...have
never had a tight relationship. As a child, I made beautiful mud pies in my
backyard and visited some nearby parks and farms, but outside of books, I had
little knowledge of the natural world around me. Nature and I coexisted as mere
acquaintances.
Me, pretending to camouflage myself among the many other tulips
at the Skagit Tulip Festival.
Two
events during my undergraduate career at UW prompted a change in that
relationship. First, I am involved in undergraduate research at UW and one of
my research focuses is the genetic basis of speciation. It is a peculiar and fascinating notion to me
that over time, nature prompts changes in something (for example, a species)
that was working just fine beforehand. My undergraduate research utilizes the
model organism, Drosophila melanogaster,
and I became curious to see the biodiversity my research was trying to
understand outside of my model organism. Secondly, I went on my first
backpacking trip last year on the Chelan Lakeshore Trail. I finally had a
chance to observe and absorb the amazing natural history Washington State has
to offer. The fellow hikers/backpackers I met were enthused naturalists, who had
incredibly interesting stories to share. The trip was a sensory overload, but I
loved it. Together, these incidences have motivated me to apply for a travel
fellowship to observe the biodiversity around the world!
View of Lake Chelan on a gorgeous sunny day!
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