Georgiana’s research project seeks to understand how human-placed artificial nest boxes affect tree swallow nesting behavior and success and whether certain placement decisions are prone to creating ecological traps. In particular, we seek to understand if co-placement in habitats with populations of invasive, antagonistic house sparrows leads to strong competition for nest spaces and/or excess threat to tree swallow eggs by house sparrow adults. Outside of her love for biology, Georgiana enjoys traveling, baking, and sitting down with a good book.

Izzy’s project focuses on the Silver Thread, a stream on the Wellesley College campus, which runs through the botanic gardens and was previously fed by a human-made waterfall. She is collecting and analyzing soil, environmental, and insect data to better understand the changing ecosystem dynamics as a result of losing the stream. She is also interested in increasing student engagement with the campus landscape and integrating the outdoors into courses. Izzy grew up near the beach and one of her favorite hobbies is collecting sea glass, both for its beauty as well as to clean up our oceans!

KC and Elysia are exploring the impacts of ecosystem engineering beavers locally! Their project focuses on beaver tree selection, felling behavior, and herbivory impacts. They are interested in beaver impacts on ecosystem succession. KC and Elysia worked together at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY during the summer of 2022. They learned wolf reintroduction plans and spent lots of time together. When not researching beavers, you can find them watching nature documentaries, paddleboarding, and playing ecology based card games.

Melissa is interested in investigating factors that impact the timing and order of leaf out in woody plants on campus. Leaf out is a very important phenological event as it starts the growing season for deciduous plants. Specifically, Melissa is interested in the effects of local microclimate and road salt on leaf out as well as differences in leaf out timing between plant functional groups. Melissa loves to go to the beach and watch the sunset. (West coast, Best Coast) and is a big fan of Cactus plants & Marigolds.