Katie O’Malley ’17

Major

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Project Title

A Sea-Change in Seedlings? Community Shifts in Regenerating Dry Forest

The work that I did this summer aimed to uncover the determining factors behind tropical dry forest regeneration. I assisted a graduate student in the field tagging, measuring, and identifying saplings in different plots in the forest. Additionally, I reviewed camera footage of fauna in these plots and completed soil testing. This internship helped me gain insight into the realm of research, and fieldwork in particular. I improved my Spanish and knowledge of forest succession and the intricacies of dry forest dynamics. I am thankful for this internship for potentially jump-starting me on a senior thesis idea and helping me figure out if research and fieldwork is something I wish to pursue in the future.



Internship Year

2016

Project Category

Biodiversity

Organization(s)

Área Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Mentor(s)

David Wilcove, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs and the Princeton Environmental Institute