Maya Irvine

she/her
Undergraduate Fellow
Pawpaw Patrol

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

I heard about Tyson my freshman year during the club fair. I got a free T-shirt. And ever since then, I was really interested in Tyson. I had spoken to the people involved with the Tyson Conservation Corps, and I was like oh, that’s really fun! I did some bush honeysuckle clean-ups, but I didn’t know what research was being conducted here. So when I got an email from one of my advisors with the application, I was excited because I’m from a rural area, I’m used to working outdoors, but I haven’t had the chance to actually do research outside. Last summer I was on campus doing microbio research, and while I really enjoyed working in a lab, I missed being outside. So I was really interested in Tyson because I could both do research, which I really love, and do it outside, in an environment that’s really similar to where I come from in the Ozarks.

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

I really liked the overnight. It was a lot of fun making s’mores with each other and just hanging out. I also feel really close with my team, because it’s a really small team, and we got pretty comfortable with each other at the beginning. We all have really similar interests. What makes me feel the most at home at Tyson is the fact that we’re all just nerds. Yeah. We’re all interested in being outdoors, no one’s gonna look at me funny if I’m like, oh my god, look at this cool plant!

What’s your favorite part of your research?

I really like identifying species in a plot. I found myself doing that a lot when I was younger. I had a plant app, and when I was hiking with my parents they’d always ask, what’s this flower, what’s this plant? And I’d look it up! And now we have Anna, who’s an expert at identifying plants, but we still use iNat [iNaturalist] when we’re not sure what a new plant could be. It’s really nice having so much knowledge, and being able to know it in your, like, head bank. Being able to pick it out, it’s like a little reward, like finding a little bit of gold. (Maya laughs.) I really like it.

Anything else?

This is a fun fact — I’ve always been able to find four-leaf clovers. And I think that’s helped me identify plants in the wild. I feel like it’s the same part of my brain.