i. What were your goals for the course in Peru? To what extent did you realize these goals? Please give specific examples if possible. We’d also like to know the extent to which covid-19 affected your ability to realize your goals.

I’m very happy to have met and gotten to know so many wonderful students and researchers! It has been interesting hearing about their work and personal life. I’m also pleased to have learned about how to gather and measure plant trait data, in addition to measure carbon fluxes in the field. Sadly covid-19 interrupted our fieldwork halfway through. For me this meant that I did not get enough practice with the flux equipment, especially the more technical parts like using the computer to measure carbon fluxes and dark respiration and to acquire and use the data afterwards.

ii. What did you learn about yourself during this course?

I learned that it’s very handy to bring a tarp while doing fieldwork in tropical mountains!