Profile

• Time Zone

  Pacific

  
  
• Organization

  The University of British Columbia

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I work in community ecology focusing on food webs and nutrient cycling in decomposition. My work spans bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and plants. I try to understand how these systems are structured and what happens when they come under stress or are changed. My work focuses on aquatic decomposition and plants are what sustain these systems and provide the link between aquatic and terrestrial systems. I explore how differences in leaf chemistry impacts the whole decomposition process.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is best about being a scientist?

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

  There are lots of amazing things about being a scientist, but one of my favourite things is just getting to know things. Even though you work on very specific questions, you get to discover something that nobody else knows in the world and you get to share it and add to collective knowledge.
  
  My other favourite thing is being able to travel and experience so many cool places. I get to travel to conferences around the country and sometimes internationally. My work often takes me to the field, and I've worked all over Quebec, in Eastern Ontario, and in Costa Rica. The bonds you make when working in the field are not like anything else. There are so many amazing opportunities.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is a typical day like for you?

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

  There really isn't a typical day. My schedule changes depending where I am in my experiments. I can spend days reading scientific articles and writing proposals and protocols, I can be working on presentations and talks, I go to weekly meetings for my lab and department, and often I have prep work for my teaching assistant position. If I am in the field, I am often visiting my field sites and conducting experiments. I usually work long days, from 7:30 in the morning until 9 or 10 at night. There is lots of hiking and working with insects and plants and avoiding stinging insects and poisonous snakes.
  
  In the lab I have lots of supplies I order and run tests to see what the chemical make up of leaves are and to extract DNA to identify bacteria and fungi that may be growing on those leaves. This often involves repeating the same processes over and over again and getting through my podcast backlog.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What lessons have you learned in your career about how science works?

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

  I have learned that science never works the way you think it will. Projects always hit roadblocks and things go completely differently from what you expect. It also takes 3 times longer than you think it will. Learning how to be prepared for everything as well as being flexible and responding to the situation in front of you is one of the most important lessons I will take away from my graduate work.

  
  
• Help represent the outreach efforts of your societies. Please click all those organizations you are a member of:

  Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution

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

  1

  
  

Recent Posts

thicc bisque Natalie Elena Westwood Nov 16, 2017

Thanks so much!  You seem to have a very thorough experiment.

thicc bisque Natalie Elena Westwood Nov 16, 2017

I think it's important to think about how the photosynthesis process works.  When does the Calvin Cycle happen in the plant you used?  Does it happen when the light reactions happen or at a delayed time?

thicc bisque Natalie Elena Westwood Nov 10, 2017

Whenever I get results I don't expect I try to think about how my steps might have influenced the results.  So you added soap before baking soda.  Why do you think the soap would interfere with the baking soda?  Did you have…

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Whenever I get results I don't expect I try to think about how my steps might have influenced the results.  So you added soap before baking soda.  Why do you think the soap would interfere with the baking soda?  Did you have replicates and did this happen to every leaf disk you used?  Was anything else different (i.e. the amount of time between adding the leaf and adding the baking soda compared to when you breathed into the cup?