scientist — Blog — Nichole M Tiernan, PhD

Learning outside the classroom is something we’re all growing more accustomed to at the moment. The coronavirus crisis has plunged us all into a new world where we are adapting, ready or not. I am inspired by new initiatives for informal education and reflecting on my own non-traditional learning environments. I am also grieving the missed opportunity to return to my favorite field-based classroom, Costa Rica. In June of 2016 I was accepted into the Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS) graduate Tropical Plant Systematics Course in Costa Rica, a research-based field program. This summer, I was invited back as a Teaching Assistant, but alas, the course has been cancelled. Since I can’t be there this summer I’m just going to dream of being back there.

Lightning Talks and an Evening Walk

After working with the Fairchild Challenge and having had a very non-linear path towards science, I saw a unique opportunity to connect high school students with current graduate students. My experience as someone with a desire to pursue a career in science while not necessarily knowing how to go about it prompted me to create and host the Lightning Talks and Evening Walk student workshop. Last week was Fairchild’s second annual event where 30 high school students had the opportunity to hear from six graduate students from FIU and UM about their path to science.

Summer Interns

Two interns were selected from a pool of applicants to work along side me and learn the molecular techniques that have been the basis of my Ph.D. research. They learned how to extract plant DNA from leaves, use PCR to target specific gene regions, Cycle Sequencing to get the DNA sequence of the targeted gene region and were introduced to next-generation sequencing.

Blog

Blog posts were written as part of the Phipps Botany in Action Fellowship