Eve Kearns

she/her
Undergraduate Fellow
Team Flora

How did you get here? What brought you to Tyson?

I wanted to do something conservation research related. I spent last summer working a lot with animals at the zoo, and so I wanted to try something with plants, to explore the other side of conservation and to be in more of a research environment. I grew up in a small farming coastal town in California, a place with really interesting natural environments that was extremely conscious of climate change and protecting nature. The awareness of those issues drove me to want to work towards these things as an adult.

What moments have made you feel most connected to the Tyson community?

I feel like I’m always pretty connected to it. Eating lunch with everybody, just getting to talk to people from other teams a little bit and hear how their projects are going. I like carpool a lot. Overall just the small and non-organized events where people hang out and learn more about each other, and share common interests.

How do you keep your team motivated?

I bribe them with food twice a week. I think my baking projects have been one of my biggest contributions to the team and Tyson morale. And then, I have a bit of a hard time taking things seriously. We have fun and joke a lot. I also like to eat all of the plants. Maybe I shouldn’t say that on record, but it’s a source of entertainment for the other people on my team. Today I ate one of the spicebush pods and it was disgusting. It tasted like dish soap and unripe fruit combined. It was really gross. But some of them have been tasty. We found a good berry bush today and Doug [Ladd] was trying to explain something to us, but I was mostly just eating the berries.

What has surprised you about this summer?

I hoped that Tyson would be fun and not just intimidating and science-y, and it definitely has exceeded my expectations in that regard. I’ve never been in a work environment that I’ve enjoyed so much.