Voices of RMBL

For nearly five decades, Doug La Follette, PhD, has been a scientist, friend, and steadfast supporter of RMBL. In this month’s Voices of RMBL, he reflects on the people, the place, and the causes that keep him coming back.

What keeps a scientist asking new questions after decades of discovery? RMBL Communications Manager Suzanne Ennis profiles Svata Louda, PhD, whose pioneering research on plant–insect interactions and lifelong commitment to mentorship have shaped generations of ecologists and the RMBL community.

For more than 50 years, stream ecologist Bobbi Peckarsky has returned to RMBL to study inhabitants of streams in the East River watershed, mentor generations of students, and build a scientific community that spans decades. …

Like many undergraduates who spent time at RMBL, my experience there was largely the result of chance, youthful ambition, and a sense of adventure. I spent the summer of 1997 at RMBL, between my junior and senior years of college. …

Neil Losin arrived at RMBL in 2003 as an undergraduate studying red-naped sapsuckers with Chris Floyd. He returned in 2004, gathered more data, and later published the work. “I fell in love with Gothic in the early mornings before breakfast,” Neil recalls. “Give nature a chance to astound you, and it often will.” …

My RMBL story began in a community college biology classroom in the spring of 2019. My professor at the time, Jimmy Lee, introduced our class to the undergraduate research program at RMBL …

As I prepare for my eighth foray to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, I’m taking part in my own personal tradition of telling anyone who will listen that this might be my last summer at RMBL. …

In 2012, I spent my first summer at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), and it was often a lonely one. My research project was streamlined enough that I didn’t need a field crew, and no other graduate students from my program at the University of Wisconsin worked in Gothic. I spent early mornings…

My RMBL story begins long before I ever set foot in Gothic. As seniors at Swarthmore College, my classmate Steve Lowe and I were immersed in a yearlong ecological study of Crum Creek, the stream that cuts through campus. With encouragement from Professor Robert Enders, we applied for an NSF grant to compare Crum Creek with a Rocky Mountain stream…