UCSB STRI Advanced Data Science Research Training in Panama

The coordinators of the “University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) Smithsonian Scholars Program” came to Moorpark College for an informational session, of which I attended, and then applied. As stated on the official website, “The program aims to engage diverse students in experiential learning centered on multi-disciplinary conservation strategies, biodiversity research, and green careers in STEM.” For about 4 weeks, we have discussions, online lectures, and assignments to learn R programming in Posit cloud. The students accepted into the advanced section of the program go to Panama for one week, where they are to learn in depth about the applications of data science in field work, as well as how to observe with the lens of computational analysis.

abbreviations, for reference

• UCSB = University of California, Santa Barbara
• STRI = Smithsonian Tropical Research Intitute
  

Day 1: The Flight (7/8/2026)

I departed with my father from my house closer to 4PM, and after picking up some in-n-out, I arrived at the airport promptly at 7PM; boarding started at 9PM, and we flew out at 10PM. I was the first to get through TSA and arrive at the gate, so I waited for the rest of the team in the lobby. On the plane, I started reading “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley and did a bit of drawing; it was a six hour flight.

Day 2: Casco Viejo & The Educational Center (7/9/2026)

We landed, and took transportation to the Radission, the hotel we were staying in. We explored Casco Viejo for a while and had lunch; I had a couple of empanadas. From there, we went to the STRI “Auditorio Earl S. Tupper” (the STRI center) to pick up our guest passes. We then took a tour of Punta Culebra, the nature and educational center.

Punta Culebra had a few different sections of educational rooms; climate change awareness/”Agua Salud” project, frogs, snake/shark/fossils (fluid-preserved specimen), outdoor nursing shark tank, outdoor butterfly habitat/bug dome, mini-aquarium/fish room, and finally there was the overlook. When we first arrived, we saw a two-toed sloth hanging out in one of the trees. What I learned from each room:

• Agua Salud Project: Studying hydrology to further conservation efforts and biodiversity
• The Ranas(Frogs) Room: I had the opportunity to see and learn about a range of different species of frogs found in Panama, as well as the fungi that threatens them. While I really like fungi, I did not think about their impact and presence effects the environment around them
• The fossil room was really cool. The snakes kept in jars were especially interesting.
• The butterfly enclosure was less educational but still cool to see nontheless.
• The aquarium room was educational in relation to the type of marine wildlife we could find in the area
• The overlook was cool! I spotted two spotted-sting rays.
  
  For dinner, we ate at Canal House Panamá, and decompressed for the day. Bonus: There was a lot of stray cats, all of which were very friendly.
  
  
  
  

Day 3: Casco Viejo Again & The Symposium (7/10/2026)

The second day was focused entirely on the Annual STRI Symposium; research was presented across a range of topics. My favorites was the one about treehopper mating patterns and bats’ hunting. The full schedule can be found here. I had the opportunity to network and talk to professionals, of which was highly insightful into what my future could look like if I went into data science with environmental science/ecology. We went out to dinner at a fairly nice place on UCSB’s dime, and slept early.

Day 4: Flight and Welcome to Mt. Totumas (7/11/2026)

After getting up at 3:30AM and flying out to David, we took transportation to Mount Totumas. Upon arrival, I realized this trip would be incredibly unique, as everything in sight was bright, and saturated. To be honest, I think when I’m instagram “we were never meant to be exposed to such saturated colors all of the time.” But it’s truly magical to see bright greens and reds and blues in birds and lizards, something real, not artificial. We were given a warm welcome by the owner of the research site and area, and by the staff.

Day 5: Queztal Trail Loop & Camera Trap Presentation (7/12/2026)

The daily morning from this day on is waking up at 7:00AM, having breakfast from 7:30AM-8:00AM, and going out to hike. The main lodge was surrounded by large colorful moths, which ended up being easily my favorite part of the trip. The moths are nocturnal, so if you pick them up during the day, they are too sleepy to care. They are soft and colorful, and none of them are toxic in any manner. For the few days that the moths were present, I would fawn over them. If I were to study something out here the way the students at the Symposium did, I would analyze moth behavior or fungi growth.





Anyway, the Queztal Loop was altered by the leaders of our group, and we ended up going through a pasture and seeing wild cows, horses, and mules. After lunch, Jefffery (the owner of this place) gave a presentation and shared with all the students footage of what the cameras have captured in the past; tapiours, a lot of little creatures, pumas, moutain lions; it is quite the range, although I don’t remember all their names.

Day 6: Puma Trail, Device Deployment, Data Science Lecture #1 (7/13/2026)

We took the Puma trail in the morning. I would say it was the hardest of the trails we did; while a trail we did later on was harder in terms of slope and length (Big Tree), but Puma was along a cliffside, and it was very easy to slip due to the heavy amount of mud. After lunch, my team deployed two audio moths and two cameras. My teammates were in charge of arming the cameras (it took more steps, so the two of them worked together on that) while I deployed the audioMoths. We deployed those on the Big Tree Trail, of which is a rigorous climb for me. The data science lecture was mostly review for me, but it was fun to solve the problems.

Here is a moth of the genus Copaxa. I don’t have many other pictures from this day.

Day 7: Big Tree Trail, Data Science Lecture #2, Night Hike (7/14/2026)

After the morning routine, at 8:30AM we departed for the Big Tree Loop Trail. On the trail, we saw spider monkeys, all types of bugs, and birds.

