Rachel Penczykowski

Assistant Professor of Biology

“It's quite the moment, with so many different dimensions all at once. Current events very much affect how we do our science, especially how we function as a team and how we need to support each other. Usually, my team would be working in the research gardens and hoop house at Tyson, while also surveying plants in the roadsides and lawns. All of our research is fundamentally different this summer.

We are fortunate in that some of our projects can be conducted remotely and in our own neighborhoods. We restructured our research goals to involve surveying and sampling plants just in our own neighborhoods; along sidewalk verges and in parks that are now open. In fact, we can do some neat things in terms of data collection at more sites in urban areas than we would be able to do based solely out of Tyson.

The COVID-19 pandemic does pose different types of concerns though, because we do need to maintain social distance in the field. We have to think really hard about our personal safety, even when just surveying plants in our own neighborhood. People are curious and want to know why you're staring so hard at the ground, if you've dropped something or what you're looking for. Sometimes people question what you're doing. For students of color, especially Black and Brown students, ecology field work is more likely to lead to questioning and potentially threatening behavior from white passersby.

So from the beginning of the summer, we've had conversations about what we can do to keep ourselves and each other safe in terms of a system for keeping track of who is surveying plants where, and when. We got bright green shirts printed with our university name and ‘Plant Ecology Lab’, to be highly visibile and official looking. We also have printed pamphlets that explain our research project, and all the students on our team have a small stack of my business cards. The main thing we have to continue to do is maintain good communication and check in with each other. If anyone feels uncomfortable doing this type of work, that’s very valid and legitimate. Our team members' physical safety, and mental and emotional health, are the most important things. We've had some really good, open discussions about the experiences people have had in the field. Luckily, nothing awful has happened to folks on our team in the field this summer, but we need to keep that conversation going so that everyone feels comfortable bringing up their experiences.

We also have a variety of indoor tasks, including analyzing images of plants photographed in the field last summer and fall. It's good that we have some computer-based work; no one wants to be out in the heat every day, anyways! We've struck a good balance with different types of activities. Many of the undergraduate and graduate students in our research group live near each other, so occasionally I drop off datasheets or ice cream sandwiches; we occasionally see each other from a distance while wearing masks.

In addition to a pandemic, there's an uprising against police brutality right now. Multiple members of our group have been participating in protests in St. Louis and surrounding suburbs, and I really appreciate that. That's something that we talk about in our lab meetings: who was protesting where, what went down, and how folks felt in terms of their physical safety. We have spent time each meeting this summer talking about experiences of protest in the Black Lives Matter movement.”

Rachel leads the Plant Disease team. Learn more about their host-pathogen coevolution research here.