In this installment of Field Notes, we talk to Monica O’Reilly. Monica is a Masters student in the Public Policy and Administration program at CSU, concentrating in International Policy and Management. After receiving her Bachelors in zoology, Monica quickly realized that public policy and administration is at the forefront of social and environmental change, leading her here to CSU. We chat about her internship with the Global Livingston Institute (GLI), her interest in decolonizing development, and her hopes to travel to Uganda this January for an immersion trip with GLI focused on best practices in community development.

In this installment of Field Notes, we chat with Nelson Mwangi, a PhD candidate in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. Originally from Kenya, Nelson is using his PhD to continue his work as a Tracking Manager at Save the Elephants to understand elephant space use. During our conversation, we discuss the challenges of being an international student during a global pandemic as well as the complicated nature of achieving human-elephant coexistence.

In this segment of Field Notes, we chat with PhD candidate Joy Enyinnaya. Originally from Abia State, Nigeria, Joy’s research focuses on the ways women entrepreneurs create business identities in online spaces as well as how they use the different affordances of technological platforms to negotiate and subvert patriarchal structures. We discuss what experiences led her to this research path, challenges she faced, and her future career goals.

In this segment, we talk to Dr. Brett Bruyere, an associate professor in the Warner College of Natural Resources. His research focuses on environmental education, environmental communication and planning in the context of natural or protected areas, sustainability planning and the training of conservation professionals. Internationally, he seeks to build capacity and improve conservation of wildlife and rangelands in East Africa. We chat about his work with pastoral women in Samburu, Kenya, the ethical considerations of conducting cross-cultural research, and more.

In this installment of Field Notes, we chat with PhD student Martha Bierut. Martha completed her MSc in Conservation Leadership at Colorado State University in 2019, and she is currently a PhD student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in Dr. Jon Salerno and Dr. Jen Solomon’s labs in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources department. As a conservation social scientist, Martha’s research explores elephant management and polycentric governance. In our interview, we talk about how she found her way to social science, the importance of collaborative research, and more.

In the latest installment of Field Notes, we chat with Masters student Monica Lasky, who is working with Dr. Sara Bombaci in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. Her research in Kruger National Park, South Africa uses human voice playbacks and camera traps to experimentally test how wildlife respond to anthropogenic disturbance. We speak about her recent trip to South Africa for ecological field research, some of the challenges of conducting cross-cultural research, and her achievement in receiving an NSF GRFP award.