By Easton Lane 25C
Greta Franke (25C) is an Environmental Sciences and Music double major on the Ecology and Vocal Performance tracks, respectively. During summer 2023, Franke completed a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) internship focusing on soil ecology, an opportunity that she found after completing Emory’s year-long Scholarly Inquiry and Research Experience (SIRE).
SIRE is “designed for undergraduate students who are entering research for the first time,” and in Franke’s experience, the skills she picked up paid dividends for her pursuits in environmental science research. The program is open to all majors, but it tends to be utilized mostly by students on the pre-med track—something Franke hopes will change if more students know about SIRE.
“I’m not sure if I would have learned about SIRE if I hadn’t been on a pre-med path at that time. I think all departments should promote SIRE as a wonderful opportunity to get involved in research at Emory,” she says. “It’s an amazing program for students who are interested in research, but who might not know exactly where to start. SIRE provides a really great introduction to conducting and presenting research, and helps students develop skills they’ll use further down the road.”
The SIRE program has two components to its year-long process: weekly workshops and independent research. During the workshops, Franke was able to learn about “the research process, ethics, professional communication, and poster presentations.” For her independent research, Franke focused on “the geological, ecological, and anthropological history” of Skidaway Island, one of the Georgia Barrier Islands.
As the SIRE program drew to a close, it culminated in vital research experiences, putting the skills learned in workshops and independent research into practice.
“SIRE was the first time I created a lengthy and detailed annotated bibliography, a task that involved a lot of digital scholarship and time management,” Franke says. “It gave me my first opportunity to create a research poster and present it at a symposium.”
These SIRE experiences have become integral to Franke’s future pursuits, already setting her up for success in her soil ecology REU and preparing her to be a research assistant in Dr. Debjani Sihi’s biogeochemistry lab this year.
Faculty advisors are a crucial component of the SIRE program, and typically, students will need to find their own mentors. Franke was mentored by ENVS professor Dr. Anthony Martin, whose expertise aided her independent research project, but it took some planning on her part to find the right advisor.
“SIRE participants typically need to find their own faculty mentors, which may be daunting. I’d encourage first-year students to think about topics of interest and reach out to potential mentors during their second semester,” Franke advises. “This way, when SIRE applications open over the summer, they can be ready to go!”
SIRE has been invaluable to Franke and other students in developing their knowledge of what it means to be a researcher at the collegiate level, providing them the skills to succeed even in research opportunities that seem to be outside their wheelhouse.
“While my SIRE and REU experiences were quite different—one focused on digital scholarship and the other on field and lab work—both had a critical analysis component and some overlap in workshop and seminar topics,” Franke says. “Also, part of my REU involved presenting my findings at a research symposium, so presenting at Emory’s undergraduate symposium the previous semester certainly helped with the confidence.”
Franke encourages those interested in any kind of research at Emory to take a flier on the SIRE program—especially environmental science students. It is a uniquely beneficial opportunity, and one that she hopes more students will experience.
Department of Environmental Sciences 