Ruth Workineh

Undergraduate Fellow, Plant Disease Team

“I was excited to go to urban, suburban and rural sites of St. Louis. It was appealing to me because I am from St. Louis and though I feel like I know my city, I want to learn more about it. Seeing the different areas and how different plants respond in the different areas is really cool.” 

Ruth Workineh is a St. Louisan who is getting to know her city better while also getting hands-on research experience for the first time. She is on Team Plant Disease which has multiple projects including garden bed experiments and park surveys. 

“At the garden beds we are measuring the plants, seeing how much mildew is on them, and counting the number of stems. At the park sites, we are looking for the different Plantago [species] and how they show up in bunches. At first I struggled at the park sites because you need to be able to sift through the grass and identify Plantago. I preferred the garden beds initially because I'm more of a meticulous person. With time and experience, I came to like the park sites more. It became fun to think, ‘Oh, there's this patch of Plantago right next to a tree. Oh, there's mildew right there. I wonder where else it is.’” 

Ruth enjoys the breadth of work she does on Team Plant Disease, and it has opened her eyes to what research entails. 

“I get the experience of a controlled science experiment, but I also get to observe in the park surveys. When you read a science article and they write, ‘In this plot we did X, Y, and Z,’ it sounds so controlled. I wondered what that shows up as, in real life. Now that I'm doing that, I understand there still can be uncertainty in controlled experiments. There are extra variables, which is kind of crazy to realize, but that is the reality of science research.”