EES Graduate Profile: Mo Correll
Mo Correll is an alumna of the EES graduate program at the University of Maine. She completed her undergraduate studies at The College of William and Mary, where she majored in biology. Upon graduation, she spent seven years building experience as a seasonal technician and project manager on projects related to water birds. She decided that she wanted to ask her own questions and have a say in the projects she was leading, so she pursued her doctorate in Ecology and Environmental Science at the University of Maine. Together with advisers Tom Hodgman and Brian Olsen, Mo investigated tidal marsh bird biogeography through the Saltmarsh Habitat Avian Research Program. She defended her thesis in November 2015 and stayed on as a research scientist. She is now a landscape ecologist for the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies’s international program. She leads a regional demographic monitoring effort for grassland birds in the Northern Great Plains.
Her advice to undergraduate students is not to make graduate school the default; rather, make graduate school an active choice. It is hard and involves a lot of work and stress, but it is very rewarding. If you like to travel and spend time outdoors, the seasonal job circuit is a great option.
Stay tuned for more profiles on some of the great alumni from our undergraduate and graduate programs!