Chapter 3

Staying Patient

WAITING FOR THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY

01 / After college, I worked for several years before starting my PhD. It was important to me to find the right opportunity, and that can require patience. My senior graduation project was studying bats in one of Costa Rica’s cities. It had an exciting set of problems and challenges, and I realized I enjoyed working on solving problems and puzzles, such as how bats can be protected in urban environments.

02 / I spent the next several years creating educational programs and serving as the academic coordinator at the same place that I caught (and got bitten by) my first bat! I knew I wanted to go back to school, but living in a small town made getting a PhD feel very far away sometimes. I kept talking to everyone I could about my interests and tried to build relationships with visiting researchers. After some time, I finally met the correct mentor and the right opportunity.

03 / I had the support of a Professor at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to apply to their PhD program. It was a difficult task, and at one point, I had to spend my savings to fly to San Francisco for just a few hours to take a TOEFL test, an English language proficiency test, just so that I would have a chance to get in. During my tenure at UT Knoxville, I worked with multiple bat species. My main project focused on bats' behavioral response to predators, which has been an understudied topic in this group of mammals.