Peru: Zelin Shen (Career Connections)

Program: SFS Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon, Spring

During my time here in Peru, Key skills I developed in this program include field data collection, real-world data analysis, field photography in remote locations, and, most importantly, experiencing the full thesis process from proposal to final paper. As someone seeking a deeper academic career in Entomology, these skills are extremely valuable.

For our study on environmental impacts on bats in agroforestry regions, my group proposed to examine how bat flies interact with their environment and bat hosts. During data collection, we camped for four days in the forest without electricity, capturing bats and bat flies.

This experience taught me which equipment is essential for field photography and how to work in remote conditions, while also giving me firsthand insight into collecting data in the tropics. 

After coming back from the field, we identified bat flies collected to genus, and using R Studio, explored the necessary steps needed to process real-world data. Unlike in a controlled environment back on campus, most of our environmental data were abnormal. Data cleaning, processing, and interpretation all require different workflows. This is an extremely valuable experience as it helped me bridge what I learned back on campus as a statistics student to processing real-world data, where not everything is ideal.

Moving beyond the program, in the future, I hope to utilize these skills I have gained as both an entomologist, a photographer, and a statistician to highlight the world of insects, previously unseen by most, and document them with my photography skills to share with the broader world.