The NASA Space Grant program paired me up with mentor Scott Saleska in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department. I had previously worked with graduate students in Scott’s lab who were studying Arctic plant ecology and carbon cycling in the Amazon Rainforest; it was all I could dream of as an undergraduate that I would eventually end up visiting these amazing places, instead of just handling the data to come out of them. When awarded the Space Grant, I was able to work closely with Scott in preparing my undergraduate thesis, which focused on the data I collected as part of a NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates trip to Northern Sweden. The year spent working with Scott gave me the opportunity to show my dedication and extreme interest in researching Arctic ecosystem carbon cycling, which turned into a Master’s position within Scott’s lab. The summer after completing my undergraduate thesis, I spent 3 months living at the field station in Abisko, Sweden, setting up a solar-powered automated camera system that measures the growth stages of plants and the rate of thawing of Arctic permafrost. This system is known as a “Pheno-cam”, and is allowing me to link years of greenhouse gas emission measurements at this site with NASA-grade remote-sensing technology and satellites; bridging the two fields that I am the most interested in. My Sweden camera deployment went so well that I have even travelled to the Amazon Rainforest in Santarem, Brazil, to help with the installation of a similar camera system. Without the funding and professional connections offered by Space Grant, I wouldn’t have had the chance to develop my thesis into a graduate research project, which has led me to visiting the most amazing places in the world. Since spending my field seasons in Sweden, I have met many other professional researchers in my field, and aim to pursue a PhD. upon graduating from UA in May, 2016.