Editor's note: Read more about Penn State’s involvement in the dragonfly research project in Ghana.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Rachel Desulme is a fourth-year student majoring in data sciences in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). All IST students are required to complete at least one internship before graduation. Desulme fulfilled this requirement by analyzing dragonfly wings in Ghana through a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded international research program designed for undergraduates in collaboration with Penn State, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the University of Cape Coast (UCC)
Penn State News spoke with her about the internship, and she shared photos of her experience.
Q: What inspired you to do this?
Desulme: I applied to this opportunity with the intention of serving as a data analyst. A big part of the project was the data collection stage, and I was eager to use the software and techniques I learned in my classes to do things like extract meaningful insights, identify patterns and develop models with data visualization tools to analyze the field data and effectively communicate those findings.
Q: Describe the experience in Ghana.
Desulme: Over the course of five weeks, I traveled across various regions of Ghana with a group American students and faculty members. We worked alongside students and researchers from the Department of Conservation Biology and Entomology of the School of Biological Sciences at UCC.
Our team focused on collecting Odonata — dragonfly and damselfly — specimens, ultimately collecting 1,895 of them. In addition to helping with specimen collection, I had the lead on documenting the data, organizing the photos and recording the locality and weather parameters. But I can’t take all the credit; I had plenty of help with data entry from the other American and Ghanian students!
Q: What happened when you returned the United States?
Desulme: After our time in Ghana, we traveled to New York to continue organizing our extensive collection and begin working on multiple projects at the AMNH. Our projects included using Raman and IR spectroscopy to investigate wing characteristics, conducting micro-CT scans of the brains to understand neural traits and flight behavior and analyzing species distribution across Ghana while also including the environmental data we gathered.
As we worked on these projects, we were also preparing for an undergraduate research symposium at AMNH, where we shared our experiences and presented the progress on the work we'd done so far with the specimens. It was an incredible experience — as an intern, I got to tour the museum, explore and connect with other researchers and examine specimens from the museum's collection as well.
Q: What would you tell undergraduate students who are looking for internship options?
Desulme: I have been involved in undergraduate research for a little over a year now, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunities that come from being involved. I strongly encourage all undergraduate students to seek out research experiences. And I encourage IST students to consider branching out to other disciplines because we surely can apply what we learn in these areas as well! A piece of advice I would give is to remain open-minded and willing to learn because it will always come back around as valuable insight or an unexpected opportunity.