Dr. Margaret Swift
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    • antelope behaviors on a changing landscape
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Maggie's blog

Advice, Reflections &
Reports from the Field

On the eve of my first trip to South Africa

9/10/2021

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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.
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​Margaret Swift
Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow
Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health
Cornell University
​Ithaca, New York, USA
  • home
  • about
  • cv & publications
  • research =
    • introduction to african savannas
    • ✭ simulating african elephant movements on a fenced landscape ✭
    • mapping waterholes in africa's largest conservation area
    • antelope behaviors on a changing landscape
  • outreach =
    • public talks
    • lesson plans & tutorials
    • teaching statement
    • nsf grfp advice
    • science writing
    • skype a scientist
  • perspectives =
    • those who made me
    • where i live & work
    • decolonization
    • land-grab universities
    • going beyond land acknowledgement
    • asexuality, imposter syndrome, and belonging
    • reading lists
  • art =
    • short stories
    • poetry
    • photography
    • portraits
  • blog