Convocation ‘24: Kirra Kent, MSc, Plant Sciences, Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Science

 

Kirra Kent loves spiders. Arachnids are her field of academic study, and also her creative muse, and they have been occupying space in her brain (and in her sketchbooks) since elementary school, when she would routinely collect them in her lunch bag. 

Now that she’s a graduate student, she points out that although her program is plant sciences, her focus is really what lives on the plants (canola, to be specific) — namely spiders and other insects — and the development of a dichotomous key to the spider families present in Alberta.

“There is excellent insect-related research happening at this institution,” says Kirra, adding that the U of A has a ‘killer’ entomology department spread out over several faculties, specifically ALES and Science.  

Her enthusiasm for the subject reached its apex in ENT 327, a course taught by fellow bug enthusiast Felix Sperling, curator of the E.H. Strickland Entomological Museum, where she studied insect diversity and curated collections of invertebrates, both pre-existing and found.

“A course for catching bugs!! My inner child could not have imagined this in my life.”

While in the Sperling Lab for her undergraduate degree (and the Mori Lab for her graduate program), Kirra says her research project was driven by science communication aimed at reducing the societal stigma surrounding arachnids, “the invertebrate clade closest to my heart.” 

Inspired not only by their biological characteristics, but also their intricate beauty, Kirra drew upon her other skills as an artist to create a book, Lots of Lovely Legs: A Selection of Recognizable Spiders in North America, as part of her science communication efforts. Currently, she is redoing all the illustrations (the hard drive with the original scans got corrupted) and will make a print version of the book.     

“One of the reasons I made the book was to challenge arachnophobia and have people see that spiders are just little guys who do their thing — they’re not evil.”

It’s hard not to love her illustrations, or be drawn into her passion for, in her words, “8-legged members of the North American outdoors.” 

While her academic studies have taken most of her focus over the last several years, Kirra is now taking some time to redirect her attention to art, as she considers a PhD. In spider research,  probably.  

Congratulations Kirra!

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What led you to choose your current area of study, and why the U of A for your studies?

Plant sciences is not a great description of what I like to study — I like spiders, who tend to live on plants. I picked the University of Alberta for my studies because they have a killer 'entomology' department. It's spread across different faculties/departments, but there is excellent insect-related research happening at this institution. Arachnids are grouped in with insects in most academic contexts, so it made a lot of sense to do my undergrad (‘22 BSc Biological Sciences) and MSc at the U of A.

What is one of your favourite memories from your time at the U of A?

Hard to choose, but there were a few days where my friends and I had lunch under the trees near SUB. Excellent people watching, comfortable grass.

I also honestly really enjoyed some of the insanely early field work mornings — nothing quite like leaving the uni at 7 a.m. before the coffee kicks in, fueled only by your excitement for whatever insects/spiders are in the traps you set last week (or the day before, depending on the sampling week...).

Tell us about your favourite professor and/or class.

Gotta hand this one to Felix Sperling and the ENT 327 - Terrestrial Arthropod Diversity course. Felix is an engaging lecturer who — to put it bluntly — is intensely passionate about insects. His excitement about the topic is contagious. ENT 327 is a course where you learn about arthropod diversity and curate a collection of invertebrates you captured yourself! A course for catching bugs!! My inner child could not have imagined this in my life.

Did you take on any leadership roles while you were a student? 

As an MSc student I led a few undergrads in the field, and it was honestly a great time because I had excellent undergrads. I made a habit of providing written instructions for everything before the spoken or 'doing' of activity happened.

I think this really helps me to know what I'm doing (haha, more confident leadership) but also ensures that if I have an undergrad with auditory processing issues, they aren't struggling to keep up. They've got the words for reference. It also meant there were few mistakes or miscommunications, and as a team, we did fabulous work!

Did you face any significant obstacles or challenges during your program, and if so, how did you respond?

Oh my goodness. It was mostly the weather. 

The summer I did fieldwork for the second half of my project, the sky would open up and dump so much water sometimes minutes afterwards the traps went in the ground. Since the traps were treated with a water sensitive compound, it would ruin replicates [repeating a study or experiment under the same or similar conditions to support a claim]. I know at the end of one fieldwork day, we had two umbrellas, extra large trap rain-guards and were sprinting in our rain gear with traps tucked close to our bodies because we did not want to redo this field the following day.

I ended up running a few extra replicates of the experiment to compensate, and creating an extra set of treated traps as backup — so if we got rained out, and I really needed to, I could go out the next day and reset the experiment.

What advice do you have for current and future students?

Over plan. Write everything down before you have to really write it. The more detailed notes you have now, the easier your life will be later.

Also, when you are entering your data, please put one type of data per column.

You will suffer less preparing to do analysis later. For some reason, this doesn't get covered in the basic stats courses, and it really should. 

I have met several MSc/PhD students across different labs/departments who do baffling things when entering their data — and then acquire grey hairs as they work to fix it!

How do you plan on celebrating convocation?

Honestly, since I defended back in April, I don't know if I'll do much for 'convocation proper'.

I will use it as an excuse to get some fancy cookies though! Because convocation cookies sound snappy.

What's next after graduation?

Doing a few things I love simultaneously: part time spider identification work, hopefully seasonal fieldwork; and part-time artist. 

While I really do enjoy academic pursuits, I've neglected my other skill sets the last two years to focus on my degree.  So I am taking at least a year off before I consider pursuing a PhD. I'm going to hopefully get a few more publications out in the interim, and build up my freelance artist business to something a little more stable.