Intern Experience: By Brennan Waupoose

Brennan Waupoose, College of Menominee Nation student and Sustainable Development Institute Intern, shares his internship experience in the piece below. Brennan's hometown is Keshena, WI and he is a CMN Biological and Physical Sciences major.

SDI Intern: Invasive Species Research Technician

"In the summer of 2012 I spent 6 weeks with Dave Mausel Ph.D., Forest Health Forester with Menominee Tribal Enterprise studying the different invasive plants, insects, and diseases that impact the Menominee forest.

As part of the internship I was to be included in a research project identifying what impacts European earthworms may have on hardwood forests. With a professor and students from UW-Platteville and a student from UW-Madison we spent one week in the Chequamegon National Forest in northwestern Wisconsin collecting our samples and another week at the TREES Lab on the UW-Platteville campus carefully analyzing our data. With our findings we developed a poster presentation to be presented at two national conferences.

·         Society for Advancing Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) National Conference was held in Seattle, WA Oct. 11-14. 1 of 3 awarded in Environmental Sciences category.

·         American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES) National Conference in Anchorage, Alaska Oct 29-Nov 4. Received 4^th Place of 88 Undergraduate Research Poster presentations.

This opportunity has changed my career goals. I enrolled in Spring 2012 thinking I would go for a nursing degree. I actually applied for a different internship that I was interested in and was offered this one instead. I was hesitant to accept the position since it was not in my intended field but it has all been worth it. I have met an incredible group of people who have made this project a memory impossible to forget. The most positive outcome of this has been the educational path formed with the help of Evan Larson Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Geography at UW-Platteville who has helped open doors to working in his lab if I go to school at UW-Platteville.

The internship experience also led me to the AISES  conference where I met an admissions director from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science who joined McKaylee Duquain, Evan Larson and I in our celebratory dinner and offered us unbiased insight on the application process and  how the programs work at Yale. Now, I have a goal in mind: to earn a Masters and possibly Ph.D in Ecology at Yale. Furthermore, more opportunities continue to arise where I can keep presenting results from this project and to develop other projects based off of this one experience.

I highly encourage others to apply for something they may not initially be interested in because in the end it will be beneficial in some way. You will find out if you like it or not, it will look good on any resume, and most importantly you will meet people that may help direct you in the right path."