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- First time was 2016.
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I've always been interested
in paleontology and 2015,
right after I finished high school,
I sent an email to Maureen Walsh.
And I just really wanted to be involved
with all the process of
paleontology and all the prep work,
and she said sure, yeah, come in.
And I started volunteering up there
in the Dinosaur Institute.
And I've been doing it every
year since in the summer,
and I've loved it.
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I'm taking a lot of classes
in paleontology right now at UC Davis,
and I'm also doing a
lot of research as well
during some of the free time,
but also as part of my course work
up at Davis in paleontology.
So it's been great
having both experiences,
having the museum, and
going out in the field,
and then also in school,
having the opportunity to do research.
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I don't have a favorite dinosaur.
I've been working on
that one for a long time.
But something specific I
like is the post crania,
so I like the vertebral column a lot.
And a lot of the research
I've done in the past
has been on elements of
the vertebral column.
So I think that's something
I definitely wanna pursue
and I'll see if my interests change,
but I think that's a general thing
that I might want to continue.
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I think my favorite part
is definitely the people.
I mean I love all the work
and this is what I want to do,
but also just everyone is so nice
and everyone is so unique.
And when your with a small
group of people for five weeks,
it's really cool camping and
getting to know everyone,
and yeah, its definitely the people.
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So in the mornings, we
get up pretty early,
whenever it gets hot in your tent,
and we pitch our tents all
in our campground area,
and we have all of our stuff in our tents,
and it's pretty nice.
It gets pretty comfy overnight
with our sleeping bags,
and in the mornings we
usually eat breakfast
and make our lunch, and then
we'll head here to the quarry,
and we'll stay here
maybe around until five.
And then we'll head back to camp
and we'll work together as a
team and we'll make dinner,
and that'll depend on what
food we have available,
and we usually like cooking
a lot of meat out here
on the fire, which is always a favorite.
And then we usually have a fire after.
We just tell stories and
talk and enjoy the night
and watch the stars.
That's usually a typical day.
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I didn't realize when I was
a kid wanting to do this,
and then going into it,
it's almost like what you
experience being in the field
and also doing the research,
you kinda get a little bit of everything,
which is really cool.
So it's in the lab you can work
on piecing together things,
like a puzzle, and you can
be writing huge manuscripts
about certain specific areas
of paleontological research.
And then also when you come out here,
you can do a lot of hands on manual labor,
and a lot of intense physical exercise
to get those bones out.
And it's really cool because
I've learned to really,
really love doing this
because there's so many
different aspects of things
that come into it.
So you get a little bit
of everything in one.
- [Interviewer] Awesome, thank you.
- [Man] Yeah, thank you.
