SEEDS: Newsletter > Volume 4, Issue 1 - February 2006

SEEDS Highlights

2005-06 Undergraduate Research Fellow Profile: Jorge Ramos

Since I was a child, I have always been interested in science. Being born in the US and raised in Mexico has given me the opportunity to view things with a different perspective. My dad, a dentist, always wanted to be a naturalist. Unfortunately, my dad had to follow my grandfather’s career as a dentist. I feel like my dad’s passion for the environment was passed on to me during my childhood. The things that I am pursuing now, for example a SCUBA diving certification, he did back in 1978.

I knew I wanted to study the environment; I just was not sure what part of it. I am still in the part of discovering my passion. I want to focus on one piece of this puzzle called planet Earth. I started college at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). I am majoring in Environmental Sciences with a Biological Sciences concentration. My first summer was not at all interesting. I had no idea about internships, fellowships, REU’s, conferences, summer jobs, etc. I was unaware of what was out there for undergraduate students. I ended up signing up for summer courses.

Before summer of 2004, encouraged by my professor Dr. Larry Jones and my advisor Cindy Edgar, I applied to an REU at the Environmental Science Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. I was selected and worked under great soil ecologists, Dr. Dick Richardson and his wife Dr. Patricia Richardson. I completed a research project that compared the differences in arthropod diversity in different environments.

After this experience, I felt like it was the end of my mentality of a student with the goal of just graduating. It was the beginning of a new goal, graduating with an exceptional resume. I wanted to graduate knowing great contacts, having field experience, an excellent academic record, and, of course, extensive research experience.

I discovered SEEDS the summer of 2004. I was selected to go to the ESA meeting in Portland, Oergon. After that meeting, I realized that SEEDS offered more than just travel scholarships for the meeting. I also participated in two SEEDS field trips: National Wetlands Resource Center in Lafayette, Louisiana, and the La Sevilleta LTER in New Mexico. Many students from UTEP were also very active with SEEDS so we decided to start a Campus Ecology Chapter at our university.

During the summer of 2005 I worked with the US and Fish and Wildlife Service on the Abnormal Amphibian Project at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (KNWR). It was a great outdoors research experience where I gained new skills and strengthened others. I kept in touch with Mari Reeves, the PI of the project, and we are currently working with the PRESENCE software to model the proportion of area occupied by these amphibians in the KNWR. Later that summer I went to the ESA-INTECOL meeting in Montreal, Canada. At the meeting I received the ESA SEEDS Undergraduate Research Fellowship. I then flew to Barrow, Alaska, where I met with Dr. Craig Tweedie and his crew, who are part of BASC (Barrow Arctic Science Consortium). In Barrow, Alaska, 340 miles above the Arctic Circle, I helped different US and international scientists in their research projects: coastal erosion, hydrology, ornithology, biogeochemistry, small mammals, botany, etc.

Having received the SEEDS Undergraduate Research Fellowship, a very prestigious research opportunity, I decided to work on something that I have always wanted to experience: marine mammals. I decided to work with seals in the Gulf of Maine. My mentors for the fellowship are Dr. Myra Shulman from Cornell University, and Greg Early from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. This research will examine two species of pinnipeds, gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) and harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), that use the Isles of Shoals as haul-out spaces. Currently there is very little knowledge to understand both of the seals at the Isles of Shoals. In order to get this baseline, we will conduct population censuses, monitor behavioral interactions, analyze male vocalization using bioacoustical analysis techniques, and their responses to human disturbances. This research will result in an extensive knowledge to understand the current behavior of pinnipeds and their potential responses to the changing environment in the Isles of Shoals.

I would like to give thanks to friends at SEEDS, Melissa, Katherine, Jason, and Jeramie. Thank you for believing in me, for all of your support over these years. I know that without SEEDS, I couldn't be where I am right now. It’s SEEDS that has made me mature and discover my potential.

My goal for next year…graduate school!

For more information on the SEEDS Undergraduate Research Fellowship, visit http://www.esa.org/seeds/activities/FellowshipsInfo.php