Graduate students are never supposed to admit this, but sometimes their work can start to feel a bit removed. The field work is fun, the lab results are fascinating, but there are times when it’s hard to remember how it all relates to the big picture issues that attracted them to the field in the first place.
This year’s University Club Fellowship recipient, Anne Guerry, has always felt it was important to balance theoretical research, which she loves, with science that has a more immediate impact. She chose OSU five years ago because she found a lab where she could create the ideal mix. "I wanted to get at some of the ’why’ questions around species patterns, which you get studying experimental community ecology. But I was also interested in ecology that could be applied to conservation. Here, I have two advisors who represent those two sides. Bruce Menge is a community ecologist who helps me understand the ecological context of my work, while Jane Lubchenco helps me to think about the broader relevance of that work."
Anne’s PhD research is based in the rocky intertidal areas along the coasts of Oregon and New Zealand. She has tackled a longstanding problem in ecology: assessing the relative importance of the factors that determine biological diversity. By designing an experimental framework to test the effects of grazing and productivity on algal diversity, she will provide important insight on how diversity responds to these two processes. She believes that understanding such basic issues is key to designing plans for conservation and management.
"The rocky intertidal is a great model system for a lot of ecological questions," Anne says. "Things happen on a small spatial scale, and you can figure out what’s going on relatively easily. So I decided it would be a good place to test some of the theories about why we have lots of species in some places and few species in others."
Anne’s advisors call her research insightful and cutting-edge, predicting it will have high significance within the field. "She has an intuitive feel for what is truly important about a topic or problem, and is gifted in her ability to translate complex scientific information in an understandable and salient fashion," says Dr. Lubchenco. "This woman is a star in the making."
Dr. Menge points out that in addition to her own thesis work, Anne has found the time to carry out three additional research efforts related to her interests. She has had papers published in three top-tier, peer-reviewed journals, and has received a number of important awards, including a prestigious National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. "Anne is an outstanding young scientist, and has demonstrated a real knack for asking interesting questions, devising ways to answer them, and carrying the study through to completion," he says.
Along with this scientific talent, Anne has a personal warmth that makes her a natural mentor, and she accepts that role with enthusiasm. She is especially committed to encouraging other young women in the sciences, in recognition of the mentoring she herself has enjoyed throughout her life.
"I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment where I didn’t feel any sort of discrimination as a girl interested in the sciences," she says. "I feel like I can pass that along in two ways - one, by being a role model myself, and two, by encouraging women to break the mold even if they don’t see any women role models in the fields they want to enter."
Anne loves teaching, and has seen how powerful instruction can be when combined with hands-on research activities. She received rave reviews as lead instructor for a week-long course for a hand-picked group of undergraduates at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. "Most of the teachers who stand out in my mind are people who are passionate about what they’re doing," she says. "I hope that’s something I bring to the classroom. When I’m sharing something I really care about, it makes teaching easy."
Throughout her graduate career, Anne has taken advantage of opportunities she’s had to reach beyond her thesis research toward applications in conservation science. Several years ago, she was involved in putting together a database of information relevant to the management of Oregon’s coastal waters, combining ecological and socio-economic information for use by policy makers. More recently, she gave a presentation at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on ecologically based management of marine systems - a huge leap from her study of the diversity of seaweed communities. "That was a good reminder for me that my experiments are contributing to the larger whole," she says.
As she settles into the final stages of her dissertation, Anne has started contemplating the next phase of her career. "I’m blessed and cursed with the perception that there are lots of directions I could go," she says. "I can see myself working for a non-governmental organization doing applied conservation, and I can see myself teaching and doing research at a university - and a lot of things in between."
