{"id":297,"date":"2022-04-26T11:49:45","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T18:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nackleylab\/?page_id=297"},"modified":"2022-04-26T11:49:46","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T18:49:46","slug":"melissa-scherr","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nackleylab\/melissa-scherr\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Scherr"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/extension.oregonstate.edu\/people\/melissa-scherr\">OSU Webpage\/Contact<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Melissa is Greek for \u201choney bee\u201d, but I\u2019m pretty sure my parents hadn\u2019t given me the name expecting I\u2019d take it quite so literally. Though when I\u2019m hand-pollinating my corn in the summer to make sure I get well-fertilized, full cobs I thoroughly enjoy the irony. Even as a kid, one of my favorite hobbies was flipping over paving stones to capture worms and \u201crolly pollies\u201d and other small insects in the unused canning jars in the garage\u2026 much to the horror of my parents when canning season came back around. Though I don\u2019t think I was the only kid doing things like that, I have noticed that the Entomology community isn\u2019t as big as it would be if all the kids grew up to become insect specialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/5281\/files\/2022\/03\/Mantis1-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-206\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Becoming an entomologist wasn\u2019t exactly the dream I had growing up, either, and in all honesty, I didn\u2019t even know it was a career path until college. In fact, I\u2019d started university in the music program with a scholarship for Vocal Performance but not really knowing what I wanted for myself as a career. The biggest mistake of that career was testing into General Biology for Majors, because in my first term of classes I knew Biology was where I belonged. I finished my first year at college taking the minimum required credits to maintain my scholarship while doubling down on my biology, chemistry, and math courses. I began my second year as a biology major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With my limited exposure to careers in science, I began exploring specialties through the courses I took at Oregon State University during my undergrad years. I took an Aquatic Entomology class that finally lit up all the ideas and passion that I felt for science, and it didn\u2019t take long for me to decide that insects and ecology were going to be my path. I became fascinated with the interaction between insects and their environments, the way they could be used as living indicators, and tracked to understand weather patterns and the ecologies of other organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/5281\/files\/2022\/03\/FBlue-300x230.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207\" \/><figcaption><em>Above: Fender\u2019s Blue Butterfly, found only in the Willamette Valley; right: Mating Silvery Blue butterflies<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>From there, my desire to understand the way insects behave in response to changes in the environment evolved and I began to examine insects in changing landscapes of the Pacific Northwest: insect community aggregation in timber lands, pollinators in degraded and then restored landscapes, and channeled river systems in agricultural lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/5281\/files\/2022\/01\/Melissa-Selfie-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Scherr sampling insects in lavendar\" class=\"wp-image-29\" srcset=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/5281\/files\/2022\/01\/Melissa-Selfie-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/5281\/files\/2022\/01\/Melissa-Selfie.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Working in Nursery production is very similar. In every ecosystem, the part of this job I enjoy the most is the new mystery and the strange way insects have adapted to life with humans in our tiny corner of the world. There are more questions than answers, and insects find a way to surprise and amaze me in every project \u2013 sometimes not in the best of ways, like when they disappear the same year a major grant is funded \u2013 but always in ways that make my job interesting and compelling. I plan to always be found crawling through the foliage, shaking leaves and scratching the soil, searching for tiny answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OSU Webpage\/Contact Melissa is Greek for \u201choney bee\u201d, but I\u2019m pretty sure my parents hadn\u2019t given me the name expecting I\u2019d take it quite so literally. Though when I\u2019m hand-pollinating my corn in the summer to make sure I get well-fertilized, full cobs I thoroughly enjoy the irony. Even as a kid, one of my &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nackleylab\/melissa-scherr\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Melissa Scherr<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12100,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-297","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Melissa Scherr - Nackley Lab<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nackleylab\/melissa-scherr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Melissa Scherr - Nackley Lab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"OSU Webpage\/Contact Melissa is Greek for \u201choney bee\u201d, but I\u2019m pretty sure my parents hadn\u2019t given me the name expecting I\u2019d take it quite so literally. 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