Reitz graduate finds adventure of lifetime doing research in Andes
Published On Line - CourierPress
Photography by JILL JANKOWSKI
Story by SHARON SORENSON
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Imagine nearly five months in the jungle. No television, cell phone, newspaper, e-mail, electricity or running water. With a few dedicated assistants, Jill Jankowski lives in a tent; eats rice, pasta and dried soup; treats brown river water for drinking; and stays alert for poisonous snakes, disease-transmitting mosquitoes and stinging ants. Even after a bout with a serious parasitic infection, she's going back.
Jankowski, a 1998 Reitz graduate and a graduate of Purdue University, abandoned her 4.0 grade-point average earned studying chemical engineering, as well as a starting position on Purdue's soccer team. She chose instead to study birds.
Now earning a doctorate from the University of Florida, she's studying the diversity of birds in Peru's 3.75 million-acre Manu reserve.
Supported by her research team, she trudges from the Amazon foothills (elevation 2,550 feet) to the Andes Mountains tree line (elevation: 11,000 feet) to learn why, in a day's stroll up or down the slope, one can cross the ranges of hundreds of bird species.
"You can find as many bird species on this single Andean slope as in the U.S. and Canada combined - about 1,150 species," Jankowski said.
Tropical forests, Jankowski said, are "spectacular places that we know next to nothing about."
"They have the most amazing and quirky animals on the planet. But in many cases, tropical forests are destroyed before anyone can document the life within."
Jankowski feels an urgency about her work, in part, she said, because "in later years, this project will gauge effects of climate change."
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Published On Line - CourierPress
Photography by JILL JANKOWSKI
Story by SHARON SORENSON
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Imagine nearly five months in the jungle. No television, cell phone, newspaper, e-mail, electricity or running water. With a few dedicated assistants, Jill Jankowski lives in a tent; eats rice, pasta and dried soup; treats brown river water for drinking; and stays alert for poisonous snakes, disease-transmitting mosquitoes and stinging ants. Even after a bout with a serious parasitic infection, she's going back.Jankowski, a 1998 Reitz graduate and a graduate of Purdue University, abandoned her 4.0 grade-point average earned studying chemical engineering, as well as a starting position on Purdue's soccer team. She chose instead to study birds.
Now earning a doctorate from the University of Florida, she's studying the diversity of birds in Peru's 3.75 million-acre Manu reserve.
Supported by her research team, she trudges from the Amazon foothills (elevation 2,550 feet) to the Andes Mountains tree line (elevation: 11,000 feet) to learn why, in a day's stroll up or down the slope, one can cross the ranges of hundreds of bird species.
"You can find as many bird species on this single Andean slope as in the U.S. and Canada combined - about 1,150 species," Jankowski said.
Tropical forests, Jankowski said, are "spectacular places that we know next to nothing about."
"They have the most amazing and quirky animals on the planet. But in many cases, tropical forests are destroyed before anyone can document the life within."
Jankowski feels an urgency about her work, in part, she said, because "in later years, this project will gauge effects of climate change."
More information .....>
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