Ehlana Davidson
What affects probability of wildlife roadkills in urban environment?
Honours Student
ehlana.davidson@uq.net.au
A bit about me
For as long as I can remember I’ve loved animals and have wanted to help save them. As a kid, when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I always said vet. But between high school work experience and watching endless heartbreaking episodes of Bondi Vet I figured out that it probably wasn’t for me. So I changed my plans, and focused on Zoology as a major instead with the aim of heading into conservation research in the future.
In year 12 I was lucky enough to be accepted into the SPARQ-ed program where we spent a week in the Translational Research Institute researching the p53 gene in HeLa cells over the September school holidays. It was my first taste of research and it was absolutely fascinating. This experience kickstarted my interest in genetics, and opened my eyes to other career possibilities.
Undergrad
My time as an undergrad at UQ was immensely fun, and for the most part interesting (looking at you stats). I completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in Genetics and Zoology and a Diploma of Language in Mandarin Chinese.
Throughout my degrees, I was given the opportunity to go on field trips, like the one out to Idalia National Park in western Queensland, and participate in real science! Which was very exciting for me because while I am fascinated by genetics, lab work in the classroom didn’t feel like real science because nothing was new. Each lab protocol had been previously done, adapted, tested and set in stone for students to perform year in, year out. So when the opportunity to go out into the real world and collect real data presented itself in 2018 I jumped on it. An 18 hour bus ride and several slightly questionable servo stops later and we arrived in Idalia NP. The week that followed was filled with new friends, fun times and heaps of science that you could actually touch! We examined the landscape, plant ecology and the evolutionary features that allowed macropods to live in a slightly inhospitable place. We did transects and dissections, we went on walks around the beautiful park and by the end of it, we all fell in love with field work. It taught me that at this stage of my scientific career I want to be doing more field based data collection than lab based.
Some of my favourite photos and residents of Idalia National Park. July 2018
Honours
My first favourite animal was the bilby and ever since then marsupials have held a special place in my heart, which is why I chose to apply for honours as a part of the Wilson Lab. Robbie had taught several of the courses I did as an undergrad and talked about his research on northern quolls, which I found fascinating! My project currently is identifying what affects the probability that a ringtail possum will be hit by a vehicle in the urban environment.
Possum-spotting chick!
Personal Interests
I love cooking and baking, and frequently use it to procrastinate (or as my dad would say ‘procrasti-bake’). I also love to read, although I’ve been so busy with uni work recently that I’ve mostly just been collecting books to exist in my rapidly expanding library.