Kim Render at the Giant Buddha
We are so happy to welcome Kim Render as our Panda Fall intern! Kim will be continuing the personality and stereotypical studies that Arina was performing and will also develop a maternal behavior study to track maternal investment in female giant pandas.
Kim graduated with a degree in Biology focusing on Zoology, from Western Illinois University. During our skype interview Kim said “I have two big passions in my life Biology and travel” (a girl after my own heart). During her studies and travels Kim has worked to incorporate both of these passions into her everyday life. She started out her biology career with eight months of wildlife rehabilitation work on the out skirts of Chicago, at Willowbrook Wildlife Center. Kim told me, “to this day, rehabilitating animals at Willowbrook Wildlife Center was one of the most rewarding jobs I have ever had. I loved working with the owls and red tail hawks the best.” After that Kim spent two years living in Texas working at an environmental camp teaching different aspects of Science (botany, water quality, beology, fossils,) to a wide range of students. While in Texas she also I helped survey amphibian population diversity for the Texas Parks and Wildlife. That’s when Kim decided to she wanted to travel more and decided she’d try her luck at living abroad. She packed her things and moved to Bangkok, Thailand where she taught Science, Biology, Ecology, and Health in English at a high school. She loved it so much she remained in Bangkok for two and a half years. While applying for the PDXWildlife panda internship she was teaching English in Taiwan (we skyped for the interview as I was in Ya’an at the time). When she wasn’t teaching English in Taiwan she was volunteering at the local vet clinic. And now she is living in Ya’an China doing an internships with pandas!
We’re so excited to have her on the team and everyone will be able to follow her experience with biweekly blog postings.
Welcome to Ya’an Kim!
-Meg