• We saw some spider monkeys a couple of times throughout the hike; they were energetic, but meant no harm.
• We got a good view of the three-wattled bellbird, a bird popular amongst anyone who visits this region due to its unique call and appearance
• At the very end of the trail, we saw the Quetzal, a colorful bird that is highly praised by the locals. I had the opportunity to get a picture using my phone through the scope the trail guide brought with us.
  
  The morning hike this time served less to educate us about field data and more about the field itself; learning about what to observe, and practicing keeping an eye out for any motion or sound that could indicate life is nearby.
  
  

After lunch and a break, had our second discussion on R programming. This day focused on “For Loops” in R, which I had not heard of prior to a friend mentioning it once or twice.

Lesson 2 Notes 7/14
abstract = having variables in it; for loops abstract vectors

iterating across items in a collection

iterating across vector _---> interating across individual items across the vector

presence-absence matrix = community matrix

community = entire species list in this circumstance, but generally the whole in an area
community matrix = presence and absence of a species of a particular site

hard coded = coded in and not using a loop to pull the index

For the homework, I found some ways to take on the challenge question and shared it with my peers. One of the peer-mentors said it was a creative solution, since I solved the question without using match() or factor(). While I will not publish my solution publically (as they likey reuse these repositories, and I wouldn’t want to ruin it for next years students), I will say there are multiple ways of approaching this problem. Given we didn’t learn match() or factor(), I had to work out my own solution. I feel that my skillset is more on the data science side than in ecology/biology, so it works out well that the other students here understand those logistics and can explain what certain things mean, while I can explain R.
I really enjoy the programming sections of this course. The hiking and outdoorsy sections are wonderful and feel almost magical, but nothing feels better than getting the right answer on your own, after trying over and over for it. After all, a winner is a loser who kept trying.

After dinner, we went for a night hike! We stargazed for a bit before taking off, and then on the hike (which was a shortened version of the Queztal Loop) we saw some possums and frogs. It was really nice.

Day 8: Cascado Trail, Data Science Lecture #3 (7/15/2026)

The morning hike was peaceful at the start, we passed by a couple of waterfalls, and then it was a lot of uphill. I didn’t mind it much, as I was able to take it at my own pace, even though it was warming up/the sun was coming out. The data discussion was relatively short this day, but the most important concept covered was the various “join” functions, mutating datasets and merging columns or rows into a singular dataset. The challenge was short but incredibly satisfying, as I worked through it on my own again. While I finished around the same time, a bit earlier, than my peers, I feel that the rush to finish first is not a good measure of how much I understand the subject. My notes from the lecture are below, but most of my notes are in the assignment, where I commented on the example code.

Lesson 3 Notes, 7/15

the thing right before the loop is create the place where you put the answer, and right after the loop is a line we were deposit the result in the correct location

huge component of integrating data and whatnot is learning to juggle the various names (latin names, field names, etc)

There's an entire key for every scientific name across many taxonomy birds, open source; reference for the final project

the first argument of left join is the stuff you want to keep/grab 

when you do a join, check what got messed up (records_named ,, filter and count )

interjoin = only the elements that are common between datasets

morphological trait (body trait)
ecological traits are defined very loosely
every species has traits

icun status = how endangered a species is

the data lifecycle
- the many uses for data
- the stages of work associated with using it across its lifespan
- planning to collect data -> collecting -> analyzing -> storing -> publishing -> archiving in a final destination

Day 9: Audiomoth and Camera Recovery (7/16/2026)

In the morning, we split into our groups and retrieved the audiomoths and cameras we had set out during the previous days hikes. Team #3, my team, had ours on Big Tree Loop, so hiked and retrieved the tools. During retrieval, we encountered a long black snake sprawled in the middle of the walkway; it was not aggressive and slithered away upon our presence. We reviewed our data: One of our cameras captured 2 pumas, and the audiomoths captured a wide range of birds. The rest of the day was dedicated to group work.

I didn’t get any pictures this day, so here’s a screenshot of the program we use instead. :)

Day 10: Coffee Tour, Data Science Lecture #4 (7/17/2026)

I had coffee for the first time! I had not had coffee until that point, but it was a good time to try coffee for the first time. The data science portion we got into our groups and cleaned the data. My group was finally able to get a working version of the audioMoth data. The main problem we were having with the audioMoth data was that there was just too much of it; the BirdNet Analyzer gave us 3,928 rows across all of the spreadsheets, so we had the filter by confidence and check how accurate the rows were.

Day 11: The Day off (7/18/2026)

The day was quiet, and while we did make progress by doing independent work on our project, we had the freedom to explore. Many of our members hiked to the hot springs, although I stayed back with some of the girls and enjoyed the hot tub.

Day 12: Heading Home (7/19/2026)

The goodbyes were more sentimental than I would have ever conceive. We had done so much as a group together, and I am really proud and grateful for everyone. :)

Final Thoughts & Conclusions

Firstly, a huge thanks to Mario and Dr. White, for teaching us so much about environmental science, ecology, and data science.
Thank you to Brandon Leon and Melanie for making this possible as coordinators at UCSB/with MESA.
Thank you to the staff at the Mount Totumas Lodge for caring for us and providing us with more than we could ever ask for.
Thank you to the peer mentors for all of your advisement and help.
Thank you to all of the students, all of you were lovely to work with and I enjoyed every minute with you all.