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Penn State SOP

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Hemanth Peddavenkatappa Gari
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34 views2 pages

Penn State SOP

Uploaded by

Hemanth Peddavenkatappa Gari
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Pennsylvania State University – Statement of Purpose

When I tell others of my two undergraduate majors, I am often met with surprise, but
pursuing both Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Theatre Arts has been pivotal in shaping the
way I think about, question, and appreciate the world. These diverse experiences have instilled
foremost a sense of dedication and curiosity, and I am eager to ask and pursue new and
interesting questions about ecology through independent research during my graduate studies
and beyond. In addition to learning new techniques in fieldwork, labwork, data analysis and
modeling in graduate school, I also look forward to the stimulating environment of faculty and
peers. After obtaining a PhD, I intend to pursue a career in ecological research, focusing on the
ideas of population and community structure and their implications for diversity. This includes
the mechanisms and behaviors contributing to structures as well as how this structure is altered
over time, space, with the introduction of invasives and/or shifting species ranges due to global
change. I currently expect to pursue a post-doctorate and continue in academia, though during
my graduate studies I also hope to be exposed to and explore other opportunities to contribute as
an ecologist.
As a student in a Department of Energy-funded summer undergraduate research program
(GCEP SURE), I had the opportunity to explore these mechanisms while collaborating with two
doctoral students in the field. I was not only introduced to field methods of studying dominance
and thermal tradeoffs of foraging habits of woodland ants but also to the joys and woes of
adapting and rethinking a research project. We explored a variety of methods to best answer our
research questions, and this process of formulating and rethinking projects was quite valuable,
perhaps more so than the fieldwork itself. Additionally, one of the two courses I took at the
University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS), Field Mammalogy, was centered around
student-designed and executed research projects. Research included projects on bat roosting
habits, interspecific aggression of sciurids, and shifts of ranges and community composition of
Peromyscus in northern Michigan. Due to these projects as well as theatrical productions, I am
accustomed to being thoroughly involved in all aspects of the research (or production) process
and have developed a commitment to seeing a project through to its conclusion. I thus strive to
understand the full scope of my research and look forward to the entire research process.
Though the Biological Station placed great emphasis on ecological fieldwork, it also
instilled the importance of concise and deliberate scientific writing. Two years after completing
the Field Mammalogy class, I was invited to return as a teaching assistant for the course. In
teaching and evaluating students’ work, I have become familiar with what is effective in
scientific writing as well as the importance of a solid foundation in literature, a quality lost in
many student papers. To complement my field based experiences, I have performed tasks critical
to a variety of research projects, such as making casts and documenting microwear of teeth,
prepping samples for isotope analysis, managing a database of mammalian faunas, and creating
maps and performing spatial analysis in ArcGIS while working as a research assistant with
Professor Catherine Badgley (UM Museum of Paleontology). I have also modeled populations
in R and analyzed data with SPSS during upper level courses in ecology.
Because of experiences in class, theatre, and as a teaching assistant, I am also accustomed
to working with and leading a variety of people. I am eager to work independently on my own
research during graduate school and am confident in my abilities to do so. Through directing
and stage managing theatre, where I was responsible for a large portion of artistic and logistical
aspects of a show, I have acquired skills in patience, time management, organization, and
discipline to complete and produce quality work while under physical, emotional, and temporal
demands. Therefore, I believe I can withstand the rigors of a PhD program and am looking
forward to applying these skills in an ecological context.
The Pennsylvania State University graduate program in Ecology would provide an
environment capable of nurturing my ecological interests in the implications of population and
community structure. My diverse experiences and unique skill set have prepared me to be an
engaged graduate student and successful researcher, and I am eager to fulfill this role in the near
future.

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