ERin O’Connell
Research Technician
“Right now I’m in the field at Tyson, measuring thousands of seedlings.
Normally, we would have had a much larger team, and my responsibilities would have been keeping tabs on the group dynamics and safety. But since we ended up not being able to have people on site, all those responsibilities dissipated away, and I was left with primarily focusing on the research. With a team, you have conversations, or you’re sharing data. It's a lot more quiet now.
It's nice sometimes to take a break and just sit and observe more than I normally do; just looking at the forest and the way the light goes through the trees, and how some of the trees are angled into the valley from the slopes—things you don't notice with people all around. I'm trying to appreciate those little moments a bit more.”
What do you miss the most about the Tyson community?
“Oh wow. Everything. I think the easy answer is Thursdays, when we would have had seminars as a community—it's really nice to see the field station come alive. What I miss the most about that is the random one-on-one interactions that I would have with people that I didn't even know, or knew only tangentially since they’re on another team. We've done a good job of trying to have a virtual community, but it's really hard to have side conversations on Zoom.
Personal connections usually happen through proximity; I’ve kind of taken that for granted. I live with people, I work with people, I see people in the community and then I become friends with them because I'm around them. But when we're all physically separated from each other, those things aren't happening but personal connections are still important. So the whole COVID situation has made me realize how important it is to still reach out to people, even if I'm not physically near them.”