Paul elliott

Field Technician

“I started at Tyson in 2018 as an undergraduate fellow and I just fell in love with the place. If you go to WashU for Biology, they expect you to be a doctor largely, and I had no idea what I wanted to do professionally. I had no plans past graduation and then I found Tyson. It’s full of people who love plants and bugs and salamanders, just like me! And, somehow they're making a living doing that. I felt welcomed here and I just fell in love.”

How has that switched going online for this summer?

“When we were physically at Tyson, I was all over the place: we did amphibian monitoring, we prepared for prescribed burns, we cleared honeysuckle. Then the pandemic hit and now we’re all on our computers. Our St. Louis Wildlife Project [photo-capturing animals on motion-activated cameras over an urban to rural gradient] is the work that translates best to computer work. So that’s essentially what I’ve been doing: I went from being a generalist to a specialist, very quickly.

What is something about this summer you didn’t expect?

“I wasn't expecting the community to stay as strong as it has been. We've been very well connected, despite everything, almost more than we would have been normally. We're messaging each other constantly throughout the day and holding regular meetings to talk about research topics, St. Louis Wildlife Project, Mandy’s presentations, Thursday seminars. We’re sharing COVID-19 research and anti-racism resources, helping each other stay educated about the issues currently happening. This wouldn’t be happening during a regular summer season. I’d be in the field, so-and-so would be in the office, another person would be in the field. We’d all be more separated than we currently are. Now we’re all just sitting in front of our computers all day, a quick message away. It’s really nice.”

Paul is the community science coordinator for the St. Louis Wildlife Project and he works very closely with Beth Biro on applied conservation and restoration projects at Tyson.