Honors Thesis Student Explores Climate Change’s Effect on Bird Migration

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Nora Honkomp is a senior Honors College student from Cincinnati, Ohio, majoring in zoology. She says, “Birds have always been my thing,” and her love of birds drove Nora not only to attend Kent State for its zoology program, but it also led her to complete a Senior Honors Thesis. Nora hopes to attend graduate school and become a research scientist, and these goals motivated her to complete her own undergraduate research through the honors thesis program. Since the spring of her junior year, Nora has partnered with her thesis advisor, Dr. Mark Kershner of the Department of Biological Sciences, to develop a research question, obtain and analyze data, and finally, write her research conclusions and defend her thesis manuscript this April.

Nora’s thesis focuses on how climate change has affected the migration pattens of nineteen bird species, using “large datasets collected by people who birdwatch to see how the timing of spring arrival and fall departure of several species of threatened birds has changed in the past three decades.” Needless to say, Nora’s topic required extensive research and data analysis skills, which Nora was able to gain through her various experiences at Kent State. Because of her volunteer work in faculty labs, plus her “vertebrate zoology and general ecology labs,” Nora entered her thesis project already familiar with the various functions of Microsoft Excel that she would need for her own data analysis. In addition, Nora’s biology courses required her to research scholarly journals and write scientific papers, both of which she has had to do on a larger scale during her thesis work.

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Aside from these academic achievements, Nora also completed an internship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Tallahassee, Florida, during the summer of 2020. This internship offered Nora hands-on experience in the field of zoology. Now president of Kent State’s chapter of the Scientista Foundation, Nora notes that other chapter members who had completed honors theses told her more about the process. Through listening to her peers’ success stories, Nora decided that the thesis program was an opportunity she needed to take advantage of, especially given her interest in graduate school.

These experiences helped prepare Nora for her thesis work, but Nora also adds that the thesis itself equipped her with new skills. Specifically, Nora says, “I am learning the in’s and out’s of working with large datasets, which has proven to be a valuable skill for the graduate school and internship programs I am applying to.” In addition to this familiarity with data analysis, Nora has also learned how to conduct a “robust literature search” on a much broader scale than any of her classes required.

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These practical skills will not only help Nora be a more competitive graduate program applicant, but they will also be foundational to her career as a research scientist. Besides these technical skills, Nora adds that her thesis has helped her become more proficient in communicating her research findings to others, which is an important aspect of publishing research and making that research more accessible. Additionally, Nora feels she has become more flexible and patient, rather than setting rigid expectations for herself. She says, “Even when you make mistakes and spend a lot of time working on a part of the project that you end up scrapping, it’s not wasted time; it’s just what you had to do to get to where you are now.”

With these professional and personal skills she has gained from her honors thesis, Nora is excited to continue her education in graduate school. She is grateful to her thesis advisor, Dr. Kershner, for his support throughout her work, and she hopes to publish parts of her thesis in the near future.

For more information on the Senior Honors Thesis/Project, please contact Thesis Coordinator Lori Michael.

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PHOTO CAPTION 1: Nora Honkomp at Palo Verde National Park in Costa Rica, with Kent State’s study abroad program in January 2020.

PHOTO CAPTION 2: Nora, holding a bird in St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, during her summer 2020 internship.

PHOTO CAPTION 3: Nora watching birds with a friend at Palo Verde National Park in Costa Rica.

PHOTO CAPTION 4: Nora wearing a mask at the Hoover Dam.

Media Contact: Stephanie Moskal, smoskal@kent.edu, 330-672-2312