Shayan Farhang

Undergraduate Fellow

“I've always been interested in conservation. I worked my whole sophomore year as the Assistant Student Coordinator of the Tyson Conservation Corps, and being there really made me want to get more integrated into Tyson.

I’ve thought a lot about what I want to do with my life. Should I do art? Should I be a doctor? And not that those other things aren’t important, but conservation is a crisis discipline. Everything is going to garbage and we need people to help. And insects and arthropods are the first or second rung on the ladder. If they fall out, everything falls apart. I guess that’s not how ladders work, but this ladder would fall apart. They're so important, but people don't study them because they're not cute.

Brett is going out into the field at Tyson, where he sets up pitfall traps on the ground for bugs and other invertebrates to fall into. They’re collected into these vials that he then pours into Ziploc bags. So I get deliveries of Ziploc bags full of dead bugs. And then with my handy-dandy children's microscope, I identify them and write down the number of each kind of invertebrate that's in the bag. I get it down to as specific as I can, usually family or genus—sometimes species. We're using that data to see how light is affecting the arthropod communities at Tyson.

I'm able to listen to music while I'm ID-ing bugs for hours. I have my speakers set up here and I'm just listening to music, looking at bugs. Living the dream. I’m really into the new Perfume Genius album, maybe one of my favorite albums ever. And Fiona Apple, obviously. Her album reminds me of being in my fun aunt's kitchen and banging on platters and pots and just yelling.

I don't know if I want to work with insects and arthropods my whole life, but it's definitely a good first step. It'll help me get my foot in the door for conservation research. Even if it is different than what we originally thought it would be, it's still a good experience to have.”

Shayan worked with Brett Seymoure's Light Pollution team during summer 2020. Learn more about their research into the effects of light pollution on wildlife behavior here.