EGGS major lands competitive summer internship

Paleontology isn’t a typical career track for an environmental geoscience major, but that’s not stopping Keara Drummer from testing the waters this summer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Drummer, a junior, will be among the select few interning to help curators on the Royal Mapes Collection — a scientific collection of over 500,000 fossil specimens, mostly from the Upper Paleozoic of the central United States. She was one of six chosen for this highly competitive eight-week internship.

“It became a target because the internship does basically what I’ve been doing helping organize the EGGS paleo collection, except on a larger more professional scale,” Drummer said. “I enjoy the nature of the job, and I’m up for the bigger challenge. I’ve always had a fascination for museums as a kid.”

According to Drummer, the Department of Environmental, Geographical and Geological Sciences has prepared her for this opportunity through individualized instruction, hands-on field experience and networking opportunities with professionals. One connection she says gave her a competitive edge to land the internship was work with paleontology instructor Alan Gishlick, who also works for the American Museum of Natural History.

Gishlick opened Drummer up to the idea of paleontology on a professional level. With his help, Drummer says she had the opportunity to learn about and execute the suggested archival process for fossil specimens, catalog the information of fossils and use the online Paleobiology database to identify taxonomic ranks for the last two years.

While this is not a set career path for Drummer, she says this experience will help her get closer to her career goals and open up doors for opportunities in other fields. She is grateful to the EGGS faculty who have opened her up to so many career enhancing opportunities and allowed her to be a well-recognized student, not just a number in the 150-person lecture hall.