Today's storyteller is Dr Jonathon Valente! Jonathon is a longtime dear friend of mine who does all kinds of interesting bird and wildlife research and so I'm excited to share this conversation with you! We first met at Louisiana State University (LSU) back in I think like 2007, when I was finishing up my bachelor's degree and he was starting his master's degree. I then joined the same research lab to begin my master's degree right after my undergrad graduation, so we were lab mates for a few years as well. This conversation consists mainly of the questions I've always wanted to ask him and never really had the excuse to, like how did you end up in the wildlife field, how did you end up at LSU, what happened next, interspersed with conversations about wildlife, birds, research, etc. Also, there's a brief and hilarious bird interlude around 20 minutes in because what else could you possibly expect when 2 bird people chat on Zoom?!? I hope you enjoy this conversation!

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You can find Rachel Villani on Twitter @flyingcypress and Storytellers of STEMM on Facebook and Twitter @storytellers42.

You can find Jonathon Valente on Twitter @jonathonvalente and his website https://www.jonathonvalente.com/.

Article about the 17 year cicada cycle: Brood X Cicadas are Emerging at Last

MAPS Bird Banding Project: https://www.birdpop.org/pages/maps.php

Texas A&M Wildlife Job Board: https://wfscjobs.tamu.edu/job-board/

Book List: The Overstory by Richard Powers, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

Recorded on 11 September 2021.