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I have two big projects right now.

1. Predators can stress out their prey. Imagine if you were walking in the woods and you heard wolves all around you.  Insects get stressed too when the hear or smell or feel big predator bugs nearby. Some of them hide, or try and run/fly away while others make themselves poisonous. I study ways that humans can use predator smells to scare away the insects that eat our food supply.  Right now I am working on the Colorado Potato Beetle. That little guy loves eating the plants we need to make potato chips, mashed potatoes and french fries.

One of the great things about using predators to scare away pests is that farmers don’t need to use as much pesticide. Much better for the environment!

A Manduca caterpillar senses a spined soldier bug and rears back t protect its self.

This spinied soldier bug has had part of its straw like mouth cut off so that it cant eat other bugs.

This spined soldier bug has caught a Colorado Potato Beetle larvae and is sucking out its insides.

2. I am also studying how plants communicate through huge underground fungi networks. Its not quite as fast or effective as sending a text, but plants can connect to a huge network of fungi called mycorrhizal fungi. The plants and fungi have a mutualistic relationship where the fungi grows into the plant’s roots and helps it absorb water and nutrients from the soil. In trade, the plant gives the fungus sugar (not a bad deal). It turns out that, since each fungus connects to lots of plants, the plants can send signals to each other. If an insect starts chewing on one plant it can send out a signal to the other plants to get their defenses ready.

As a first year graduate student I still have to take classes, so my typical day involves classes and homework and group projects, but I also get to do some research too. Once it starts getting warm I will be planting potatoes on farms and watching to see which pests come to try to eat them.

I come up with new methods of research, which mostly involves a lot of building so I spend a lot of time gluing together rubber tubes, jam jars, aquarium filters and bits of cut up screen.

Some of my days involve lots of intense brain storming and planning, but many require hours of mindless tasks that a trained monkey could do. I once spent a month and a half counting bumps on the roots of 600 plants. I like switching back and forth between the the high and low thinking days. Constantly thinking, planning and coming up with new ideas is exhausting so its nice to let my brain take a break. Once I start getting bored, its time to start thinking again. The long stretches of mindless activity let me listen to music and my favorite podcasts or daydream about cool superpowers.

We also have awesome Halloween parties.

A lot of adults dislike and fear insects. I believe that if they get to see and hold amazing insect as children they won’t be afraid as adults. I will use the money to buy insects that underprivileged classrooms can use as pets to learn more about insect and see that they aren’t all dangerous and scary.

Many schools and teachers rely too much on dry, boring lectures. Science is a fun, hands on process. giving students cool insect that they can hold and interact with will help them realize that science is more than textbooks and powerpoints. I would get mantises and stick insects and tarantulas (I know they aren’t really insects), and rainbow dung beetles and hissing cockroaches and whip scorpions(also not really insects but still cool) and  rhinoceros beetles.