�պ�����

“I came into college with a pretty open idea of what I would be studying and not many specifics on what I wanted to focus on, and I think I was surprised in how many different things and subjects I've been able to dive into. There's been a lot more following of personal interests than I expected. Just having the space to explore ideas has been powerful.”                                                     

The summer between his junior and senior years at �պ����� Sam worked in Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.  

“I was one of two artists hired for the summer to live in this field station in New Mexico and engage in the conservation efforts they have with Fish and Wildlife.” 

He spent time walking the arroyos and drawing the hidden root systems of the desert plants, which led to notebooks of field notes and sketches and one eleven-foot scroll depicting a to-scale root system, which was displayed in the stairwell of Jeffords Hall.

Sam’s senior capstone project continued to combine his scientific research with his interest in artmaking. 

“I use plants as a starting point for trying to understand other factors of the environment. Such as what are the plants aligning with, what conditions are they surviving with, what adaptations are coming from those conditions? I decided that the Colchester Bog was an accessible site where I could see a lot of these processes that I was learning about in my classes. It's a place with a lot of slow-happening processes: decomposition, layers of accumulated debris, peat mosses that have been there for thousands of years. It’s a place that has a lot of those processes still going on, but the areas around it are very impacted by humans. Just beside it is a set of baseball fields and past that, neighborhoods and roads and development. I think it speaks to a kind of coexistence, but also the impacts and consequences that we have in places like these.” 

Sam’s project was a visual rendition of the biological processes of bog ecology, and it allowed him to explore plant biology research from the vantage point of a different discipline.

His advice for incoming students, “My professors showed a lot of excitement about seeing where my interests could go. They've been very supportive of any questions I have. Because of their expertise in these fields there's just a lot to learn from them and they've been very approachable and very open to in-person meetings and conversations. They've always been willing to just take time out of their day and out of their busy schedules to have a real conversation with me about ideas that I have, which has been very encouraging for me to keep following those ideas. So, reach out to them with your interests and they will support you.”