When a student is working towards a PhD, there's one moment that tends to evoke more fear than any other ... the candidacy exam. The candidacy exam at Drexel consists of two parts: a week long written exam and a 3-4 hour oral exam. During the oral exam, the student needs to defend the answers to their written exam and also present/defend their dissertation proposal. Typically, a PhD student attempts to complete their candidacy exam at the end of their second year of study. In exciting news, Jules just passed her candidacy exam on May 5. Since it was also Cinco de Mayo, a bunch of us ecology nerds went out to celebrate Jules' achievement following her exam.
From left to right: Pat (frogs in Bioko Island), Samir (loggerhead sea turtles in Greece), Jen (Samir's fiancee), Jules (PhD Candidate extraordinaire), Me, Steve (freshwater turtles in southeastern PA), Maggie (red colobus in Bioko Island), and Jack (loggerhead sea turtles in Greece).
As far as what this means for the terrapin project in Barnegat Bay, this summer Jules will start collecting "real" data, i.e., the data that she will eventually use to write her dissertation. My understanding is that she'll be looking at terrapin nesting in response to anthropogenic (human-caused) changes in the bay such as bulkheading.
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