insightful. 

After finishing our tour of the CAP-LTER lab, all of the DEI scholars sat down to have some pizza together, and it was the first moment of the program where I felt some sort of belonging or connection. We all shared our excitement about what we had just learned and it seemed that, for a moment, my imposter syndrome had disappeared. 

Later that day we sat down with Liz Makings and learned so much about the different plants that were found on campus. It was a fun activity that held a lot of value and I’ll definitely remember the difference between thorns, prickles, and spines forever.

Learning about the CAP-LTER lab and the work that everyone was doing with water samples was also quite interesting as it was fairly different from what we saw at the Cease lab. The people from the CAP-LTER lab gave us some really great advice on how to navigate through the early stages of our careers and it was truly insightful. 

After finishing our tour of the CAP-LTER lab, all of the DEI scholars sat down to have some pizza together, and it was the first moment of the program where I felt some sort of belonging or connection. We all shared our excitement about what we had just learned and it seemed that, for a moment, my imposter syndrome had disappeared. 

Later that day we sat down with Liz Makings and learned so much about the different plants that were found on campus. It was a fun activity that held a lot of value and I’ll definitely remember the difference between thorns, prickles, and spines forever.

The Sand Tank Mountains Trip -

Our first field trip of the program was set in the Sand Tank mountains off of Gila Bend. I was overly excited for this first trip since one of my favorite things to do is camping and doing hands-on field work. I’m obsessed with things that are dangerous, especially snakes and other reptiles (Gilma could tell you all about that!), which is why I was so excited to see that I might finally encounter a snake in the wild. We started off the trip by setting up our tents and meeting at basecamp for our first activity of the day: Plant walk with Liz. We went around the site and observed and collected many kinds of different plants. We prepared the plants and then pressed them for later use. We then received our first tools for collecting insects in the field and went on our way to place mammal traps in two different areas. We then met up to have dinner and immediately went on the hunt for insects! We spent hours collecting insects and creepy crawlies, we even encountered a few tarantulas on our hunt.

Unsurprisingly enough, I spent a lot of my time looking for centipedes and scorpions rather than beetles and moths. Finding a snake was what I was most excited for, but sadly, after a long search, I came back empty-handed. The next morning we woke up before the sun came up so that we could collect the mammals that were caught in our traps. After gathering all of our specimens, we met up at basecamp and conducted our measurements of each of the six mammals we had collected. Overall, this trip was a great experience. My inner child came out when I started interacting with all of the different animals and I knew I was where I wanted to be.

Insect week was the most calming and entertaining week for me. I got to prepare all of the insects that I had collected just a few days before. I learned how to properly mount, spread, identify, and digitize all kinds of insects. To me, mounting and spreading were such peaceful processes that I felt as if nothing else was happening around me. It was honestly something that I needed in the moment, and I wish I had collected and done more on my own time. I truly appreciate everyone that helped and taught us through the entire process, including: Sangmi, Andrew, Evan, Nico, and many more! 

Vertebrate week was not so peaceful and calming as the previous week. Regardless of the stress that I felt during the mammal skinning process, it was something I genuinely enjoyed and would do over and over again. I like doing things as perfectly as possible and that overwhelmed me with stress because I knew I only had one attempt. My finished rat surprisingly came out much better than I expected and the skeleton that was left was really cool.

If I didn’t know it was dead, I’d probably think that it was a relative of the rat that ambushed me while I was relaxing in my backyard on a rainy night a couple years ago.

Plant week was another one of the peaceful learning experiences. Even though the week was packed with information, I never felt overwhelmed. Liz made the experience fun and engaging, while also stressing the importance of plants and keeping records of everything. We also learned about Paleobotany which is an interesting yet complex area of study. Lichens were another part of plant week (even though they’re not plants), which I had some knowledge of before coming into the program. It’s definitely one of the areas that I have a strong interest in. 

The Pinto Spring Trip -

The Pinto Spring location was set in the forest near Globe, AZ. I grew up going on yearly trips to Pinetop-Lakeside, AZ, where I was able to explore and feel connected to nature. This made the Pinto Spring location so enjoyable for me because I felt like the seven-year-old version of myself again. This trip’s schedule was the same as the Sand Tanks: set up tents, plant walk with Liz, set mammal traps, return for dinner, collect insects, and then collect mammals and take measurements early the next morning. I enjoyed this trip a lot, it helped me feel at peace with myself. The best part was that I never expected to see any snakes at this location, but my dream came true and I held a snake for the first time!

Bioinformatics week was honestly the week that I dreaded the most. I was familiar with coding before the program because my brother has always been really into it, whereas I have definitely avoided it at all costs. However, I can genuinely say, it isn’t as bad as I made it out to be. Yeah there are some aspects of it that I know that I still hate (troubleshooting), but working on something from scratch and seeing how it turns out in the end is so satisfying, and I got to see that with the creation of my own page! 

During the final week of the program all six DEI scholars helped in being part of our first checklist publication. Something that is seemingly so simple actually takes a lot of work and knowledge. I respect the amount of work that everyone is doing because it is so much, and I still feel like I’ve only seen a little bit of the work. We also met with Chris Alice Kratzer to see the work that they’ve been doing, and I honestly can’t put into words how extremely impressed we all were with their journey from nothing to a full on field guide for the social wasps of North America. We then met with Mary Haddad, one of the DEI scholars from the previous year. I was immediately invested in her work and had so many questions for how she is creating her own interactive PDF field guide. These last two presentations were eye-opening for me because I realized that I could be a part of something really important. Now I know that I really need to look into outreach and helping others become fascinated with nature like I am.

If I were to try to say everything that I wanted to, I would probably be writing forever. However, I would like to say that I am extremely lucky and thankful for this opportunity to become a DEI scholar. I found a sense of community in a place that I never expected, and it helped me get through some really tough times. So thanks to everyone that I met and interacted with over those wonderful six weeks. I came in being so nervous that I would be underqualified for the program, but I left feeling like I could do it all. You all are truly making an impact on us and furthering our knowledge and love for science. The uncertainty of what I’ll end up doing in the future is still there, but that’s the beauty of it. I don’t have to know right away, I just have to follow a path and I’ll end up where I want to be.

The BioKIC blog will be featuring posts by our program alumni. These posts will be outlining some of the highlights of the ASU Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Biocollections Summer Scholars Program.