"My name is Jake Burkhardt, and I am 24 years old.
I am a 2nd year PhD student at the University of Missouri, Columbia.
My area of study is ecology, specifically I'm interested in landscape genetics.
Besides school, I really like hiking.
I find any excuse to get outside running around in the woods, and that's ultimately why I
am going into ecology, because I find it fun to run around in the woods.
If I can get paid for doing it, at least some of the time, why not try.
I started out my undergrad wanting to be a doctor, and then, my freshman biology professor
sat down with me during Office Hours and he asked me, ""Are you sure you want to be a
doctor?
What are your hobbies?"" I told him that I liked running around outside.
I like being active.
As a child, I really liked looking for whatever I could find.
We went snake hunting.
We went hunting for salamanders, and I hunted.
He just looked at me and he said, ""You're not going to be a doctor, at least not a medical
one."" I started doing research with him my 2nd semester of my freshman year and fell
in love with population genetics and haven't looked back since.
Speaker 2: Berkhardt discusses what his lab is all about.
Jake Burkhardt: What we're looking at is just basic life history of salamanders.
We're looking at what influences salamander populations.
If we're looking at it from a trophic level of perspective, do more predators influence
the number of salamanders that are coming out of pond and what other factors, within
the ponds, might influence the number of animals coming out.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you think that your study is going to have any human applications?
Jake Burkhardt: Mine do since I'm going into landscape genetics.
What I'm ultimately interested in is looking at the influence of humans, how habitat and
alternation influences the distribution of natural populations.
Habitat fragmentation and degradation has a lot of impact on amphibians.
They're declining globally.
Since we're altering the landscape at alarming rates, we need to start mediating that.
Speaker 2: Berkhardt performs field work at Fort Leonard Wood, a military base in Missouri.
Jake Burkhardt: Since I work on a military base, there's a lot of things that I never
thought I would get used to.
When I first showed up, I was out in a pond and you think you're in the middle of nowhere,
and then, all of a sudden, you'll see people in camo walking by or you'll hear gunfire
in the background.
Sometimes, you hear explosion as well.
This is an active training facility.
When I first got there, I was always thinking ""I'm never going to get used to this noise."",
but towards the end of working down there, I started realizing that I didn't notice the
noise as much as I noticed the silence.
On weekends when they weren't training, I would just be like, ""Man, it's a quiet day
on base today."" A lot of the time when I'm out in the field,
it's just really cool to see what's going on.
When I'm doing field work, a lot of the times I'm not just collecting my data but I'm also
collecting mushrooms that I can eat for dinner later or I'm taking pictures of different
organisms that I might not be directly studying but I see.
Speaker 3: What other careers did you seriously consider and what convinced you to do research?
Jake Burkhardt: I had considered going into medical professions.
I was considering being a doctor or physical therapy, but ultimately, I realized that I
wouldn't be happy in an office all day, and I don't really like the set working hours.
When I found research, I realized that there are so many questions that can be answered
and I really liked trying to investigate a problem and thinking about it.
The fact that if I do ecological research I can go out into the field and get data,
get outside but then come back to the lab and do my data analysis and then sit at a
computer and try to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 3: What obstacles have you faced getting where you are now?
Jake Burkhardt: Being younger in a PhD program, there's a lot of internal pressure to try
to work harder and prove that I know what I'm doing, but at the same time, I feel like
part of research is being willing and able to ask questions.
Regardless of where you're at in your career and regardless of what your age is, you're
going to be successful if you are willing to accept help and know how to ask for it.
I always encourage people, ""If you're interested in something, just try to do an internship
or volunteer because you never know if you're going to like something until you try it,
and it never hurts to try new things."" Speaker 3: What is your dream job and why?
Jake Burkhardt: I really like the one-on-one mentoring relationships, where you're able
to share you passion with other people and answer their questions and help them get to
a point of understanding with something that you're knowledgeable on, and I also really
like being out in the field.
If I can maximize that, that would be my ideal job.
Speaker 2: Berkhardt discusses his favorite part of the research process.
Jake Burkhardt: The most satisfying thing to me is at the end of the research project.
You've spend so much time collecting this data and thinking about and trying to figure
out what's going on, and then when you get to that point where you're able to see a pattern
emerge or when you get your data outputs and all of a sudden you're just like, ""Whoa,
that's not what I expected at all."", and you're able to see the end product.
That's really, really satisfying to me. "