Mesa Fitzgerald

Seasonal Technician, Forest Biodiversity Team

“Our work is pretty repetitive. I don't know if our day-to-day work, per se, is exciting, but I think the broader picture of it is really cool. We are collecting forest data for the Smithsonian ForestGEO [Global Earth Observatory], a long-term project that covers multiple sites around the world.”  

What do you do as a mentor to keep people's spirits high?  

“I can answer this in a few ways. Censusing can get repetitive but you have a while before people start burning out. Popsicles are one of the ways to keep morale up. Loud Afternoons, which was first implemented last year when I was an undergraduate. It gives you something to keep going in the hottest hours. We bring out a speaker and have a forest playlist. Norah [Alhusayni] made it and everyone can add songs but the rule is eventually you have to take them out or someone will veto a song. You can have up to 10 songs and you switch them out.  

Inspirational Speeches: we definitely have one of those every once in a while! One of the field technicians will give a little pep talk, but lately, since Lyle barked at the end of his speech, team members don't really want the speech. They just want Lyle to bark. Howling (to let another person in the forest know where you are before they can see you) is really cute whenever someone is coming and going or when we are having special guests. We had Evan [Parker, former seasonal technician] yesterday, Noah [Clayton, PhD candidate] is coming out, and JAM (PI Jonathan A. Myers) comes sometimes. The invitation is open to literally anyone at Tyson who wants to join. Everyone come census. We will give you the tools!  

I think the combination of those things helps with morale. We have a lot of small things. I think that's the way to go when you are doing something huge.”