Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  US Department of Agriculture

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  General biology and botany, molecular systematics, molecular and general genetics, plant tissue culture, biotechnological applications to plant improvement, genomics, conservation.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is best about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  Discovery

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is best about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  Interacting with other scientists

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  Do you have advice for students about preparing for a science career?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  Seek advice when you need it.

  
  
• Availability

  I am NOT available, please temporarily remove me from the available mentor list

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

hhssnellingfall2017 project 7 Robert L Jarret Dec 11, 2017

Few scientist (that I know) work on only one project. Many work on several with various timelines (short-term, medium-term, and long-term). A long-term project might be 5 years or longer. Short term perhaps 6 months or a year. Working with plants is…

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Few scientist (that I know) work on only one project. Many work on several with various timelines (short-term, medium-term, and long-term). A long-term project might be 5 years or longer. Short term perhaps 6 months or a year. Working with plants is a bit different than say working with bacteria. If the plant requires two years to mature before it can be used or data taken - obviously the project is going to take > 2 years. 

Your experiment has some merit - if you can accurately control things. Remember to replicate all your treatments- extremely important. You might look at another aspect of this - how much air is required to allow for germination to occur (and think about how you are going to determine when germination is complete).  I'll look into this and get back to you. 

 

hhssnellingfall2017 project 7 Robert L Jarret Dec 7, 2017

Bob is fine with me.  Science can definitely be an exciting career choice.  I graduated from Purdue. It's good school. In a way - being a scientist is like being an explorer. You are are constantly looking for things or studying things…

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Bob is fine with me.  Science can definitely be an exciting career choice.  I graduated from Purdue. It's good school. In a way - being a scientist is like being an explorer. You are are constantly looking for things or studying things that are unique and/or not understood. There are opportunities to be creative.  There are many good schools to choose from. If you are thinking a career in science - then that means graduate school. Which graduate school is 'best' depends on what field of study you choose.  At an undergraduate level - it would be advantageous to have opportunities to get real hands-on lab/research experience - usually working as a lab/project team member. In that sense, a research-intensive university might provide a greater number of opportunities.  However, most all universities have some faculty members with an active research program. Seek them out.        

hhssnellingfall2017 project 7 Robert L Jarret Dec 5, 2017

HI, I'm a scientist with the USDA. I work with plants (mostly) in the areas of genetics/genomics and plant biology in a conservation-oriented program.  BJ