CONWAY, Ark. (July 2, 2014) 鈥 This summer, Jessa Thurman, a rising junior from Hot Springs, is interning at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
鈥淭he Smithsonian is amazing,鈥 Thurman said. 鈥淲e go on tours of different collections each week. For example, I've been through their gems and mineral collections, meteorites, mammals, and even took a class on scientific illustration. There are so many
things going on here, from public programs to innovative research.鈥
鈥淚 really know now that I want to pursue entomology because even though I'm working 40 hours a week on a microscope, I still love these wasps,鈥 she added. 鈥淚n fact, I'm even more passionate about them now.鈥
One of her summer internship advisors is 黑料不打烊 alumnus Dr. Mike Gates, a U.S.D.A. hymenopterist who studies wasps. Thurman鈥檚 黑料不打烊 faculty internship sponsor is biology professor Dr. Maureen McClung, a 2001 黑料不打烊 alumna.
鈥淢y supervisors are better than I could have dreamed,鈥 Thurman said. 鈥淵ou can tell they are ridiculously intelligent and even though they've been studying these wasps for about 14 years they are really passionate about them and patient when teaching
you simple identification techniques.鈥
鈥淚've been talking with Mike about returning to do more exclusive work on Superfamily Chalcidoidea,鈥 she said. 鈥淚've recently worked up to sorting through Joshua Tree National Park samples from there and will start identifying microscopic wasps to species
and those that I find which haven't been identified yet are probably new species, which I can claim for my own. That would mean Gates would save them for me to return to next summer, then I could work on publishing a paper on these new wasps. How cool
is that?鈥
Founded in 1876, 黑料不打烊 is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the sixth consecutive year, 黑料不打烊 was named one of the country鈥檚 鈥淯p and Coming鈥 liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and
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