Emma Diaz

she/her
Undergraduate Fellow
Team Flora

How did you get here? What brought you to Tyson?

I knew Tyson was a resource since freshman year, just through a few teachers that I had who either brought me here or mentioned in passing. And then I did a few bush honeysuckle pulls here too. I just really liked Tyson as a place and I thought, as someone who was just getting into environmental studies, that it was a good resource for me to tap into. I also heard that Doug Ladd was running a project and he's my favorite professor at WashU.

What is something that your team has accomplished together?

I think we're just making good progress overall. We've surveyed almost 35% of the flora, so we are currently more than a third of the way through our 760-something plants. Something else we’ve accomplished is a good team dynamic. We're very encouraging of each other. The learning process can be overwhelming, but we're all making jokes about it and that really helps ease some of the stress. Eve has been making Kahoots, plus we all study individually and test each other. It’s been nice to see us grow, especially since we all jumped into this project head-first.

What might the other teams not realize about what your team is doing?

Mostly just how new our project is. We're figuring out a lot of things on the fly, versus other projects that might be more established. A full flora survey has never been done at Tyson, there have been some attempts but not great ones. And I think it's just been really cool to be involved in the establishment of something Tyson will hopefully continue to conduct in the future.

What’s been an affirming moment in your work this summer?

I think an affirming moment for me is when I'm just enjoying field work. Enjoying not just being outside because, of course, being out in nature is always nice, but enjoying the physical labor and even the times when I get annoyed at myself because I've still not memorized certain plants. The challenge is something that I appreciate because it feels like I'm working towards my career, which is a fulfilling feeling.

Do you see yourself doing this work in the future? How might Tyson inform your future work?

The project that I'm on specifically focuses on understanding Tyson’s floristic diversity, which will help future studies that maybe want to focus on issues surrounding that topic. Personally, I really want to work within conservation biology, so being able to contribute to an improved understanding of the diversity around us feels like a step towards that ultimate goal.

What moments have made you feel most connected to the Tyson community?

Probably the random things that happen in the carpool. I don't think we really spend that much time together besides colloquium. People tend to have more genuine, silly conversations in the car, because everyone's kind of tired and trying to prepare for or process their day. We’ve had a few conversations about how our work has ended up in our dreams, which have been funny.

What do you wish others knew about Tyson?

Before having any experience with field work, environmental research, I used to think of science as a pretty sterile practice. But I’m glad that view has been expanded. I mean, when I’m at Tyson my hands are constantly dirty, things often don’t go as planned and my team is constantly learning things as we go. I like that. Although it feels a lot more applied in certain ways, our work is also science. And I think being at Tyson can give people a peephole into some of the many ways scientific research can appear.