MARGARET SWIFT
  • home
  • about
  • cv & pubs
  • research =
    • rare antelope population crash and non-recovery
    • how water access drives antelope movements
    • undergraduate work
  • communication =
    • free lesson plans & tutorials
    • 2022 gradx ted talk
    • 2023 savanna science
    • skype a scientist
    • science writing
  • decoloniality & dei =
    • decolonizing my science
    • my land acknowledgements
    • going beyond land acknowledgement
    • reading list
  • art =
    • short fiction
    • nature photography
    • portraits
  • blog

Advice, Reflections &
Reports from the Field

On the eve of my first trip to South Africa

9/10/2021

13 Comments

 
Picture
It's finally happening!

If you'd asked me even a month ago whether I'd have a chance to visit the Kruger National Park this fall, I'd have thought you were pulling my leg. And yet, somehow, I was able to get my paperwork and vaccines together, book flights, and get ready to embark on my first-ever international research trip. I'm incredibly excited to have the chance to go and meet my PhD research goals, especially during a global pandemic. COVID-19 has done a number on my academic plans, my motivation, and my mental health, so this opportunity is a welcome break from long-term pandemic stress and anxiety.

I'll be on site for about a month, taking a course on savanna ecology field skills and helping set up a research site on drought effects on savanna vegetation. I'm looking at the course schedule now and just can't believe my eyes---hands-on field work mixed with lectures and other activities? Plans to go out in the field almost every day? A chance to meet all these awesome researchers that I have only been Zoom-ing with so far? It's an absolute dream.

Look forward to more pictures and research thoughts to come. In recent weeks I really have been hitting my stride after a major overhaul of my study techniques and a fresh dollop of academic motivation, and I'm truly grateful and excited that I'll get to see this place in action and meet with collaborators for the first time. For a long while I've been doubting whether I really can make it in academia, and this trip is coming at just the right time to help me figure this out.

Oh, and of course, a month at a world-class research station on an African savanna will be incredibly awesome. There's that, too.

***
​
This research funding comes in part from Duke University's Data Expeditions fellowship I earned for my work on eBird data with co-author Lane Scher. I am incredibly grateful for the team at Kruger for the opportunity to take this course, and to my Graduate Research Fellowship support from the NSF (see previous blog post). I also note here that all research and travel will be taking place with strict masking and COVID-19 sanitation guidelines, and that I have followed Duke University's vaccination and weekly surveillance testing protocol. Taking an international trip during a pandemic is not something I do lightly.
13 Comments

    A blog full of field and research reflections & hopefully-helpful advice

    Categories

    All
    Advice
    NSF GRFP
    Reflections
    Research
    South Africa

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    August 2022
    April 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    March 2021
    January 2020
    December 2019

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • home
  • about
  • cv & pubs
  • research =
    • rare antelope population crash and non-recovery
    • how water access drives antelope movements
    • undergraduate work
  • communication =
    • free lesson plans & tutorials
    • 2022 gradx ted talk
    • 2023 savanna science
    • skype a scientist
    • science writing
  • decoloniality & dei =
    • decolonizing my science
    • my land acknowledgements
    • going beyond land acknowledgement
    • reading list
  • art =
    • short fiction
    • nature photography
    • portraits
  • blog