NEVBD Summer Internship 2024

 As I alluded to last week, I went bird banding! Well, in a way. Bird banding is a practice where an ornithologist or someone who is otherwise certified, places a numbered band/ring on the right leg of a bird. This identification acts as a way to track where this bird has migrated to, if collected again. My role in all this was rather limited this week, but essentially I was there for the ticks. Migratory birds become a public/veterinary health concern because they often give a “free ride” to ticks that are native to where the bird may have migrated from. If you have been following along with my post, I often encounter  Ixodes  and  Dermacentor  genus ticks while conducting surveillance. If these birds transported nonnative ticks such as,  Amblyomma americanum  (Lone Star tick) or  Haemaphysalis longicornis  (Asian Longhorned tick), then humans and animals alike may be susceptible to varying introduced pathogens.   Wells Reserve Ent...

  Welcome back and thank you for returning to my summer internship blog, to read about what I have been busy with in week 2. If you have been following along you would have noticed that last week’s post was very long and broad detailing my day-to-day tasks. I thought that laying the groundwork in the week 1 post would be beneficial to the rest of the blog, as now I will attempt to dive deeper into some topics, while still explaining what my week was like. I hope you enjoy!   As a quick intro, this week was very heavily centered on Maine state tick surveillance. I went into detail last week on how exactly I have been participating in this, but in case you may have forgot, I have been flagging for ticks! In fact I was fortunate enough to go into the field flagging on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Each of these days I visited different sites and on Thursday I made it a double effort. This week I went to Runaround Pond in Durham, ME, Wells Reserve in Wells, ME, Range Pond in Po...

  This post marks the completion of my first week working as an Intern at MaineHealth’s Lyme & Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory. Through this week I was exposed to a variety of methods and data preparation processes. On my first day here I was made aware that, accessioning is everything! What this boils down to is, properly matching samples collected in the field, with corresponding paperwork that will later be entered into a data base. While I have not been introduced to data entry, I have been shown the many ways that if prepared incorrectly or missing information, there may be confusion. Additionally, much of this week has been dedicated to learning how to identify species of mosquitos. I have received a dichotomous key that helps narrow down the identification from genus to species. However, what is most exciting to write about is my week as it pertains to surveillance. This post will dive into my day-to-day experiences touching on both tick and mosquito surveillance, a litt...

Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog for summer 2024, I am excited to begin to share my experiences as a Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases (NEVBD) and Cornell University intern.   For a little background on myself, my name is Sam, and I am a recent graduate of Southern New Hampshire University completing a Bachelor's of Science in Biology, with a minor in Public Health. I grew up in Lewiston, Maine where I have lived the majority of my life, and now have relocated to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. While at SNHU I was also a 4-year member of the Men's Lacrosse Team.  As I was completing my undergraduate degree I found myself incredibly fascinated in public health and epidemiological concepts which has led me to this opportunity today. In addition to having a background academically in public health, I have also taken Zoology, Invertebrate Morphology, and Field Ornithology while at SNHU. This has influenced my desire to work with and...