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At the end of January 2017, I accompanied Fiona Soper and Megan Nasto from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology Lab in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation on a research trip to Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. Their plan was to set up a greenhouse study on the Piro Biological Station’s Osa Verde farm. My plan was to observe in hopes to better understand their science. After two weeks of bushwhacking through the rainforest to find seedlings and soil, the two women had about 300 baby trees planted in narrow black pots of nitrogen-high and nitrogen-low cycling soil. I watched them get excited when they found fixing nodules on roots, asking me to ‘‘check out these sweet nods.’’ I saw their frustration when a few of their fully potted tables collapsed and set their project back a few days. I got to know them as people, not bodies in labcoats spewing out numbers and figures and formulas. I learned that uncharismatic doesn’t mean uninteresting, and scientific success doesn’t come easy. 

Fiona and Megan reinforce a table in the Osa Verde greenhouse. In the last leg of their project, two tables of fully potted plants collapsed, setting them back a few days. Despite the adversity, the women successfully set up their study with time to spare.

After two weeks of work, Fiona and Megan finished setting up their study, which will look at how nitrogen is cycled in different tree species in a controlled environment. In May, Fiona will return to harvest the seedlings to bring back to the States for analysis.