NEVBD-TEC Summer Internship Program

       As I finished up my internship with the St. Lawrence County Public Health’s Mosquito Research Team, I took the time to look back on how much I’ve learned and how much more confident I became in my position since the beginning of the summer, and after doing such, I can definitely say that I feel this experience has given me a much better understanding of both field and laboratory work in regards to entomological studies.      Throughout, my routine has stayed fairly consistent. Most mornings had been spent out in the field visiting our collection sites, checking and bringing in CDC, gravid, and DRB collections from our traps. In the afternoons, we brought our collections back to the lab and spent time identifying the mosquitoes under the microscopes down to their exact species. By the end of my time there, I had become much more comfortable with the whole mosquito identification process and rarely needed to rely on the dichotomous key for the spe...

      Roughly four weeks have passed since my last post here! Most of them have gone by relatively quick and smoothly!     Our routine hasn't changed much besides the fact that our team has one new intern now, which is exciting! :D My day is still pretty evenly split in half, with my mornings being spent outside at out collection sites checking and bringing in the CDC, gravid, and DRB traps, and my afternoons looking under the microscope in the lab to identify the mosquitos we collect down to their exact species with very careful practice. I've gotten very confident in my identification skills, having to use our dichotomous key very little at this point with specific species! I get really zoned in during the process and it honestly clears my mind and I find it all quite relaxing! It's been really rewarding looking back and seeing how much I've improved since my first few weeks with the team. At the beginning of the internship, I had to often ask someone to doubl...

Today concludes my third week interning for the St. Lawrence County's Public Health Department at SUNY Potsdam with their Mosquito Research Team! So far, it's been pretty great! Week one started off with some safety training and precautions before we got into the general project details and background. After all the formalities and verbal trainings during day one, I was taught how to make dry ice with CO2 to use in our traps. After that and gathering all our supplies for a typical day's work, we loaded up our car and headed out to get a tour of our collection sites. Once we returned with our specimens we practiced identifying them underneath microscopes, which took up the rest of our day. I find the identification process the most interesting part, as there's so many specific little things to pay attention to in certain orders all to get to the correct species. The rest of the week proceeded similarly to our first day, except for getting a flat tire on my third day whil...