Download 2023 CURE Booklet
Cait
While working in the CURE lab it has been eye opening to the world of soundscapes and behavior research. I researched how drones as the mode of observation could be used to better understand bottlenose dolphin behavior. The research is used to further the conservation efforts for marine animals. At first this class seemed daunting. In theory you're doing research from start to finish. I was surprised by the welcoming atmosphere and motivation that Laura gives you from the beginning to end of this course. I was able to prove to myself that even though you’ll go through many bumps in the road, doing this research gives you the chance to gain resilience and keep going. Knowing that we are a small part in something greater is rewarding. I am generally interested in human biology, but this course doesn’t just focus on a lesson about mammals, it's a learning opportunity to expand your knowledge on how to work on research and writing manuscripts that is a valuable tool and will be applicable in many work practices not just animal science! It opens your eyes to a world of possibilities for marine research and all the conservation efforts that need to be addressed and fought for.
I knew next to nothing about soundscapes or dolphin behavior and had zero experience with research. As much as I loved to watch dolphin behaviors and analyze the data collected, the technological side of things really pushed me to my limits. I used software, BORIS, that was new to this course, and I had plenty of trouble shooting along the way. The difficulties and setbacks faced with new software only challenges you to expand your knowledge. For me this course went beyond expectations and forced me to improve on problem solving skills to create a stronger work ethic. The setbacks only make the outcome that much more rewarding.
While developing these important skills you learn a lot about yourself. Doing research is not for the faint of heart, I came down with an illness that added to some challenges throughout the lab. While it hindered my working pace, the support and understanding that was given shows how amazing it is to work with people whose objective is to not just focus on the academia side of things but to develop a work life balance. I can’t thank Laura enough for showing how inspiring it can be for women working in STEM. The ability to look back at where I started and where I am is exciting and empowering to see. I will be taking the knowledge gained from this enriching experience into all my future endeavors.
I knew next to nothing about soundscapes or dolphin behavior and had zero experience with research. As much as I loved to watch dolphin behaviors and analyze the data collected, the technological side of things really pushed me to my limits. I used software, BORIS, that was new to this course, and I had plenty of trouble shooting along the way. The difficulties and setbacks faced with new software only challenges you to expand your knowledge. For me this course went beyond expectations and forced me to improve on problem solving skills to create a stronger work ethic. The setbacks only make the outcome that much more rewarding.
While developing these important skills you learn a lot about yourself. Doing research is not for the faint of heart, I came down with an illness that added to some challenges throughout the lab. While it hindered my working pace, the support and understanding that was given shows how amazing it is to work with people whose objective is to not just focus on the academia side of things but to develop a work life balance. I can’t thank Laura enough for showing how inspiring it can be for women working in STEM. The ability to look back at where I started and where I am is exciting and empowering to see. I will be taking the knowledge gained from this enriching experience into all my future endeavors.
Ariana
Coming into this lab, I was genuinely very frightened. I was petrified of not being smart enough or not having the experience in research necessary for my success in the course. When we started the process of drafting research topics and talking about our interests, anxiety hit me immediately. I felt like there was no way that I would get to the point that my peers were at; everyone seemed so prepared and so capable, and I just felt small. Finding companionship and friendship in the lab helped a lot with building confidence in myself, my ideas, and my work. Everyone in the lab felt unsure of themselves in some way, and building our community was, in part, one of our biggest successes as a group. As we started the research and I decided on a topic, the software was so daunting; I had never done anything like this before, let alone made such a big and clear time commitment to a course. Having to use unfamiliar software to analyze unfamiliar noises for 8-10 hours a week felt nearly impossible. Getting into the groove and finding the time was so difficult. As a student, I work 40-50 hours a week, so finding reasonable and accessible times for me to get myself in the lab was no easy feat. With time, I was able to get a solid schedule of when I’d go to the lab and was even able to coordinate with my lab mates on when we would all be there together.
