Hi everyone! As the Brackenridge and MCSI summer programs come to a close, I’m going to take a look at the work I’ve done, what I’ve learned, and where I’m going. For those of you not scouring this blog for my original post and dutifully reading up on all of that, I’m Kayleigh Phillips, a rising senior studying Geology with minors in Chemistry, History, and the Irish Language at the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. I’m also a renowned Trees climbing wall employee. This summer, I’ve been looking at poison ivy’s response to climate change – from multiple perspectives.

My understanding of research definitely changed over the summer. I frequently was told by people in research positions, TA’s, my PI, friends, and mentors that research almost never actually goes exactly to plan. Versatility and adaptability are some of the most important traits in a researcher as a result. So naturally, I went into this summer with the expectation that things would go wrong, but the still undiminished hope that by the end of these few months I would have a perfect analysis of poison ivy toxicity in the area from the past 200 years and it would show this great correlation with carbon dioxide increases over time and it would be really, really cool (trust me). 

You may have seen this one coming, but that’s not what actually happened (oops).

My project’s title actually changed from my initial proposal title from “Unraveling Poison Ivy’s Response to Climate Change: A Historical Analysis of Toxicity” to “Unraveling Poison Ivy’s Response to Climate Change: An Analysis of Toxicity”. What I found in analyzing 200 year old herbarium specimen is that the toxic compounds were so far degraded that it was hard to measure even trace ratios of them. While there is hope for future measurement in looking for the degradation compound and further concentrating my samples beyond all reason, it’s not something that could be done before I presented at the MCSI symposium, so I had to look for another route. What I found most valuable in my experience was this ability to pivot and make something interesting work. Instead of looking at historical impacts, I looked at the impact of sun exposure on toxicity and checked poison ivy seasonal variation in real time. This solved a bunch of problems by giving me a reasonable timeframe for summer data collection and giving useful data for interpreting the historical samples if I’m able to crack those in the future.

This project is far from over, and I plan on turning it into my senior thesis within my department. I’m also planning to present my current findings at the Pymatuning Lab of Ecology’s research symposium and, if the abstract is accepted, my findings for the entire season at AGU (big geoscience conference!) this winter. Beyond that, I’m planning on applying for both graduate school and jobs. I’d love to go to graduate school if I can get accepted into a program with a good workplace environment that’s fully funded within earth history related to paleoclimate. If I can’t get a program that I would be happy to spend up to 6 years in, I’ll look for employment and/or take a gap year.