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Voices of ACES Blog

Zoo vet? You bet!

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Where are you from? 
I grew up in the Quad Cities where we consider ourselves the "city" for the outlying rural areas. 

Where do you live? 
I live in my hometown of Moline, IL 

Where are you currently employed? 
I am employed in Davenport, IA, just a short drive across the Mississippi River. 

What is your current job title?  
Associate Veterinarian at Animal Family Veterinary Care Center and Head Veterinarian at Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley

Voices of ACES Blog

Care for livestock and keep farms running

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Where are you from?
I am from Ashton, IL and I grew up on a farm with livestock including farrow to finish swine farm and cow/calf operation. 

Where do you live?
I live in Ashton, IL in the country. 

Voices of ACES Blog

Fix Fido and Fluffy as a small animal vet

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Where are you from?
I was born in Chicago, IL and then moved to Oak Park, IL in 3rd grade.

Voices of ACES Blog

Ben is keeping Chicago healthy, beautiful, and green!

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Obtaining my B.S. in NRES/resource ecology from the University of Illinois has helped me tremendously in every professional position I have held. NRES taught me many skills that I use daily, including dendrology, soil science, chemistry, GIS, and plant biology. During my time as a consulting forester, I have inventoried and electronically mapped over 40,000 trees. As Urban Forester for the City of Park Ridge, I was able to protect mature trees from new construction by applying the City’s strict building code regulations.

Voices of ACES Blog

Spending the last days in Malawi with wild elephants

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Our last days in Malawi were spent at a safari camp inside of Liwonde National Park. I think it’s safe to say that none of us have ever experienced a camping trip like this before. For starters, it was in a Malawian national park. Secondly, there were no borders protecting us from wild animals and we were sleeping in elevated tents. Thankfully those tents were elevated because otherwise we would’ve been trampled by WILD ELEPHANTS. Yas, in the middle of the night and into the morning there were wild African elephants roaming through our campsite 20 feet away from us!

Voices of ACES Blog

Peru: An Unexpected Collaboration and Friendship

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When I started graduate school, I knew I wanted to do research internationally. I’m particularly drawn to agriculture, because the intersection of food and culture is consequential to our human experience. Throughout history, agriculture has defined societies and it is immensely gratifying for me to witness the cultural traces of its impact in communities across the world. My story is a tribute to the challenging realities of cross-cultural research, but also to how international exposure is a place for growth and richness.

Voices of ACES Blog

Bring the flavor!

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My name is Jamie Fisher and I am a transfer student in the Food Science and Human Nutrition program. I first got interested in the food science world when I joined an internship class in high school. I did not know what kind of career I wanted to go into until the day I got the opportunity to shadow a scientist at a flavor company called FONA International. I have been hired back as an intern every summer I’ve been in college and I haven’t looked back. I first learned about the different departments a flavor company had to offer, from analytical chemistry to research and innovation.

Voices of ACES Blog

Write the ultimate elevator pitch

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During the fall 2019 semester, I joined the CCI program, which is a special program created by faculty at the career center and designed specifically for international students. I got to know various resources about job searching and learned job-related policies for international students. The CCI program connected me with alumni who already work in the industry and they came back to share with us their experiences in job searching. It was an unforgettable experience you can’t find elsewhere.

Voices of ACES Blog

Apply a solid crop sciences background to become a data scientist

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The knowledge I gained during my undergraduate time in Crop Sciences allowed me to pursue a career in data science. As a data scientist at the John Deere Technology Innovation Center at the University of Illinois Research Park, my team encounters a variety of data in the company. This could include machine data, social media data, and crop data. Because we are in the agriculture industry, domain knowledge is an important factor for the company’s success.

Voices of ACES Blog

Ryan discovered his career path in South Africa

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I transferred into the University of Illinois from community college and I’m a proud first-generation graduate. My HDFS degree has greatly prepared me for a career in Pediatric related medicine and research. The coursework, at least from my experience, laid a strong, flexible foundation for broad knowledge regarding all the different aspects of human development of children and adolescents through a global perspective.

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