Discovering a Passion for Science

As a freshman at Utah State, Melissa Sanders initially viewed working in Professor Chris Luecke’s fisheries lab as simply a means of earning cash for college. But it soon evolved into much more as the theatre arts major developed an interest in Luecke’s research.

“I learned that science isn’t scary,” says Sanders, who recently graduated from USU with a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and aquatic sciences. “I really enjoyed the collegial, personalized atmosphere of Dr. Luecke’s lab and my classes at Utah State.”

 

Luecke, who serves as a principal investigator for a National Science Foundation-funded Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research site, welcomed Sanders’ enthusiasm and innovative thinking. In 2005, he invited her to join his research team, which conducts summer field work from the Toolik Field Station on Alaska’s North Slope.

 

“Melissa’s idea was to look at environmental effects on fish growth rates by combining two approaches,” Luecke says. “Addressing a question in this manner is often a powerful way to gain insights into our understanding of an issue.”

 

During the summers between her undergraduate studies, Sanders traveled to Toolik and collected data on 11 populations of Arctic graylings and five populations of lake trout. Each day, she and colleagues visited research sites by helicopter or on foot where they set up grill nets to collect fish.

 

“We looked at the length-to-weight ratios of fish from different lakes to get an idea of their overall health,” says Sanders, who received the 2008 Peak Prize Undergraduate Researcher of the Year award for the College of Natural Resources. “We compared these findings to various physical elements of the landscapes surrounding the lakes.”

 

The goal of the study, she says, was to determine how environmental changes are impacting the fish.

 

Conducting research at Toolik was “like being at summer camp,” Sanders says. In the remote, tight-knit research community, she worked 10-hour days in the Arctic region’s continuous daylight. On Sundays, her day off, she and colleagues hiked the nearby Brooks Range and enjoyed sightings of wolves, moose, caribou, grizzly bears and their cubs, along with scores of birds.

 

Back on campus, Sanders took advantage of opportunities to present her findings by participating in Undergraduate Research Day on Utah’s Capitol Hill and USU Research Week’s Student Showcase.

 

The Cache Valley, Utah native looks forward to her next big adventure – a Peace Corps assignment in Africa.

 

“The Peace Corps offered a number of opportunities but serving as an environmental educator appealed to me the most,” says Sanders, “I don’t yet know the country in which I’ll be working, but I’m excited about the assignment.”

 

Sanders says pursuing undergraduate research enabled her to find her passion and learn about the scientific research process, while indulging her love of the outdoors.

 

 “I learned about the kinds of work and study I would and wouldn’t like to do,” she says. “With this knowledge, I look forward to new challenges.”