major phd milestone: Advancing to candidacy

After weeks of revising my thesis proposal, flipping through flash cards, textbooks, and articles to review soil, ecology, stable isotope, and socioecology concepts, I passed my qualifying exam! As a holistic thinker, I naturally gravitated towards an interdisciplinary approach to understanding ecological processes and their drivers. While this made preparation especially challenging, I am so excited to see where this area of research takes me. What a great way to finalize year two of my PhD!