Meet Caitlin,

She is an Asian Studies major and an independent researcher. In the future, she plans to pursue a graduate degree in environmental studies. Her advice to future researchers is that you should be ready to dedicate much of your time to your topic. It may be cliché, but you have to eat, sleep, and breathe your topic. Your friends should be able to support you when you rant on and on and on about it. Most of all, you must love it. If you don’t enjoy your research, then you won’t want to push through any issues that presents themselves along the way.

Her research investigated the Buddhist practice of fangsheng; the process of releasing captive animals to obtain good karma. This implementation of fangsheng has introduced large quantities of non-native species to China’s environment and heavily influenced the likelihood of a non-native species becoming invasive, which has caused numerous problems to the ecological cycle. She will then analyze the impact of fangsheng and proposes solutions to resolve these issues.

Read more about her research here…