In other good news, I’ve had
a bit of professional success lately. A few weeks ago Dr. Charles Brown, a
professor at the University of Tulsa and the advisor I worked under as a summer
research assistant in Nebraska in 2008, emailed me with a draft of a manuscript
he and one of his students have been working on. The manuscript, which is about
net avoidance in cliff swallows, is based off the independent project Ananda
Ellis and I did as assistants back in 2008 and that I presented at the American
Ornithologists’ Union meeting in 2009. As such, I will be a co-author on the
paper. My first academic paper in a scientific journal! Charles has submitted
it to the journal PLoS ONE, so keep your fingers crossed that it will be
accepted and published soon!
I was also asked by Steve
Bourne to write an article about my research on the Southern Bent-wing Bat for
the Journal of the Australasian
Cave and Karst Management
Association. I have just submitted the article so will soon have another
published paper (although this one will be less “scientific” and will also
include information about my community outreach projects here in Naracoorte).
In addition to the ACKMA journal article, another article about my Fulbright
project was published in Issue 36 of the Fulbright U.S. Student Grantee
Newsletter last week. This newsletter features articles written by current U.S.
Fulbright Scholars abroad and is a great way to learn about other scholars’
projects. Here’s a link to my article, titled “Going Batty in Oz: Conservation
of the Critically Endangered Southern Bent-wing Bat in South Australia”:
I have also been fortunate
enough to have another radio interview with the ABC South East SA, this time
for the Saturday morning program with Lucy Richards. It was quite funny because
when I spoke with Ms. Richards about doing the interview, I wrote down I had to
be ready at 6:45am on Saturday (she would call me on my phone and we’d do the
interview live over the phone). However, for some reason I swear she had said
to be ready by 5:45am, despite the fact that I’d written 6:45am. So just to be
safe, I got up at 5:15 that morning. Of course the interview time was 6:45, so
I had to sit around waiting for an hour, which just made me even more nervous.
Ah well, I think it went fairly well, especially since it was my first live radio
interview.
In more community outreach
happenings, I was asked by DENR to give several bat presentations to the
students at the Naracoorte
High School. Of course I
said yes! I love talking about bats to people, especially students. I presented
to four Year 9 classes over two days in early March. It was perfect timing
because the students were beginning their unit on ecology, so my presentation
fit right in. I focused on bat diversity and how they help the ecosystem, as
well as presented information on bats and bat habitat right here in Naracoorte.
The kids seemed very interested (they especially liked when I showed them the taxidermy-preserved
Southern Bent-wing Bat) and they asked lots of questions. I had a great time
presenting and I’m hoping to do some more coming up!
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