For this week’s #humansofoiss, I would love to introduce you to Jiawen Zhang, the other social media curator who has been working with me and creating wonderful social media content for our international community!
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Q: Why did you choose to come to the US?
A: “Exploring the world has always been my dream! Studying abroad is definitely part of it. I am from a tiny village of Guizhou province, which is NOT a developed city in China. To be honest, the tiny village was the whole world in my mind when I was a kid. Later on, I realized the world is actually way more than I thought, and it consists of different countries with different cultures. I started to pursue my goals of studying abroad: field work in lake Baikal (Russia), exchange in Vancouver (Canada), and graduate studies at Yale (USA)!”
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Q: What do you do for research?
A: “I study squirrel [?] hibernation. You probably have noticed that we don’t see that many squirrels around campus now, because they went into hibernation. They go into hibernation even living in constant lab conditions, which indicates that there is a clock in their brain to tell the winter without light and temperature cues. My project is trying to figure out this clock.”
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Q: What do you like to do outside of research?
A: “I love handcrafting and hiking. Scientific research has shown the more complicated things you create with your hand, the happier you feel. There’s no better way to build your connection with nature than hiking.”
