University of South Carolina Honors College
Environment & Sustainability Program
Environmental Science, B.S.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: Research
Kaitlyn Bretz
Kaitlyn J. Bretz
I am a Senior at the University of South Carolina - Columbia and an Environmental Science major with an Anthropology minor. I attended high school in Ohio and then moved to South Carolina. Starting a life of my own down in the South has been fun and exciting and I have learned so much about myself.
I was initially a Biological Sciences major, but I found that there were few opportunities to pursue a degree in ecology when the central focus was on subjects necessary for pre-medical school students, such as molecular biology, genetics, anatomy, chemistry, physiology, and more. While I enjoy biology, I did not enjoy constantly studying the microscopic hard sciences. I didn’t switch my major until the beginning of my Sophomore year, after returning to South Carolina from Alaska. I spent the summer canvassing for the Alaska Center for the Environment and discovered that I absolutely loved being involved in conservation and interacting with people who were passionate about the environment. Once I returned to campus, I decided to switch my major to something that would lead me to do work similar to what I did in Alaska. So, I switched into the Environment & Sustainability Program and later added my Anthropology minor.
I decided to switch to the Environmental Sciences major instead of the Environmental Studies major due to my love for research and working in labs. Since my first semester here at USC, I have been participating in research with Dr. Tim Moussueau and his projects, the Chernobyl & Fukushima Research Initiatives. In these initiatives, my project is to investigate the effects of radioactive contamination in Chernobyl, Ukraine and Fukushima, Japan on the developmental instability of various butterfly species. This mostly includes landmarking specific points on butterfly wing scans and then conducting statistical tests to quantify fluctuating asymmetry between two wings, and overall shape and size of each wing. My initial findings are that butterflies exposed to some radiation have significantly smaller wings, but no increased amount of fluctuating asymmetry. I am currently working to expand my data set to include multiple years, so see whether the amount of mutations within a butterfly increase or decrease over time. The accompanying project to my work is being completed by my co-researcher Alex Golden, who is investigating the effects of radioactive contamination in Chernobyl and Fukushima on the developmental instability of dragonfly wings. So far, there have been no significant results regarding dragonfly wings exposed to radiation, which is interesting. Dr. Mousseau has proposed the theory that the homogametic (the female carries two different sex chromosomes rather than the male) nature of butterflies means that they are more susceptible to mutations than the dragonflies, which are heterogametic (the male carries two different sex chromosomes). My project, alongside Alex Golden’s project, has been presented at USC’s 2015 and 2016 Discovery Day, will be presented at a scientific conference in 2016, and published within the next year.
The spring of my Sophomore year I had the opportunity to take ENVR 399: Research in Environmental Sciences and work in the Sealands Archaeology & Environment Program with Dr. Jennifer Pournelle. I was interested in having new and different lab experience and learning about Iraqi ecosystems, so I enrolled and ended up working in Sealands for the 2015 summer, and am today finishing up the project. My work with Dr. Pournelle has been to establish marsh stratigraphy in Basra Governorate, southern Iraq, by using stable isotope analyses of δ18O and δ13C in malacofaunal fossils. I have presented at USC’s 2015 and 2016 Discovery Days and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) 2015 Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. I will also be finalizing a publication. My time spent working in Sealands has solidified my desire to pursue research as a career and I have conversed with Dr. Pournelle regarding my post-graduate and career plans on multiple occasions.
I plan on continuing to conduct research for the remainder of my time here at USC and have applied to several grants and fellowships. I am already a NOAA Hollings Scholar (2015) and spent my 2016 summer working in Silver Spring, Maryland at NOAA Headquarters in the Biogeography Department. This internship lasted for 9 weeks, with the final week filled with presentations. I also have a grant from the Walker Institute Undergraduate Fellowship to help fund my upcoming study abroad program in Indonesia.
Because of my extensive research with Dr. Mousseau and Dr. Pournelle, I am applying to graduate from USC with a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science and with Graduation with Leadership Distinction in Research. This e-portfolio has allowed me to look back at my time here at USC and fully realize just how much my academic and research experience has changed my life. I now plan on studying abroad in Bali, Indonesia August through December in 2016 and then go on to pursue a doctoral degree at a graduate program, hopefully at Stanford University, Duke University, Yale University, or University of California Berkeley.
