Goodbye, Good Luck, and Good Riddance

As the field season comes to a close we say goodbye to our Conservation Research interns Amy and Suzanne. The Institute for Applied Ecology relies heavily on their interns during the summer to complete all their field work on time (before the plants senesce), as well as data entry, and greenhouse work. Our interns are an invaluable asset to the organization and each year we have difficulty saying goodbye.

Looking for Lomatium cookii in all the wrong places. Photo credit: Emma MacDonald.

As one of the 2014 IAE/NPSO interns, Amy Comstock has been a jack-of-all-trades, helping out anywhere the Conservation research Department needs things done. We began our field season in April, and have worked our way through fourteen field projects as well as mountains of data entry.
Our projects include Erigeron decumbens, Bromus sylvaticum, Fritillaria gentneri,  Sidalcea hendersonii, Lomatium cookii, Sidalcea nelsoniana, Lupinus oreganus, Astragalus mulfordiae, Cordylanthus maritimus ssp. palustris, Frasera umpquensis, Rubus bartonianus,

Entering data for Fitillaria gentneri. Photo credit: Emma MacDonald.

Amy’s cheery personality and positive attitude really pulled our crew together.
Amy Comstock will be leaving us to start graduate school at Oregon State University in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society (FES).This self-proclaimed “Bird Nerd” will be focusing on nesting habits of Purple Martin populations of Western Oregon.
Before school starts Amy will be taking a well-deserved respite from us continuously asking “Hey Amy, what bird is that?”Suzanne came to us as part of the Apprenticeships in Science and Engineering (ASE) program through Oregon State University and Saturday Academy. This program aims to connect high school students with local scientific and engineering companies to provide them with professional work experience. These students then create and present a synopsis of the summer’s efforts at a culminating symposium held at the University of Portland campus.

Over the course of her eight week internship with IAE, Suzanne assisted us with field research for our projects on Erigeron decumbens, Lupinus lepidus var. cusickii, Aster vialis, Cordylanthus maritimus ssp. palustris, and Lupinus oreganus. She was also our invaluable tech support for all of our cell phone and mp3 player problems. Suzanne is a superstar intern, braving fire and ice (on our trips to Eastern Oregon and Coos Bay, respectively) in the pursuit of ecological research. Getting to know her over these past eight weeks has been a real pleasure.We wish her luck  in all her future endeavors. For more information on the ASE program please visit their website.