I'd like to introduce you to the research team in Atqasuk.
Jeremy’s nickname is Papasaurus. He’s the oldest grad student on my research team at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. He’s finishing his master’s degree thesis on how plants respond to experimental warming conditions. After graduating in December, Jeremy plans to pursue his PhD studying plant competition. Jeremy is married to his really cool wife, Jess, and his cat Lottie. Jess is coming up to check out Atqasuk and see Jeremy’s work in a few weeks but Lottie will be staying home. He’s a vegetarian who enjoys catch and release fishing to teach the fish a lesson in how to evade carnivorous humans who practice “catch and eat fishing.”
Sergio is actually from UTEP—The University of Texas at El Paso. He’s a PhD student investigating vegetation change throughout different regions in the tundra. Sergio travels back and forth between Barrow and Atqasuk: spending four days in Barrow and three days in Atqasuk. He loves hummus and wheat thins, and is known to eat them for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner. Sergio’s bright red jacket has earned him the title of “the red bear” and makes him easy to spot in the tundra, and you know you can depend on him to make a light-hearted joke and keep things cool in the field.
Sergio smiles on the boardwalk of the ITEX site as he proudly shows off one of his favorite souvenirs from Atqasuk....his field notebook filled of mosquitoes! One day they landed on his book and they wouldn't leave when he need to write, so his closed the book!
Kelsey is the youngest person on the research team. She’s nineteen and just finished her freshman year of college. As such Kelsey has a multitude of nicknames: Stella, Red, Ginger, Baby Girl, Young Money Kremers, K Rocks, and Barbarian Princess. Kelsey likes to fish, but unlike Jeremy, she prefers the “catch and eat” kind of fishing. She grew up cleaning and eating freshly caught fish from rivers in Michigan. Kelsey participated in almost every extracurricular activity possible in high school: choir, track, pole vault, drama, Science Olympiad, and she waitressed at a local restaurant.