Introducing Kate Lee, World's Fair Intern, Good Ole Computational Modeler


This post was authored by new World's Fair intern Kate Lee.*

Hi, my name is Kate Lee, and I'm happy to be your intern today.

How cool is this? I get to write stuff and it will be posted on the World's Fair, one among many of the fine blogs on scienceblogs.com! When Dave and Ben first sent out the call looking for interns, the idea of me filling those shoes got me excited mainly for selfish and egotistical reasons.

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On the selfish side: Since I graduated college, it has become rare for me to sit down and write about science (or anything, really). In college, I spent so much time writing, climaxing with a 90+ page undergraduate thesis on computational models of human memory, and now that I'm a grown-up, all I do is sit on my front porch and yammer about the days when I could stay up all night drinking and still write a kickass five-pager for class the next morning. I'm truly very excited about the opportunity to have you, reader of scienceblogs.com, to write for. I hope that you will not be shy about feeding back any and all comments so that we can all get better at what we do.

On the egotistical side: I think that I have a valuable perspective to bring scienceblogs.com, and maybe someday the world. I studied and practiced science in college, and part of me hopes to go back to it someday, but in the year since I've graduated, I've become enamored with the idea of sustainable living, and have been working towards building a lifestyle which I can be proud of and happy in. It's funny, I haven't thought about a lot of this intellectually yet, and so I don't really know how to sum it up, but I'm hoping that with a series of posts and comments from YOU I can work through some of these ideas.

One of the most exciting facets of what I think of as sustainable living that I have discovered is urban foraging. This started for me as identifying mint, wood sorrel, purslane, and other delicious wild edibles that grow in the cracks in the sidewalk. There is nothing more exciting than finding a good patch of mint on your daily commute, and grabbing a refreshing mouthful every morning as you walk to the train. This practice has expanded to finding spots in the city that are even more exciting for foraging. I'm fortunate enough to live in Boston, which in spite of being a city, has many beautiful green spaces. My favorite local spot is the Arnold Arboretum, where I've found wild carrots, green onions, rose hips, sumac, lettuce, berries, and all sorts of other foods. It's been really exciting for me to learn that nature produces bounty no matter where you are, and foraging has revolutionized my whole attitude towards food, for the better. I imagine I will be writing about foraging often, because it's become pretty important to me the last few months.

Intro posts are tough - I feel like I have so much to say! I'm ready to see this unfold wherever it may go, and I'm excited to see what the other interns have to say. I hope a fair number of you will be along for the ride.

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*Kate Lee currently lives in Boston, where she happily studies the behavior and cognition of the native plants, animals, and humans. When she's not making money performing whatever strange role the business world needs, she's making records and breaking hearts as part of the "Yes Wave" that's sweeping the local music scene.

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Um, all of these interns... No doubt they must all be working on Puzzle Fantastica #3!

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