Dr. Courtney Collins (she/her/hers) is a postdoc who studies ecology specifically Arctic and Alpin plant responses to climate change. I love outdoor activities including hiking, biking, camping, kayaking, and running. I have been out in STEM since December 2019 and identify as queer and/or Bisexual.
Transcript
Arpi: Hi, I’m Arpi.
Courtney: Hi, I’m Courtney.
Arpi: And Dr. Courtney Collins is a postdoc at INSTAAR which is the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at CU Boulder. And I sat down with her and talked about her research and her experience being an LGBTQ person in STEM. So tell us about your research in STEM.
Courtney: So I’m an ecologist. So I study ecosystems and interactions among organisms in the natural world. I specifically study how plants interact with soil and in particular soil microbes like bacteria and fungi that live below ground and in their root system. And I do this mostly in arctic and alpine ecosystems especially thinking about the impacts of climate change such as increased temperature, drought, and pollution on these ecosystem functions.
Arpi: Can you discuss some projects you’ve worked on?
Courtney: So during my dissertation work, I worked in the White Mountains of California where I studied a particular species of shrub that was expanding its geographic range due to climate warming. And I wanted to know how soil microbial communities in this mountain range were affecting the ability of this shrub species to expand its range. So we did a lot of experiments thinking about interactions between plants and soil microbes. I’ve done a lot of work taking DNA out of the soil in order to try to identify what microbes are living in the soil environment and how they’re interacting with plants. I also have grown a lot of plants in the greenhouse and love to spend time working in the greenhouse and also in the field. And now as a postdoc here I will start a new project looking at the diversity of plant flowering at Niwot Ridge in Colorado.
Arpi: And how did you know you wanted to pursue a PhD.
Courtney: Well starting in high school I took an AP environmental science course which really opened my eyes to environmental science and ecology research. And I got really excited about that field so I started my undergraduate in environmental science. And one of my professors really encouraged me to go to graduate school and so I did. And pretty much since then I have completed a Master’s degree and after my Master’s I worked for a little while as a technician helping other people implement their projects in the field and in the lab but I really missed the ability to design my own project during that time and so I wanted to go back to get a PhD so I could really have this creative kind of control over the research that I was doing and just allow me to design and carry out new projects and experiments and I’ve really enjoyed and think that was a great decision.
Arpi: Awesome. How has your campus experiences been being an LGBTQ person in STEM?
Courtney: So I came out quite late in life as a PhD student about 3 years into my PhD so about when I was 28 and I was received very accepted and had so much support from my community of other graduate students and peers and other academics. My community was really fantastic at the University of California, Riverside where I did my PhD. In addition there were lots of other members of this community that were already out and whose identity was being celebrated and that was just an awesome thing to see and it made my experience so much easier and I felt really comfortable. I have felt totally accepted as a member of the LGBTQ community in STEM. I’m aware that this is not always the case for people but in my experience it’s been very positive.
Arpi: And has your LGBTQ experience and identity impacted your STEM career at all?
Courtney: I think it has had no negative impacts and mostly positive impacts on my STEM career because it’s allowed me to feel more confident and authentic in my self-expression and in my research. I do realize that I have a lot of privileges going for me in that I’m cis and white and I think that I’m trying to use this privilege to help promote and support other members of the LGBTQ community that might not have the same privileges that I do. And so I hope that this is a message of support and allyship for them to know that they are supported and seen in this community as well.
Arpi: Great. What kind of advice do you have for LGBTQ high school students who have aspirations to be sceintists?
Courtney: My advice is to let your creativity and your passion for science continue to drive your desire to learn more about science and to become a scientist. And just to be yourself and know that that will help you to really achieve those goals that you have is just by being authentic and true to yourself. And know that you’re paving the way for others like you who may feel uncertain about their future and know that you are giving them a pathway to follow and that is really important.
Transcribed by Sophia Ulmer