My Experience with Undergraduate Research at Hamilton Lab
Emma Clark is a fourth-year Evolution and Ecology student, minoring in Environmental Science at The Ohio State University. She is also a Choose Ohio First Scholar in the Advancing an Inclusive Biotech Economy in Ohio (IBEO-Science) group. Emma has become increasingly interested in research and would like to attend graduate school and continue doing research as a career. In the semester of Autumn 2024, Emma was presented with the opportunity to join a behavioral ecology lab through her TA for a course she took that semester. Since then, she has been volunteering in the lab for 4 semesters and has started her own experimental research project over the summer 2025 term.
Hamilton Lab is a behavioral ecology lab that looks into how two different species of fish interact with each other, form groups and group dynamics, and how those groups can be affected by environmental factors. Emma started off for the first two semesters just doing general fish care and learning how the lab works, and was eventually able to work with a PhD student, David Hibler, on his research, which resulted in an idea for a related experiment that would fill a missing piece from the research that was already going on in the lab. After that, Emma was able to work with Dr. Hamilton and David Hibler to begin her own research project, which was largely independently run over the past year. Getting the opportunity to complete her own research and explore a unique idea gave her even more interest in research and gave her a lot of experience and skills that could be applied to a future career.
Impact of the Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program
"The Choose Ohio First Scholarship has impacted me in a very positive way, especially through gaining important skills from the required volunteer hours, like tutoring at Metro High School and gaining important teaching and communication skills. Another way that Choose Ohio First has helped is that it encouraged me to attend office hours, tutoring sessions, and using other resources on campus to do well in my courses, even when I didn't feel like I needed or wanted to ask for help. I have found that attending office hours helps to build relationships with professors, even if I felt like I knew the course material and did not have any specific questions.".