By Levi McGarry, College of Arts and Sciences
Graduate students from around Washington State University descended onto the Pullman campus for the School of the Environment (SOE) Spring Research Weekend in late April. The gathering was coordinated by the SOE Graduate Student Association and welcomed environmental graduate students from across the WSU campuses and research extension centers (RECs).
The event was conceived five years ago as an Earth Day celebration for SOE graduate students, but with so much environmental research happening across the state, an opportunity emerged to support early-career researchers through interdisciplinary discussions and conversations.
“Spring Research Weekend is designed to bring the SOE students together to share research and build community,” said Kelechi Ibeh, president of the SOE Graduate Student Association. “It’s our way of combining professional development with informal engagements in a way that makes our research more visible and collaborative.”
This year’s gathering included tours of research labs and spaces such as the WSU Dairy Center and the WSU Bear Research, Education, and Conservation Center. It also included the SOE departmental picnic on Saturday, where faculty, staff, and students were recognized for their work this past year.
One of the key activities was the 5-Minute Thesis presentations among SOE graduate students. This year, Nathan Ivy won first place for “Rethinking Roadkill: Traffic Pollution as a Driver of Mass Mortality and Developmental Disruption”, while Amanda Laverty took second place for “Atmospheric Drivers of Compound Climate Extremes” and Samuel Hall Wilson took third place for “Re-burn Drivers in Wet Pacific Northwest Forests”.
“We try to alternate topics during those five-minute talks, so we’ll have a geology review followed by someone studying aquatic biology, and then another researcher studying paleoclimatology,” said Summer Lockhart, PhD candidate. “The School of the Environment has a broad research portfolio, and we wanted to create an opportunity for our graduate students to be able to hear about closely related research happening throughout the school. It has really fostered more interdisciplinary work.”
Ibeh, the graduate student association president, is enthusiastic about the support and reception for the Spring Research Weekend. “We need events like this to help students see themselves as something larger than their individual research projects,” he said. “When we understand each other’s work, collaboration becomes natural.”