Experience Reflection : Kiedon Bryant
“I would say that my experience at JMIH validated me as a researcher and also showed me that there is a place for someone like me in science. I hope my experience will inspire other minorities in STEM.”
BY KIEDON BRYANT
I would like to thank Field Inclusive and Tracy Aviary for awarding me the Summer 2024 Travel Award. The funds received went towards the cost for airfare, lodging and meals, along with registration fees for my attendance at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania earlier this summer. Attending this conference was a very fun and invaluable experience that I will remember for years to come. During my time at JMIH, I attended many talks given by very prominent field biologists in the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) as well as the Herpetologist League (HL) and the American Elasmobranch Society (AES). During these talks I was exposed to a diverse array of
topics such as phylogenetics, life history traits, and vertebrate morphology.
Despite my research interests being strongly bound to ecology, evolution, and behavior (EEB) the curriculum of my current graduate program is very biomed focused. Therefore, if not for my attendance at this conference I would not have been exposed to many of these topics. The valuable information and resources I retained from these presentations will greatly supplement my future research. For example, I’m studying the evolutionary loss of paternal care in a species of darter named the Glassy darter (Etheostoma vitreum). Very little is known about this species and their ecology hasn’t been studied since the 1950s. After sitting through several talks discussing life history traits, I now want to include a natural history study of the Glassy darter in my dissertation so we can fill the knowledge gaps on this species and preserve its
habitats for the future.
I was also fortunate enough to cross paths with many successful scientists in my field such as Drs. Missy Gibbs, Tom Near, and Prosanta Chakrabarty. I learned a lot from interacting with such established scientists and was provided with some great career advice. While attending the conference I also met other graduate students with shared interests and many of them also came from diverse backgrounds and life experiences. I even reconnected with other graduate students that had met white engaging in previous research experiences as well. Overall, I feel like I was able to build some pretty strong relationships that will hopefully last for decades.
The city of Pittsburgh was wonderful and the view of the skyline and its many bridges was amazing. I had a wonderful time exploring the many different recreational activities offered there as well. While at the conference I presented a poster derived from a manuscript I wrote detailing some research I recently completed studying pair-bonding and cortisol synchrony in convict cichlids (Amatitlania nigrofasciata). Many attendees enjoyed my poster and found my research to be very interesting. Surprisingly, the morning after presenting the poster, I was notified that the manuscript my poster was based on had just been accepted for publication in the Journal of General and Comparative Endocrinology. At that moment it felt like everything had come full circle.
I definitely did not have the best start to graduate school but my experience at JMIH was a culmination of how well things have changed in my favor. Several months ago I felt like I would never have a secure place in science but then things changed in a very short amount of time. Back in April I was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the following day I was also awarded the Field Inclusive Travel Award which allowed me to finally present original research at a national conference. In summary, I would say that my experience at JMIH validated me as a researcher and also showed me that there is a place for someone like me in science. I hope my experience will inspire other minorities in STEM. I would like to thank the organizing societies of JMIH for promoting an inclusive environment and I plan on attending many meetings in years to come.
Kiedon Bryant (he/him) is a Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University and was the recipient of Field Inclusive’s 2024 Summer Travel Award, sponsored by Tracy Aviary (TA).