Honeycreepers and Mosquitos: Hawaiian Researcher Kyle Dahlin
For one summer as an undergraduate, Kyle Dahlin, currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Georgia, had to take a ferry to a small island for field work. “If you didn’t leave by a certain time, you were sleeping on the island. Or you could swim,” he remembers. “That was fun. Much more fun than pure math would be.” This field work, at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, was part of a two year program in mathematical biology where he and a biology undergraduate were placed on joint research team. He relished the opportunity to learn biology from his peer and teach his peer about math. “Pure math has one right answer,” he reflected. “In ecology everything is really complex and messy.” His work has lived at the intersection of biology and mathematics ever since. Though he found a field he loved, he was daunted by the lack…