Seeing the world through its study

Posted on by Zoe Sims

Bermuda is built on the backs of corals. Or it would be, if corals had backs.

Low-lying, wind-resistant vegetation thrives on the island's sandy cliffs.
Low-lying, wind-resistant vegetation thrives on the island’s sandy cliffs.

They don’t. Coral don’t have vertebrae, or heads, or eyes. An entire coral organism – a polyp – is one single, tentacle-ringed cavity, one cavern that is mouth, stomach, and anus combined. Yet these tiny animals are powerful: together, their colonies can grow meters tall, producing hard, rock-like skeletons that form the backbones of coral reefs.

Though perhaps better known for its pink-sand beaches and international banking, Bermuda is also home to spectacular coral reefs. And the low-lying rock island is a monument to the power of calcifying organisms and geological time.

Bermuda from above: the island's northern tip, with outlying patch reefs (the dark spots) visible under the water.
Bermuda from above: the island’s northern tip, with outlying patch reefs (the dark spots) visible under the water.

This is how my adviser, Anne Cohen, explained it to me when I first arrived in Bermuda. It became the way I saw the island, and changed how I saw coral: I began, like Anne and many other researchers, to see my study organisms as the center of my world. Continue reading Seeing the world through its study

Taking Thematic Classes Abroad

Posted on by Vidushi Sharma

Greetings from Dunedin, New Zealand, my home till June this semester as I study at the University of Otago!

I flew in yesterday morning after a quick orientation in Auckland, where I met the other students in my study abroad program, run by the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University. During the orientation, our friends and mentors from New Zealand (called “kiwis”!) stressed the importance of taking at least one class related to the culture, languages, or history of New Zealand. In retrospect, this seems obvious– but I hadn’t thought about this throughout my Princeton course approval process.

A peek inside a Maori meeting house in the Auckland War Memorial Museum!
A peek inside a Maori meeting house in the Auckland War Memorial Museum! Image by Vidushi Sharma. 

Continue reading Taking Thematic Classes Abroad

Sorcery or Science? The Value of Subjective Research

Posted on by Dylan Blau Edelstein

In an ideal world, research is pretty straightforward. Evidence is collected, synthesized, and analyzed. Meaning emerges. Results point to objective truth.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned from the first two weeks of ANT 301 (The Ethnographer’s Craft), it’s that research is often far from this ideal. Ethnography, at its core, is a subjective science. But that does not discount its intellectual value.

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We recently read Harry G. West’s Ethnographic Sorcery, an account of West’s research in Mueda, Mozambique, where he studied sorcery as a prominent belief system. In short, Muedans believe that there are sorcerers among them who turn into lions and claim innocent lives. Early in the book, West recounts a conference he held to bounce his ideas off of community members. There, he presented a theory: we may understand these lion-people as metaphors for power play in society. An awkward hush took over the room before a schoolteacher spoke up. “I think you misunderstand,” he said. “These lions that you talk about … they aren’t symbols — they’re real.”

The case of the lion-people as metaphors reveals a problem of subjectivity: interpretations are often based on vastly distinct epistemologies, or ways of understanding the world. West acknowledges that calling lion-people metaphors is a fallacy because it dismisses local belief systems. In other words, viewing aspects of other cultures as metaphors rather than truth is a way of holding Western values above others.

Continue reading Sorcery or Science? The Value of Subjective Research

The Project That Made Me a Researcher: Rain in the rainforest

Posted on by Zoe Sims

Over the course of the semester, PCURs will explain how they found their place in research. We present these to you as a series called The Project That Made Me a Researcher. As any undergraduate knows, the transition from ‘doing a research project’ to thinking of yourself as a researcher is an exciting and highly individualized phenomenon. Here, Zoe shares her story.

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The flooded trail
Fording the flooded trail on our first morning in the field.

It was my first full day in Costa Rica. The dawn chorus of howler monkeys and quavering calls of Great Tinamou awakened us to a morning of intermittent showers, but no thunder — a good start, by rainforest standards.

Shouldering our backpacks, Cleo (my summer mentor) and I headed to the field, biking along the forest trail until a fallen tree forced us to leave our bikes and walk to the mud-slick path where some of Cleo’s study saplings grew. She had been tracking these trees for a year and half as part of her Ph. D.

Everything that morning felt strange and new: my heavy snakeproof boots, the dripping forest canopy, the squish of mud and fallen leaves beneath my feet. This was not my first time in a forest, nor my first time doing research. But it was my first time doing research like this – research that I lived from dawn until I fell asleep. Continue reading The Project That Made Me a Researcher: Rain in the rainforest

Getting Ready to Research Abroad!

Posted on by Vidushi Sharma

Last semester, Jalisha studied abroad in London and wrote about her experiences on the PCUR blog. Aside from finishing up papers and exams, I’m getting ready to head abroad myself — to the University of Otago in New Zealand! I wanted to share some tips on how to choose your study abroad location, and how to prepare for a semester of research away from Princeton (both of which add to Jalisha’s great advice).

Lake Marian in Fiordland National Park, NZ! My friend Hema Lochan '16 took this photo during her semester abroad.
Lake Marian in Fiordland National Park, NZ! My friend Hema Lochan ’16 took this photo during her semester abroad.

Continue reading Getting Ready to Research Abroad!

