During this summer’s fieldwork, team members and I accomplished huge amount of work. We set up dozens of camera traps and collared dozens of herbivorous animals (zebra and wildebeest) in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Although most of the fieldwork were closely related to my PhD dissertation, this summer was not only about my PhD research but more about wheels.

It is impossible to do fieldwork without a car in the national park which is as large as New Jersey. To drive more than 200 km a day easily became the everyday life. Growing up in Taiwan and studying in the US, I did not get any chance t...

In the past four months, I went through from starting reflecting and writing my proposal, preparing for proposal defense during fieldwork in Namibia, to accidentally being injured and gradual recovery, 

Finally, today, I passed my PhD proposal defense (qualification exam) and became a PhD candidate! Yoohoo! Hooray! Yeehaw!

During fatiguing fieldwork, the best award is always animal's rare sightings. This season, it is not uncommon that I have fieldwork longer than 10 hours a day. After coming back to the lab or office, I might still need to spend two or three more hours working on other stuff including preparation. However...look what I found! Zebra twins! Fieldwork is totally worth!

The summer fieldwork started on July 16. This time, by far, I've placed camera traps across central and eastern Etosha National Park. It's a lot of fieldwork and tiring. However, these lovely jackal couples make me feel tireless and loved :D

I got the anonymous evaluations from students in my TA classes. Who are these two students? They forgot to take their A+s 😂 I am really proud of my ability making jokes :D 

I bumped into a student in my TA class last semester who had performed really well. He used to say he wanted to go to a dental school after graduation, and he just told me he had got the admission from a dental school! Feel happy for him!

I grew up in Taiwan, which is a small island in southeastern Asia. In terms of the size, Taiwan is only a quarter of New York State, and half of it is covered by mountains. Thus, Taiwan overall is so steep that it is almost impossible to find somewhere flat; therefore, I’ve been eager to see flatness. On the other hand, even though the biodiversity is generally higher, there are not many large mammals in Taiwan due to the limited area. Mammals, moreover, tend to hide in woods when humans are approaching. Seeing a mammal during fieldwork is a huge surprise for researchers in Taiwan.

My two thirs...