Elora Robeck

Undergraduate FELLOW

“It's hard to be inside the house all day. I live next to a park, and if it wasn't for that park, I would have gone crazy. I can't imagine working in an office every day from eight to five. I know I probably will. But the nice thing about field science is that I can spend at least a little bit of time outside in my natural element.

Last year I signed up for Tyson without really knowing if I wanted to go into environmental policy or field work or to be a veterinarian. Something that Susan said really stuck with me: ‘You do internships to find out what you don't want to do.’ And for me, it was kind of the opposite. The internship showed me that field work was really what I like to do. So I signed up again this year because I wanted to keep doing that. And I love the community. I love my mentors. I just felt like Tyson was a good fit for me. And like, why not? Let's go do more work.

This year, instead of doing fieldwork and data-collecting, we’re doing data analysis, programming, and statistical analysis on the computer. And I actually just graduated from high school, so these are all things I've never done before. I'm just excited to learn, really. And I'm also excited to get closer to my team. I know it's different from last year, but I think Tyson as a whole will come together. There's just something about Tyson.”

Elora worked with Solny Adasteinsson's Tick & Wildlife Ecology team during summer 2019 as a TERA teen and she returned to the team as an undergraduate fellow for summer 2020. Learn more about their prescribed fire and tick-borne disease ecology research here.