The Search for Life Work: Netting Bats in Madagascar

Posted on by Zoe Sims

“My friends, family, and classmates sometimes ask me why I do the things I do,” muses Ph.D. student Cara Brook in a recent NatGeo blog post. “Why do I spend so much time in remote corners of the world, tracking lethal viruses in enormous bats?”

In its broader form, this is a question all researchers can relate to: not just why she is so passionate, but how she found such passion for her particular research. How can we ever choose one question, of all the world’s exciting unknowns, for a thesis, or Ph.D., or career?

Cara and a Malagasy fruit bat pose in the field
Cara and a Malagasy fruit bat pose in the field.

Cara and I met up in a campus coffee shop – each of us, like good ecologists, bringing a reusable mug – and I asked Cara how she came to her research. Over the past four years, Cara has spent more time in Madagascar than in Princeton. In the field, she camps in the remote wilderness, traps fruit bats, and collects samples of their blood, hair, and (sometimes) teeth, to trace the paths of pathogens through populations. Cara has sacrificed much – warm showers, wi-fi, and uninterrupted sleep, to start – for her research. How did she find a question that drives her so deeply? Continue reading The Search for Life Work: Netting Bats in Madagascar

The Project That Made Me a Researcher: Engineer or researcher—why not both?

Posted on by Stacey Huang

Over the course of the semester, PCURs will explain how they found their place in research. We present these to you as a series called The Project That Made Me a Researcher. As any undergraduate knows, the transition from ‘doing a research project’ to thinking of yourself as a researcher is an exciting and highly individualized phenomenon. Here, Stacey shares her story.

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Engineers don’t really do research, right? They just build systems.

A messy first draft of a circuit I was building the summer of my sophomore year.
A messy first draft of a circuit I was building the summer of my sophomore year.

Those were my thoughts when, in my high school years, I pondered my future career path as an engineer. I had always believed research was only about discovering new information on how the world works. To me, it was a pursuit limited to natural and social science PhDs (who, more often than not in my mind, were clad in white lab coats). Even coming to Princeton, I found it difficult to believe that as an aspiring engineer I would need to conduct much research. As I slowly became more involved in research, I realized it was something I was interested in pursuing further. However, my limited knowledge of technical fields combined with my relative lack of experience made me a little hesitant about my ability to follow that goal. It wasn’t until a project I worked on in Germany (during my sophomore summer) that I first felt like a true researcher.

Continue reading The Project That Made Me a Researcher: Engineer or researcher—why not both?

Accessing Princeton’s Resources: Just an Email Away

Posted on by Dylan Blau Edelstein

Princeton has an incredible wealth of resources dedicated especially to undergrads. But where are these resources, really? And how do we gain access to them? In my experience, the key to getting resources and advice is to simply ask.

Towards the end of my freshman year, I knew I was going to do the month-long Princeton in Brazil language program in Rio de Janeiro. I wanted to spend the rest of the summer there, too, but wasn’t sure how to do it. I couldn’t afford three months abroad by myself — and, even if I had the money, how would I fill the time?

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I spent the summer after my freshman year and had my first experience traveling outside of North America!

My Portuguese professor knew I was interested in queer studies, and recommended I talk to Professor James Green, a visiting professor from Brown with the Program in Latin American Studies. She told me he was an expert in the field. I felt awkward reaching out to a professor I didn’t know, but I sent an email introducing myself, explaining my interests, and hoping to set up a time to talk.

He agreed to meet with me a week later, and — much to my surprise — I walked out of his office with an offer to be his research assistant for the summer in Rio. It was an exciting opportunity — and exactly what I needed to apply for summer funding.

Continue reading Accessing Princeton’s Resources: Just an Email Away

What distribution classes will make me a better researcher?

Posted on by Bennett McIntosh

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How do I square my research with my class schedule — and content?

The University of Sussex, where I spent my Junior Spring, is like many European universities in that its three-year undergraduate courses are focused nearly exclusively upon one subject. Whether they wanted to or not, the third-year chemists I studied with there could never have sampled from the broad menu of courses I have at Princeton. Seeing the alternative, I am more-than-ever grateful to be at a liberal arts university where even the most technical-minded engineers can – indeed must – explore topics far afield from their specialties. As with all exploration, I have found some electives more fruitful than others. But many non-technical classes have been incredibly useful in honing my ability to communicate my research, collaborate with researchers from around the world, and understand the political and philosophical implications of my work. Continue reading What distribution classes will make me a better researcher?

A Guide to Summer Research Opportunities

Posted on by Stacey Huang

Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) graciously provided me funding one summer to conduct research in Germany.
Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) graciously provided me funding one summer to conduct research in Germany.

Now that the year is in full swing and you’ve settled in with academic life, you might be starting to think about the next step (after you’ve tackled your midterms, of course). With fall break behind us, it’s a great time to start thinking about and applying for summer opportunities. It can be simultaneously exciting and overwhelming to think about starting your search, but happily enough (and perhaps equally overwhelming), Princeton itself offers a vast array of summer opportunities, which are a good place to start.

Below is a non-exhaustive guide to summer research and abroad experiences offered through Princeton that I’m aware of, designed to help make the process a little easier. Due to my background, the list is probably more relevant to science and engineering majors, but either way, I hope you’ll find some information that is valuable for your internship search. I’ve grouped them loosely according to domestic and abroad opportunities.

Continue reading A Guide to Summer Research Opportunities