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Participant Reviews
Comments from attendees.
I am really thankful for getting the chance to join the summer soil institute – a unique experience, which felt like being welcomed to the family of soil scientists. Discussing environmental issues with CSU experts, and with other participants from all over the world, is crucial. Only together we can change systems and hopefully protect our living earth! The summer soil institute trained us to broaden our horizon on critical environmental issues and gain expertise for future research and discussions! If you ever have the chance, join and don’t hesitate getting your hands dirty digging in soils around Fort Collins.
– Monique Sézanne Patzner, PhD student, University of Tuebingen (SSI participant 2018)
“The Summer Soil Institute was a great way to kick off my graduate education. The balance between lectures, hands-on activities, and field trips allowed me to explore different aspects of soil science and learn what tools were available for my own research. SSI also allowed me to develop relationships with both prominent scientists and peers from my own career level from across the country. Overall, SSI was an energizing two weeks that facilitated opportunities to dig into research frontiers across soil sciences.”
-Carly Phillips, Graduate Student, University of Georgia (SSI participant, 2013)
“I think SSI is a fantastic opportunity for someone early in their graduate career to gain a broad, multi-disciplinary perspective on soil science. The instructors are all top-notch and it’s great to see the range of questions people are interested in and what tools they use to answer those questions.”
-Kabir Peay, Assistant Professor, Stanford University (SSI participant, 2010)
“The Summer Soil Institute was a great experience, and most importantly, I walked away understanding the status of the field of soil science. It was tremendously beneficial to learn from and talk to soil experts like those at CSU and other leading universities and gain hands-on experience in soil analysis techniques, which could be used to answer pressing scientific questions.”
-Sheila Saia, Graduate Student, Cornell University (SSI participant, 2014)
“My favorite part about the SSI program was learning so many new methods for soil analyses. My experiences there led me to try out new procedures back home and allowed me to widen the scope of my research projects.”
-Ashley Lang, Graduate Student, Dartmouth (SSI participant, 2017)
See what others are saying…
Picarro Blog
Having a Field Day with Measurements
A team from Picarro had the opportunity to bring a G2131-i isotopic carbon in CO2 Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) analyzer to a field demo in collaboration with Colorado State University Professor Francesca Cotrufo. The goal is to run a field study in tandem with the Li-Cor 8100 soil chamber. The work was part of a two-week long Summer Soil Institute course.
CSU Source
Digging into a summer of soils
Since 2010, a group of CSU faculty have brought Summer Soil Institute students to the forest at the start of an intense two weeks of labs and lectures. “An intensive soil course would be incomplete if students didn’t get their hands dirty,” said Wallenstein. “Students need to dig in the soils, see how they are structured and layered in the field, and even smell and taste them.”
Picture post from past SSI participant
Learning Excursion: Summer Soil Institute
Got the chance to travel to Colorado State University and learn about all aspects of soil ecology from the awesome researchers in the CSU Natural Resource Ecology Lab in Fort Collins, CO. Excited to learn all about the different dimensions of soil ecology that might be important to our research, but don’t usually think much about.
