Streams, Sound, and Science: An ACRC Intern Experience
Hello! My name is Ash, and I’m a junior in environmental studies at UAS. I moved from Western North Carolina to Alaska in 2025. As dearly as I love the Appalachians, I wanted to explore somewhere new. My background is in visual arts and digital media, though I’ve always been nature-oriented, with a personal goal to spend as much time outside as possible. Conservation is also very important to me, so it’s been exciting to dive deeper into this field.
This summer I had the incredible opportunity to work as an ACRC intern alongside my amazing cohorts. When my mentor, Lindsey McCulloch, first introduced the sonification project to me, I was honestly a bit intimidated. I'd never heard of it before, and had to read over the outline a few times before it clicked. The idea of combining art and science was really intriguing to me.
I think my background in video editing gave me a leg up, but there was still a steep learning curve working with scientific data, learning a new-to-me audio engineering software, and translating the data into cohesive songs that can resonate with an audience. It’s been wild watching the project develop: from something I could barely wrap my head around, to something I lived and breathed, to something I'm genuinely proud of.
It’s been so interesting to learn about hydrology and the interconnectedness of these wild places. I also obtained some hands-on experience in the field, stream sampling around Juneau and taking measurements out in the Davies Creek watershed. The staff and mentors I worked with have been endlessly helpful, knowledgeable, and just fun to work with. There's nothing I love more than starting my day in a stream. I bushwhack for fun, so putting on waders and slogging deep into the wetlands is my bread and butter.
What's next is more exploring and more learning. There's still so much I want to understand, and working with the ACRC has given me a much clearer sense of what interests me in this field and what kinds of opportunities are out there. Science communication, especially, has my attention as it blends my passions perfectly. I think the intersection of art and science can help people understand and connect with intangible, complex data in a meaningful way. It makes science more accessible.