Ellen Badger Hanson

Background

About Ellen Badger Hanson

I am a field biologist actively seeking ways to use my skills as a scholar and educator to learn about and care for the natural world, and to help others to do the same. Though I am enjoying my current field research and project management work, I am beginning to turn my focus toward returning to school. My plan is to obtain a PhD in order to spend my life both teaching and learning as a professor. I have experience and interest in small-scale and large-scale biology, and I am particularly drawn to projects in which these two intersect. My undergraduate research focused on microbial threats to water quality in an agricultural watershed, and my senior paper on the role of the soil microbial community in restoration ecology. My current project (a study looking into improving the success of the Conservation Reserve Program in the Mountain West) focuses largely on the plant community, but even here I am checking in on the soil microbial community through PLFA analyses. These projects have allowed me to split my time between the field and the lab, a balance I appreciate. I hope to find a PhD program that allows me to do the same. For this reason, I find I am most drawn to interdisciplinary programs. It is my goal to pursue research in restoration ecology or sustainable agriculture and the implications of the soil microbial community in relation to these fields. In addition to conducting research, I have spent a considerable amount of time serving as a natural science educator. I find teaching to be very rewarding on multiple fronts: the creative and intellectual challenge of planning lessons, the opportunities to develop interpersonal relationships, and of course, the joy of those breakthrough “Aha!” moments with students. The desire to teach also compels me to continue my own education; I have chosen to pursue a PhD because teaching at the collegiate level excites me just as much as continuing to conduct research.