The writing was difficult as well at the beginning, but as most things do, with time it got better. The consistent comments and help that were offered really encouraged me and everyone else to succeed. I am not great at scientific writing; it's definitely where some of my biggest weaknesses in this course lie, but whenever I needed help, it was readily available to me. Through this class, the research portion, the writing, and the general lab environment, I grew so much as a learner, educator, and human. Truly, I could not be more grateful. As a senior in college and an education major, I can honestly say that I have never been so excited to learn and go to a class. This course got me to really experience passion in a way I hadn’t ever gotten to before; I am both more excited than ever to teach students about what I’ve learned and to learn even more. I’ve now even thought a bit about pursuing a master's in Marine Biology in the future!
The writing was difficult as well at the beginning, but as most things do, with time it got better. The consistent comments and help that were offered really encouraged me and everyone else to succeed. I am not great at scientific writing; it's definitely where some of my biggest weaknesses in this course lie, but whenever I needed help, it was readily available to me. Through this class, the research portion, the writing, and the general lab environment, I grew so much as a learner, educator, and human. Truly, I could not be more grateful. As a senior in college and an education major, I can honestly say that I have never been so excited to learn and go to a class. This course got me to really experience passion in a way I hadn’t ever gotten to before; I am both more excited than ever to teach students about what I’ve learned and to learn even more. I’ve now even thought a bit about pursuing a master's in Marine Biology in the future!
Ella
I took this class to learn more about the impact of human activities on the ocean’s ecosystems and gain real research experience. I learned of Dr. May-Collado’s marine-acoustics lab through her class “Introduction to Marine Science,” but I had never done research before and had no idea what to expect. Through the work I did this semester I learned that a significant human threat to the ocean’s ecosystems is noise pollution by boats and shipping vessels. This was something completely new to me. I also learned that anthropogenic noise is increasing at an alarming rate, which makes me want to get involved in future research that can inform conservation efforts. One idea for building on my current research is to examine whether a) amplitude, or b) regularity of boat noise has a greater impact on marine mammals and invertebratesin coral reefs. This could lead to regulations on permitted boat-types in certain areas or perhaps limits to the number of boats allowed to frequent marinas. Regarding my day-to-day experience conducting research, I found there was a certain degree of subjectivity required in certain tasks. For instance, when I was marking the presence/absence of sounds at my study site (fish, boats, whales, etc.), sometimes a sound on the recorder was unclear or disguised by a passing boat, which required me to make a decision as to what to mark it as in my records. It was tough to establish a common method for dealing with these moments, and more than once I had to reopen previous sound files to make sure I was staying consistent. I developed my own strategy, though I would have liked to see how my classmates collected presence/absence data to see if they had discovered a more accurate or efficient method. Overall, I learned to rely on my competency and to trust that I could find my own way in my research. This is an important skill to bring into my future and gives me courage to continue trying new and difficult things.
Katie
During my experience in the CURE Soundscapes research lab with Professor May-Collado, I researched specific fish acoustics, which is a fairly new research method in the soundscape field, and for aquatic biodiversity and fish behavior measurements as a whole. This form of fish research is a new science, and therefore not a lot of available information regarding fish identification and specific sound emissions, and their purposes ecologically and behaviorally. In my research, I was able to detect 17 different morpho-typical sound emission categories across two reef locations in Santa Elena Bay. I was unable to accurately classify certain species of fish that were producing the sound, but this is something I am interested in pursuing in the future. I would really love to further this research in several ways, including redoing my data collection now that I have a firm grasp on the morphotypes, and am comfortable identifying them. I would also like to analyze data beyond the 12 hours that I did for this project to compare between night and day. I would also like to expand the temporal data from different months out of the year and analyze the activity/ morphotype presence differences between wet and dry seasons in Costa Rica. This research was nothing like I was expecting it to be. To be transparent, I did not know what to expect entirely because I was very unfamiliar with bioacoustic passive monitoring and sound data as a research. I was not even previously aware that fish had the ability to produce sound, let alone produce such a wide variety of sounds for different reasons and across different species. I expected this research to be more impossible than it was, in reality, it was much more achievable than I believed.
