DUBOIS – As a senior instructor in Wildlife Technology at Penn State DuBois, Keely Roen works in a field where most of her colleagues are men. While the number of women has increased across many fields over the past few decades, women who work in fields devoted to the study of wildlife and forestry remain less common.
Since this imbalance can often serve as a backdrop for unique challenges, conflicts or even interesting anecdotes, Roen recently decided to put down on paper some of the experiences different women have had working afield. Her article, The Woman Wildlifer appears in the current winter newsletter from the Pennsylvania Chapter of The Wildlife Society (TWS), which can be on their Web site at http://joomla.wildlife.org/pa
“The article kind of came about organically,” Roen said. “I had been speaking to a few female friends and colleagues in wildlife and related fields and we seemed to share a lot of the same stories. I then mentioned this to one of the board members of the PA-TWS in passing at last year’s annual conference and she felt strongly it would be a good article.”
Roen then began asking her female friends and colleagues in related fields to share their experiences with her, and the information came pouring in.
“I asked a few friends and I got some great quotes,” Roen recalled. “I tried to keep it focused on the people sharing their stories. I could have written a novel with some of the information I received.”
Roen began teaching at Penn State DuBois in 2001, and was promoted to the rank of senior instructor in 2011. She currently teaches Wildlife Management Techniques, Terrestrial Wildlife Management, Wildlife Statistics, and Environmental Science. She focuses research and lab activity on projects where she is able to get her students involved in meaningful, hands-on work.
This fall will mark the thirteenth year that she and the other Wildlife Technology Program faculty will trap, band, and release northern saw-whet owls for study. She is also currently working with a student to study the distribution of golden eagles, using motion-activated trail cameras. She’ll use those photos in her teaching afterward, and she will make a presentation along with her student at the Penn State DuBois Faculty and Student Research Symposium in April.
