Meet our sustainable student of the week, Claire Couch!
Claire is a Ph.D student studying integrative biology. She is researching wildlife disease ecology on the OSU Corvallis campus, specifically focusing on hoof and mouth disease outbreaks among African buffalo. This is to monitor how disease spreads through wildlife, domestic animals and humans, and in this way outbreaks can be monitored and tracked. This can be applied to a broad range of disease and species, and potentially humans. Claire believes this information is important to understand as climate change affects the human/wildlife interactions as well as wildlife interactions with domestic animals.
Claire believes sustainability means basing our actions as a society off of a positive vision for the future. Claire plans to use her time at OSU to design and teach an outreach curriculum for students in South Africa, where most of the field work for her research takes place. This curriculum will be developed in conjunction with a nonprofit in South Africa, and will be focused on teaching about careers in science and science-based agriculture in underserved communities.
Fun fact! Claire has a dog named Rusty, and in her spare time plays the banjo! Thank you Claire for your commitment to social and environmental sustainability here at OSU and in the world!
CATEGORIES: Sustainable Student Spotlight