At the beginning of the research collection, I was very uncomfortable with identifying morphotypes. I was overwhelmed with the data and struggled with differentiating sounds within the audio recordings. It was difficult to start and restart several types, my data as I became more comfortable with identifying and extracting morphotypes. I needed to create a morphotype identification guide to assist myself in the identification, which was extremely time-consuming and tedious and took well over a week to establish the foundations. However, once I established the morphotype identification guide, I was able to complete extractions and analyses much quicker, and it became a much more enjoyable process. I learned a lot about myself personally in this course. I did not expect to take so much from this experience not only academically, but also on a personal level. At the beginning of the semester, I seriously considered dropping the course. I did not feel “smart” enough to be in the course and did not see myself as someone who would be able to conduct research like this and produce a paper at the end of the semester. This work was out of my comfort zone. However, I made the final decision to persist with the course. This was not an easy choice, but it was the right one. This course challenged me academically and mentally. Academically, I have struggled with confidence due to the nature of STEM higher education and its competitiveness. This course, however, helped me establish a new view of myself and my abilities as a student and scientist. With the support of Professor May-Collado and her team, I felt supported and welcomed into the space of research. Before this course, I had a certain view of research and science that felt unattainable and out of my wheelhouse. Now, I feel more capable. This experience has inspired me to look for more research opportunities and to think of myself as a more capable scientist and human.
At the beginning of the research collection, I was very uncomfortable with identifying morphotypes. I was overwhelmed with the data and struggled with differentiating sounds within the audio recordings. It was difficult to start and restart several types, my data as I became more comfortable with identifying and extracting morphotypes. I needed to create a morphotype identification guide to assist myself in the identification, which was extremely time-consuming and tedious and took well over a week to establish the foundations. However, once I established the morphotype identification guide, I was able to complete extractions and analyses much quicker, and it became a much more enjoyable process. I learned a lot about myself personally in this course. I did not expect to take so much from this experience not only academically, but also on a personal level. At the beginning of the semester, I seriously considered dropping the course. I did not feel “smart” enough to be in the course and did not see myself as someone who would be able to conduct research like this and produce a paper at the end of the semester. This work was out of my comfort zone. However, I made the final decision to persist with the course. This was not an easy choice, but it was the right one. This course challenged me academically and mentally. Academically, I have struggled with confidence due to the nature of STEM higher education and its competitiveness. This course, however, helped me establish a new view of myself and my abilities as a student and scientist. With the support of Professor May-Collado and her team, I felt supported and welcomed into the space of research. Before this course, I had a certain view of research and science that felt unattainable and out of my wheelhouse. Now, I feel more capable. This experience has inspired me to look for more research opportunities and to think of myself as a more capable scientist and human.
Gabriel
After stumbling upon this course during registration week I was immediately hooked. I had been wanting to get into research and was interested in a future in marine biology. After meeting with Dr. Laura May-Collado, I was ecstatic at the opportunity to research marine mammals. When I entered the lab on the first day of classes I felt very nervous about what I had signed up for weeks of data collection, writing, and presenting! After talking to other students about the course I noticed they were on the same page as me, and we were all in this experience together. I had the opportunity to select the topic of my study and I landed on humpback whales. I was drawn to their complex song structure and charismatic nature. The basis of my research project was based on the differences between humpback whale singing in marine and non-marine protected areas. The beginning of the semester flew by. I spent many hours each week in the lab analyzing humpback whale songs and filling out excel spreadsheets. It was extremely satisfying to create the results section with 6 weeks of data being turned into figures. Once these were created, I realized that the non-marine protected area in my study had more humpback whale activity than the marine protected area. This really confused me because it was the opposite of what I hypothesized but made me realize that the boarders of this marine protected area should be reevaluated. One of my main struggles with the class was the writing process. Scientific writing can be mentally draining, but with assistance from Dr. May-Collado and my classmates, I was able to create a manuscript which I am very proud of. This experience has helped me grow my confidence surrounding research and future opportunities. I want to continue my involvement with marine research in the future and this was the first step towards a career in marine biology. I would recommend this experience to anyone looking to get involved in marine research. It was an amazing opportunity to be surrounded by students who share the same passion for marine biology.
