Barry Fellowship Alum Spotlight

Michele Trickey, 2008 Barry Fellow

Michele Trickey DC '10 is a Physics major. She is the president of AISEC and is also involved with the Atmosphere, Ocean, and Climate Dynamics Lab in Geology and Geophysics.

Her summer on the Barry Fellowship:
"In Guayaquil, I researched the utility of new climate indices in seasonal rainfall forecasting while investigating the interaction of science and policy in Ecuador. The noise of the trucks arriving with the workers for the nursery next door tended to wake me up around 7. I'd get dressed, eat some granola, yogurt, and passion fruit for breakfast, boil some water, grab my backpack, and head out the door. I lived on campus, which is uncommon in Ecuador, so I was housed in suites that also held visiting professors. The path to the Faculty of Marine Science and Engineering was about a mile long, and the shortcut involved cutting down a dry, rocky slope kind of like what you'd see in Southern California out onto the main road. Otherwise, I'd walk down the road, past the llama enclosure, to the main road.

Once I got to work, I'd greet Manolo (with whom I shared my office) with a kiss on the cheek, and we'd catch up before I opened my laptop or started up the computer. Manolo and I communicated entirely in Spanish, and in fact about 95% of my work in Ecuador was conducted in Spanish. He's happily married but tended to comment on pretty girls as we walked to lunch. My mild offense at this turned into a sort of banter for the rest of the summer, with Manolo insisting that he was "timid and tranquil" and only had two women in his life (his mother and his wife) and that I was making up stories and calling him a sinner. This was, of course, augmented later in the summer when my friend Julio asked me to pose with him for the cover of an HIV/AIDS educational brochure (the community relations office was in the same building). We had to pose as a couple, so you can imagine the jokes that generated.

Lunch was either $1.25 or $1.75, depending whether you chose the option to the right or the left in the cafteria. Ecuador being Ecuador, lunch always came with with soup and rice, beans or meat, and often some type of banana. I tended to eat with people from my office, and we always got attention because I was one of the few international students on campus.

Meet Past Barry Fellows

In the evening I'd have time to hang out with my neighbors (we played cards - if you lost, everyone else got a turn painting your face, and we all looked like pirates by the end), read, or check email. Sometimes I'd take the bus into the city to meet a friend for a movie or just walk around. It gets dark around 6:30 in Ecuador all year round, so I had to get used to that; it kind of adds mystery, since evening is so long.

I loved Ecuador. I don't know that I had a 'favorite part'- maybe the buses. They're a little nutty, but they're pretty predictable, really cheap, and give you a sense of what life is really like there, as vendors hop on and off. I got heat sick the weekend I was in Machala, and that was really the only time that I was homesick. The only other thing that was difficult was recognizing how fragile short-term friendships are; you always doubt that the people who are taking care of you are doing it out of real interest in you and not just obligation. I learned how to listen very closely (partially because it's hard to function constantly in your second language, partially because I really wanted to know how people thought and felt) and how to let things go because you just can't be in control all the time when you're abroad.

Developing countries give you perspective on what you actually need, and how much is left to chance. In Ecuador, that's as simple as you don't have a rug in front of the shower - an old shirt works. You don't need dessert with every (or any) meal. You don't have to be busy every minute to be a valid person. You do need a master's degree to have a chance at steady work -- that was a shock.

How she chose her project:
I Google-searched "desaster naturales" in December and came up with two centers - one in Mexico and one in Ecuador - that deal with natural disaster research and mitigation. I emailed them and their affiliated universities with my CV. The university in Ecuador was the quickest to respond and had the best infrastructure, so I built up my project with them. I had recently realized that geological research connected my interests in science and "all things international," so I started with the idea of the science behind natural disasters like flooding and built from there.

How her summer influenced her future plans:
My summer in Ecuador confirmed for me that I want a career in climate research that's directly tied to local use. I don't know if I'll end up developing satellites or crunching numbers, but I had a blast even when everything seemed to be going wrong (and everything will, at one time or another, seem to be going wrong), so that was a good point in the favor of spending the rest of my life on research.

How she has spent her other summers at Yale:
I spent the summer after freshman year as a Dwight Hall fellow running a tutoring program. This summer I will split my time between Ecuador and Yale, working to establish a diurnal rainfall cycle for part of the Ecuadorian coast as part of my senior research project.

What make a Barry fellow unique:
The Barry dinners are awesome. This is actually a fellowship -- it connects you to fellow students and to the World Fellows and faculty who are interested in students who do things. Given that Yale's greatest asset is its people, the Barry fellowship does a great job of exploiting that - a better job, I think, than most fellowships and even other forums for student and faculty interaction. I'll be back in Ecuador this summer. I may end up using what I learned in my doctoral thesis. The Barry fellowship started me on a love affair with a country that may last a lifetime. That's pretty profound.