Each year, UVA's Department of Environmental Sciences hosts an entirely graduate-student led research symposium, a highly revered day known as EnviroDay. Both undergraduate and graduate students from many disciplines can present their research in a fun, and supportive environment. This year, I was thrilled to be presenting the research I have done thus far at UVA.
To be transparent, currently I am the only graduate student who does research regarding a body that is not Earth, and am one of the few geoscientists in the department. This part of my identity at UVA definitely makes presenting research about water on Mars very unique to this space. Presenting research in such an interdisciplinary space has reminded me that I think about and consider so many things that most of my peers do not. I found myself needing to pivot my language in a way that does not make my ecologist peers' eyes glaze over in confusion.
Talking to people outside of my niche world of looking at Mars' landscapes made for some very spirited conversation! So many had questions about Mars' landscape, why it is so extreme, other evidence for water in it's landscape, and so much more. It was also an opportunity to really refine my "why" for larger and broader audiences than my lab group. It is spaces like this where I can share just how cool Mars truly is!
I had a conversation with one of my faculty members that I have really grown to appreciate the past semester and a half, where I was explaining that I felt that what I do is "so different from what everyone else does." He replied to me with, "is it really that different?" I come to think of it, everyone in this department wants to understand how and/or why something in the way that it is, and we are all stewards of the environments that we study. So no, it's not all that different.
Overall, I had a wonderful time sharing my research with the UVA community and I had a wonderful time listening to all of the amazing work that my peers do here, too. I am looking forward to sharing more in this space as I continue to make progress on my research!