Franny
This course allowed me time and space to work on a project that I was already passionate about, gave me access to many knowledgable and interested peers, and built my understanding of my chosen field. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed learning to communicate my work to others, especially for our symposium! I really enjoyed being able to go in-depth with my work - the time allocated to the course allowed me to really dive into research and data analysis. Throughout the semester I’ve explored my more niche interests, learned my daily limits when it comes to repetitive work, and thoroughly enjoyed working with my classmates. I plan to integrate my project into my honors and masters theses, and see where that takes me!
Emma
The Soundscapes and Behavior research course was genuinely one of the best courses I’ve taken at UVM. Through the formatting of this course, I was able to deep dive into a topic I was interested in and produce meaningful work. Despite knowing that I want to pursue marine
research, I had never considered acoustics as a path I could take. This course challenged me to think more about various types of remote sensing, particularly the use of acoustics and soundscapes, within my desired field of study: coral reef health. Although I don’t think acoustics will be my primary area of study, I am extremely interested in continuing to monitor soundscapes and the relationship between coral bleaching and acoustic complexity. Regardless of whether or not I pursue acoustics directly, at the very least, I think it would be valuable to continue looking into acoustics as a parameter for reef health. When I went into this project, I didn’t realize how
self-directed it would be. Although it was intimidating at first getting thrown off the deep end into a research field I didn’t have previous exposure in, I found the independent work one of the most valuable take-aways from this semester. The structure of the class pushed me to problem solve and work through road bumps on my own as they came up. Knowing that professor May-Collado would be there if I really needed help gave me the courage to try and answer my own questions first, as I knew that I could fall back on her expertise if necessary.
Through Professor May-Collado’s advice, I felt that I was able to build meaningful skills that will benefit my future aspirations. Not only did I learn specific software prevalent to the marine bioacoustics field to build my resume, I built my skills as a scientist and researcher in
general. Through this process, I learned the hard lesson that research won’t always turn out how you want it to, but that doesn’t mean it isn't valuable. Although I was hoping to find more clear trends in my data, it's not realistic to assume that every project you complete will result in a novel discovery or answer a decade old question. By going through the process, I learned that incorrect hypotheses aren’t failures, but instead road maps to more questions and research projects in the future. Out of all the courses I’ve taken at UVM, this course was by far the most relevant to my desired career and hopes to enter the marine biology research field. I am so grateful for all of Professor May-Collado’s assistance, hard work, and genuine care for her students and their academic growth. Thank you for believing in us and pushing us every day!
research, I had never considered acoustics as a path I could take. This course challenged me to think more about various types of remote sensing, particularly the use of acoustics and soundscapes, within my desired field of study: coral reef health. Although I don’t think acoustics will be my primary area of study, I am extremely interested in continuing to monitor soundscapes and the relationship between coral bleaching and acoustic complexity. Regardless of whether or not I pursue acoustics directly, at the very least, I think it would be valuable to continue looking into acoustics as a parameter for reef health. When I went into this project, I didn’t realize how
self-directed it would be. Although it was intimidating at first getting thrown off the deep end into a research field I didn’t have previous exposure in, I found the independent work one of the most valuable take-aways from this semester. The structure of the class pushed me to problem solve and work through road bumps on my own as they came up. Knowing that professor May-Collado would be there if I really needed help gave me the courage to try and answer my own questions first, as I knew that I could fall back on her expertise if necessary.
Through Professor May-Collado’s advice, I felt that I was able to build meaningful skills that will benefit my future aspirations. Not only did I learn specific software prevalent to the marine bioacoustics field to build my resume, I built my skills as a scientist and researcher in
general. Through this process, I learned the hard lesson that research won’t always turn out how you want it to, but that doesn’t mean it isn't valuable. Although I was hoping to find more clear trends in my data, it's not realistic to assume that every project you complete will result in a novel discovery or answer a decade old question. By going through the process, I learned that incorrect hypotheses aren’t failures, but instead road maps to more questions and research projects in the future. Out of all the courses I’ve taken at UVM, this course was by far the most relevant to my desired career and hopes to enter the marine biology research field. I am so grateful for all of Professor May-Collado’s assistance, hard work, and genuine care for her students and their academic growth. Thank you for believing in us and pushing us every day!
