HQP Summer Travel Series: Yiyi

In our third instalment of our HQP summer series you will hear Yiyi Zhang's take on the ESA CSEE 2022! Yiyi is a PhD student on our theme 2 who had the opportunity to present her own research at the conference! Here's what she had to say about the experience:

Yiyi delivers her presentation “Quantifying Ecosystem Service Flows from Agricultural Landscapes to People: a Serviceshed Approach” during the Contributed Oral Session on Agriculture at the ESA.

Yiyi and Dr. Meng Lin (former chair at the Human Ecology Section) set up the Human Ecology Section booth for the ESA.

I presented my research and was greatly supported by people from the ResNet network at my presentation. I also met Human Ecology Section committee I am part of and co-organizers of a mixer event I helped with. I met other many interesting and inspiring presenters and participants at some of the sessions and mixers. 

Throughout the conference, I explored different sessions on different topics at different scales ranging from local to global and from past to future (e.g., historical context of data, seed initiatives). I learned from ecologists specialized in specific ecosystems (e.g., agriculture) and ecological components (e.g., pollinators, soil), engaged in education and communication, and experienced in different career paths. I felt very supported at my presentation where I shared models linking ecosystem services beneficiaries and supply. At the ResNet session, I enjoyed celebrating with the team the various accomplishments our researchers had. Through helping with and participating in a social event, I connected with researchers who share the interest in human dimension of ecology and developed an interest in organizing events. I also enjoyed interactions with theorists and empiricists focused on different theories and empirical contexts at another social event. I also spent some time enjoying the pleasant views of the city with participants new to Montreal and had thoughtful conversations about researching and teaching ecology on our walk. At the Human Ecology Section business meeting, I was elected VP and will continue my involvement in the Section including planning events for next year's ESA. 
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I really appreciate the opportunity to do research at ResNet and the support from our enthusiastic and knowledgeable memebers. I look forward to being in touch with connections I made during the conference again and contributing to the Human Ecology section where I had unique and important experience and memories. ​

You can read more about Yiyi's research by visiting our Theme 2 page or by visiting her bio here.