In the Jungle; Dr. Christine Brodsky and Kirsten Winchester

Hey, welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the grillers of Pittsburgh State University. I am your host Howard Smith, and today we're joined by a faculty member and a student. This is a great day. We've got Kirsten Winchester, and we have Dr. Christine Brodsky. And what we're talking about, field and organismal biology. So, hey, first of all, what is, what does field and organismal biology? So that's the area of biology in which it's more applied, and you're going outside and really hands on looking at different wildlife species, fish species, vegetation, and how you can best manage those resources that we have. Yeah, we're known at Pittsburgh State Biology. It's probably, it's in our top three, actually admitting admissions areas for the university. We have lots of students that come here, and a very popular program, a very prestigious program. A lot of people go on to do a lot of different things, and Kirsten, I know you've just accepted a position recently. Tell us a little bit what you accepted and what you're doing. The job I just accepted is a quail telemetry monitoring

technician position with Missouri Department of Conservation, and I will be putting radio collars on quail and tracking them using telemetry and keeping track of where they're going, why they're going there, nest destruction, to get a better understanding of the quail in the area. Okay, now, how do people use that data then? I mean, you get an understanding of the quail, is this, this have to do with anything about migration or habits or? In recent years or last few years, actually, quail populations have diminished greatly. They've been on a downward slope, it seems like, and this is going to give us a better idea of where they're living at, why they're living in these areas, what's causing the diminishing populations, how we can help bring these populations back up. Okay, cool, pretty good. What caused you both to get into this field? I'll start first of all with Dr. Bratsky. So I started just in biology when I was

in undergrad, just because I loved biology, I loved science, and I got an opportunity when I was a freshman to raise baby birds in a lab, little swamp sparrows, and I jumped on that immediately, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. And that lab was animal behavior lab where we studied song evolution, which was really great and a fantastic lab to begin with. But I wanted to go into a career that was much more applied where I can go and work with people hands-on to help conserve species and the interactions with people that have wildlife in their backyards, things like that. Kirsten. I grew up on a farm in a small little town in South Jose, and we used different practices on our farm to help manage the wildlife. So we got food plots for deer. We did the CRP program with the Quill Buffer Strips, and I spent my whole life fishing and hunting, and once I got into college, I decided why not go ahead and do something like that and

use these practices I've used in my life to as a career. I thought it'd be a fun opportunity and get out there and constantly be outside. What I love to say is I just get paid to listen to birds. And it's the best job ever of being paid to be outside in the sun and hands-on rather than under fluorescent lighting. I'm sorry. That's great. So what about the program here at Pitt State? How'd you like it? Do you feel like it prepared you for what you can do? It definitely prepared me for what I'm going to do whenever I was on the job search and everything. I had taken a streaming college class, and the classes at Pitt State are extremely hands-on, and usually the classes are kind of small, so you get to have that hands-on experience and that one-on-one with your teachers. And I had applied for this one job, and my everything that I had done in that streaming college class was what I was going to end up doing in that job. And so there's

a lot of things that you do in the field at Pitt State that you will end up doing in the future. Dr. Bronsky, from your perspective, and I know you're new on faculty, but what about from your perspective? What about the program here at Pitt State? What do you see as the strengths of Endora? I think what Kirsten just mentioned, we definitely have small classes where you have that meaningful relationship between the instructor and the student. I know all of my students' names, which is fantastic, and we look out for them. We have a job message board that we post to make sure that our students are going out, getting internships, getting jobs within the field, and preparing them for such jobs, like Kirsten mentioned, with having classes that teach them the techniques that they need to learn in the future if they want to apply to some jobs. But yeah, really getting those authentic experiences so early on in their career, I think, is why I came here at least. Well, why else did you come? I mean, how do you, I mean, there are a lot of universities go, okay, how'd you get Pitt State? So when I was finishing

up my PhD, I knew one of the postdocs in a similar lab, and he ended up coming here a semester before to start his faculty position, Dr. James Whitney. And when I was on the job market, my PhD advisor, like, hey, you need to look at this one because it's a great program, it's a great field program. There are a lot of great people down there really look into it, so I reached out to Dr. Whitney, and he just raved about it. Personal connections with students, small classes, hands on, and when I came down here, yeah, fell in love with it. It's a family, really. Kirsten, what's your route to Pitt State? I started out at community college, was looking for something that was close to home and was affordable, and it's only 30 minutes away from home, so I decided on Pitt State. Hey, this is a tough question. What course has challenged you the most? Oh my gosh. The courses that challenged me the most were actually the ones

that are what I'm kind of going into. So, ornithology, that one challenged me, and now I'm working with Quail, Ike Theology, that was pretty challenging, and I ended up being a fisheries resource assistant last summer, so... What influenced you the most in your program since you've been here, maybe reaffirmed your desire to do what you do? After working for the conservation department this last summer, and getting to work on the fishery side and the wildlife management side of things, it reassured that that's what I wanted to do. I spent all the summer on the river, out in the woods, and using all the practices that I'd use in classes, and I was just like, this is where I'm supposed to be, this is what I'm supposed to do, so... Dr. Bross, if you had, if you were talking to a student that was interested in Fit State, why would you tell him to come here? I would tell him to come here because it's rare, from my perspective, from the universities I've attended the college, as I've seen, to have that one-on-one connection with your professor, that you're

able to work with them, even in an independent study way, or a research project that the professor is doing right now, that's going to publish eventually, that you may be even on the publication, who knows. You're getting that experience from day one, not just your senior year, and your professors know you, it's a great program to, if you're interested in this field, you're going to get it from day one. Gerson, what would you tell a prospective student? Pretty much exactly what she just said, had the professors, they're here to help you. They, I became really close with a Delia Lister when I was here, and she helped me out a bunch with interviews, and I had to do a program for an interview, and she gave me books, and gave me all kinds of insight, and so, Fit State just, yeah, it's a family, like the teachers are here to help you, and they're, they want you to succeed, and they want you to do good, so...

And what's the title of your position again? Quail Telemetry Monitoring Technician. You're my first one person that I've known with that, so that's a, that's a great thing, and the major field again is Dr. Bratsky. Field Biology and Environmental Sciences and Ecology and Organismic Biology. This is a great field, and what's really exciting to me about listening to the two, the two of you today, is I know that biology is, is really in high demand at Fit State, but a lot of times there's another part of biology that gets a lot of attention, and this is certainly an area in biology that's important, and certain, and provides a great service for our communities and also for society, so thank you for spending time with us on this today, and if you're listening out there, this is why you belong at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for joining us for In The Jungle, and I'm your host, Howard Smith.