�պ�����

On April 30, a group of students, faculty, staff, and community members gathered in the Aiken Center to watch Gus Lunde ’24 present his Honors College thesis seminar. Gus has been working toward this culminating event for nearly two years, and his thesis is the result of many early mornings of data collection, thousands of pages read, hundreds of emails sent and received, and countless hours of hard work. “It’s been amazing to see Gus grow as a scholar and take on these new complex analyses,” said Interim Dean Allan Strong, a wildlife and fisheries biology professor specializing in ornithology and Gus’s thesis advisor, as he welcomed the assembled crowd and introduced Gus before his presentation.  

Interim Dean Allan Strong introducing Gus's thesis presentation. Photo by Maddie Cross.

About two months earlier, Gus sat down for an interview about his time at the Rubenstein School, his experience working on an Honors College thesis, and the internships and job experiences that shaped his passion for the environment. “I give a lot of credit to my parents for encouraging me to stick with the Honors College and doing a thesis,” Gus said. “Sitting here now, it’s been very rewarding.”  

Gus and his classmates in ENSC 4010 worked on a service learning project at Charlotte Park and Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Bill Keeton.

Gus, an Environmental Sciences major with a concentration in Environmental Biology and a minor in Geography, was one of less than ten Rubenstein School students who defended an Honors College thesis this year. In the fall of 2022, Gus began his thesis work in earnest as a student in the Research Methods course, a requirement for all Honors College students pursuing a thesis defense. “In that class, we started talking about what it looks like to carry out a research project on a scale like this, and methods for collecting data. It was a top-to-bottom class on what the thesis and research project process looks like,” Gus explained. 

Gus presenting data during his thesis seminar. Photo by Maddie Cross.

This year’s cohort of Honors College theses in the Rubenstein School covered a wide variety of topics and interest areas, from mapping the prevalence of Covid-19 in white-tailed deer, to tracking how feral dogs in India roam, to examining the change in coral reef coverage in Hawaii. Some students have a topic in mind when they first set foot on campus, or even earlier. Others, like Gus are guided by their coursework and personal passions as they decide where to focus their research. “My environmental interests have kind of shifted over the years and I was feeling a little lost about where I should go with the project,” Gus said. “Some other peers of mine have worked with professors in labs or on projects where they’ve developed a thesis from; I didn’t feel like I was in a position to do that.” 

Despite his doubts, Gus’s previous experience did in fact influence the direction in which he took his research question: when he was a high school student in Charlotte, Vermont, he worked on a project for Audubon Vermont. “We would capture birds in mist nets and band their legs and collect all sorts of data,” Gus explained. Gus enjoyed that experience enough to return after his first year at �պ����� for an internship, where he worked with a team on a nest restoration project for common terns on Lake Champlain. “That was a valuable experience because it was such important and meaningful work,” Gus recollected. “I got to be outside, which I love, and learn from Mark LaBarr. He was an excellent supervisor and great person to work with; he taught me a lot about what conservation science looks like.” Mark LaBarr, the Conservation Program manager at Audubon Vermont, thought so highly of Gus and his work ethic that he served on Gus’s thesis committee three years later. 

Gus decided to combine his passion for outdoor sports, specifically mountain biking, with his love of birds. “My research question looks at mountain biking’s impact on wildlife,” Gus explained. “I focused on how the presence of biking itself impacts the singing frequencies of forest birds. I went out into the forest and conducted audio surveying and conducted fieldwork comparing the singing of forest birds when I was biking to when I wasn’t.” 

Through his research and data analysis, Gus found that mountain biking decreases the singing rates of Vermont forest songbirds. This information has broader implications for recreation area management, an issue the state and the nation must grapple with, as participation in outdoor recreation has been steadily increasing for decades and isn’t expected to level off anytime soon.  

This intersection of conservation and environmental issues with human behavior and societal structures is of interest to Gus. He added a minor in geography when he was a sophomore because he “wanted a human-focused, social science side as well as a more technical, hard-science environmental education.”  

His thesis research, coursework in areas of human-environment interactions, and internship experience with Lake Champlain Sea Grant’s Blue BTV program all shaped his academic and career interests. Blue BTV, a residential green stormwater infrastructure incentive program, is a partnership between Lake Champlain Sea Grant, the city of Burlington, and Fitzgerald Environmental Associates, an environmental engineering firm in Colchester.  

“The Blue BTV Program opened my eyes to what’s possible for me post-grad,” Gus said. “I learned a lot about green design and how to implement green infrastructure and it was especially beneficial for me to do this work because stormwater runoff in Burlington is a massive problem that’s been a recurring theme in a lot of my classes throughout the years.”  

Gus encouraged younger and prospective Rubenstein School students to be aware of opportunities like the Blue BTV internship and other offerings by organizations like Lake Champlain Sea Grant. “Gleaning as much information you can from the institution you’re in is crucial—there’s so much going on around the college and the university that you can get involved in,” Gus said. “There are a million things going on outside of your classes that can help you realize what it is or what it isn’t that you want to do. Introducing yourself to your professors, showing up for opportunities and putting yourself out there is key.” 

All unattributed images courtesy of Gus Lunde.