Summary: Graduate student researchers Brian Erickson and Chelsea Behymer talk about their transition from natural sciences to social sciences and the process of finding their place within their disciplines.

As graduate students, many of our academic conversations focus around our research. But graduate school is about more than just designing and carrying out a project; it also involves finding your place within a larger community.

Chelsea Behymer and Brian Erickson met through a science communication course in the Integrative Biology department (IB599), and they quickly found common ground. Although their research interests are very different, both have had experiences that sparked interest and conviction to explore the human dynamic of the ecological systems with which they are more familiar. While neither is new to academia, they find themselves navigating new identities as they explore what it means to be a social scientist working on human components of environmental issues.

Chelsea takes guests onboard a coastal Alaskan expedition on an intertidal walk.

Chelsea is a first-year Ph.D student in the Environmental Sciences graduate program, with a focus on informal science education. For the past six years, Chelsea has engaged diverse groups of people in marine biology and natural history as a Naturalist onboard both large and smaller, expedition style cruise ships. Interacting with a diversity of people in shared travel and learning experiences across the world’s oceans has been one of the most rewarding roles of her career. At the same time, being immersed in nature-based tourism has opened her eyes to the nature-based tourism industry as not only a place where human connections to the natural world are fostered, but provides wonderful opportunities for science communication.

With the growing nature-based tourism industry, perhaps the opportunities to connect have never been more abundant. Chelsea’s research interests aim to understand the potential for citizen science in nature-based tourism to act as both an effective means of engaging people with local scientists, while at the same time providing opportunities for the kind of collaborative environment where meaningful conversations between scientists and the public can occur.

Brian presents work on ocean acidification education during the State of the Coast conference.

Brian is also a first-year Ph.D student studying fisheries social science in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Growing up in the midwest, he first fell in love with the ocean while working as a field technician in the US Virgin Islands, Panama, and the Northwest Hawaiian islands. Partially because he defined himself as a biologist, it took him almost a decade to realize that he was interested in answering social science questions. Brian is generally interested in applying what we know about human behavior to improve marine conservation outcomes for people and the planet. His master’s work at OSU focused on exploring a commonly held assumption – that knowledge of environmental problems leads to action to fix those problems – through the lens of a high school ocean acidification curriculum. For his PhD work, Brian will be collaborating with the SMART Seas Africa Programme to examine social aspects of marine conservation in East Africa.

In this special segment, Chelsea and Brian will talk with ID host Kristen Finch about the challenge of finding their way as social scientists in a field that is working towards interdisciplinary collaboration. Don’t miss this conversation; tune in to KBVR Corvallis 88.7FM at 6 pm PST on Sunday March, 10. Stream the show live or catch the podcast.

Written by Chelsea Behymer and Brian Erickson. Edited by Kristen Finch.