Chris Kuse

Undergraduate Fellow

In past profiles your mentor, Rachel Becknell, has spoken about how much she appreciates having undergraduate help. Could you comment on this relationship?

“Rachel’s definitely a good mentor. She’s there whenever we message her on Slack or even through texts. That’s very nice and she’s very understanding of all the chaotic things that can happen. In some ways it feels more like an acquaintanceship. It feels very genuine.

Regarding how we help her, it’s sort of hard with COVID-19 and everything because most of the primary work would be weeding and root-washing, but we don’t get the opportunity to do that which makes it tedious on her end. The only real work we can help her with right now is labeling those bags.”

How many bags would you say you label a day?

“I usually do between 50 and 100. I like to do them while I listen to Ted Talks and podcasts and stuff. It helps. It’s a lot of tedious and repetitive work. We have to go through around 900 by the end of the program.”

Other than bag labeling, you have an independent project to work on, as well. What has that been like?

“I’m looking at soil nutrient analysis in relation to pH. Of the species in the research gardens, some are easy to establish and others are hard to establish. There are definitely challenges because I don’t really get access to the lab and stuff, which I would have liked to do. Rachel has to take all the soil samples from the research gardens, which is very tedious, then she has to do the nutrient analysis.”

What is the importance of your group’s research?

“The research is focusing on restoring prairies. There’s a lot more to prairies than people may think. They’re full of diversity and a lot of it has been taken away. But, it’s possible to slowly bring it back.

I would say that a lack of biodiversity in our local environment will lead to low pollinators and not very many animals will be able to survive. It will, overall, just wreck the environment.”

Chris worked with Rachel Becknell’s Ecological Restoration team during summer 2020. Learn more about the plans for their research into soil microbial impacts on prairie restoration here.