Kathryn Battle of Richmond, Va., a junior majoring in wildlife sciences, presented her research at the eighth annual ACC Meeting of the Minds Conference at Wake Forest University in April. The conference is an opportunity to highlight the diversity of research work being completed by undergraduates and for students to share their work with peers.

“It was great to not only see the diversity of research presented at a professional conference, but it was also a wonderful opportunity for me to see how a variety of fields conduct research,” said Battle. She presented her research on the effects of landscape characteristics on the activity of the little brown bat at Fort Pickett near Blackstone, Va. Battle analyzed data collected by Michael St. Germain, senior project supervisor at the Conservation Management Institute.

“It was a great experience for me to learn how to communicate wildlife science to non-scientists,” Battle said. “I was happy that at the end of my presentation I received a lot of good questions about the implications of this work, and I think I generated some interest in bats.”

“No matter what I end up doing,” she continued, “I hope to inspire other people to take interest in the natural world and foster a conservation mindset.”

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