Sarah Sander and Carolyn Koularis hit the thesis jackpot: an all-expense paid, summer-long trip to St. Lucia to study hummingbirds. Their extracurricular activities included snorkeling, hanging out on the beach and charging expensive chocolates to their expense account when they weren't in, as Koularis described, "one of the most beautiful spots." The pair worked with Professor of Biology Ethan Temeles on a project studying the differences between male and female hummingbirds' beaks.

Master of all trades

Sander grew up in Tucson, Ariz., but moved to California and attended public high school. Her family also moved to Doylestown, Penn., the summer before her first year at Amherst. Sander has always had a passion for singing: When she was in high school, she was part of an award-winning choir that toured Australia and Italy. At Amherst, she sang in Madrigals, Women's Chorus and the DQ. She also joined to Concert Choir (where she was vice-president for two years) and tried her hand at the Equestrian Team and Amherst Dance, another of her many passions. Although she danced throughout high school, specializing in "funk tap," she hung up her pointe shoes in favor of singing groups when she reached Amherst. Sander stayed on campus her junior year to direct the DQ, and describes her thesis project as a "substitute for not going abroad." She also sang in an on-campus Catholic Mass group.

As her mom went to Mt. Holyoke and her father went to Amherst, Sander has always been familiar with the Five Colleges. However, when it came to choosing one, it was not easy.

"I applied to both Amherst and Holyoke to please my parents, really did not want to go to Amherst, but was accepted and attended an accepted students dinner to see what Amherst alums were like," she recalled. "I really connected with the alums and felt that these were people who thought like I did, so I enrolled and have not regretted it at all." She adds that she loves Amherst "despite [her] dislike of cold temperatures."

Sander wasn't always keen on Biology - she also considered majoring in Geology, Physics, Theater and Dance, Music and Fine Arts. And even this extensive list is incomplete. "When I was younger, I wanted to be an archaeologist in the Yucatan Peninsula, like my friend's mom," she said." "When I came to Amherst, I thought the archaeology classes were really boring and decided it wasn't for me."

"Sander was a great partner for our work, both in Caribbean and back at Amherst," said Koularis about her partner. "It is difficult to convey just how much work we did in collecting and processing our videotapes, and I have always appreciated and admired Sarah's drive to get our projects to completion. She wrote an excellent thesis and introduced me to the wonders of chocolate bars for St. Lucian breakfasts!"

Sander's roommate echoes the same feelings about her friend, including her passion for food. "Sander is just great to be around," Caroline Stevenson '06 said. "She is one of those people who can do everything from riding to her thesis research and will still make time to eat ice cream with her roommate."

"When Sarah is passionate about something, there's no stopping her and no keeping her back," said one of her friends, Mira Serrill-Robins '06. "When most people were getting burnt out and never wanted to hear the word 'thesis' again, Sarah said she was still really excited about hers and couldn't stop working on it once she sat down."

Making biology a way of life

Carolyn Koularis grew up in Shelburne, Vt., which is a few miles south of Burlington, on Lake Champlain. She attended a regional public high school where she was valedictorian.

"In high school, I had the opportunity to write a grant to the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences with two of my lab partners," said Koularis. "We were funded to do original research on fruit fly salivary glands. I also participated in the University of Vermont Hughes Endeavor for Excellence in the Life Sciences Outreach Program, which allowed my lab partners and our AP Biology teacher to work with a lab in at UVM Medical School all year."

At Amherst, Koularis has been involved in a variety of activities. She's been on the Amherst Womens Rugby Football Team, and a part of numerous clubs, such as the Diversity Coalition, A Better Chance Tutoring, Dean of Students Peer Tutoring and she worked as a teaching assistant in the biology department.

Biology has always been one of Koularis' passions, fueled partially by her AP Biology teacher David Ely, whom she nominated for the Phoebe and Zepheniah Swift Moore Award for Secondary School Excellence. "Mr. Ely has truly been an inspiration to me, and I am honored to be presenting him with this award at graduation," she said.

"I've always liked science, ever since I can remember, and biology has always been more appealing to me than chemistry or physics," said Koularis. "It was after taking AP Biology that I was sure I wanted to major in biology at Amherst. This never changed, but I used Amherst's open curriculum to take classes in 14 different departments, which has benefited me immensely. I am incredibly glad that I chose to major in science at a liberal arts college, especially one with as much to offer as Amherst."

Sander remarks on her amazing partnership. "Carolyn was wonderful to work with," she said. "We had a lot of fun developing the protocol for our field experiments and commiserating about our mosquito bites. Her support in the field and in lab was invaluable."

Serrill-Robins said that Koularis "thinks of everything, is always there for her friends and has often been the voice of reason."

Of birds and snakes

For their thesis project, Koularis and Sander helped Professor Temeles with his continued project studying the sexual dimorphisms of bill shape in males and females of the purple-throated Carib hummingbird in St. Lucia. The pair trapped birds in mist nets, fine mesh nets that the hummingbirds can't see. However, even then catching was often difficult – "hummingbirds are really, really smart." But Koularis and Sander got it down to a science, according to Professor Temeles. "The days were long, but both Sander and Koularis did great work and became quite proficient at chasing birds into mist nets to capture them, as well as untangling the birds from nets and caring for them in tents," he said.

After capturing the birds, the pair put them in screen houses for five to six days, trained them to feed at artificial flowers and then let them go after banding them. Using video tapes of the birds feeding at real and fake flowers, Koularis and Sander were able to investigate the significance of the size and shape of a hummingbird's bill in relation to the way they feed. Since female and male bills are different, they were able to compare the rate at which they feed and other characteristics to explore the evolutionary significance of this morphology. Koularis focused on the evidence from real flowers, while Sander concentrated on artificial flowers.

"The sexes of purple-throated carib hummingbirds differ in bill morphology, with the larger males having short, straight bills and the smaller females having long, curved bills," Professor Temeles said. "We captured the birds and filmed them in tents, feeding at both real heliconia flowers and artificial flowers of varying length and curvature (in all we filmed about 5,000 feeding visits last summer)."

"It was one of the most beautiful spots I've ever been in," recalls Koularis. The pair only got one afternoon off, which they spent snorkeling on a local beach. However, they got so sunburned, they "couldn't sit down."

But it wasn't all fun and games in St. Lucia - Sander recalls the dangers of capturing unwanted creatures in the nets. "Sometimes we would get large scary birds with sharp beaks that bit," Sander said. Sander was also often designated for "snake patrol," as St. Lucia houses one of the world's most poisonous snakes - the fer-de-lance. Anti-venom is unavailable for this snake, so if bitten, one's prognosis is not good. Professor Temeles apparently invested in Kevlar leggings to protect himself.

Even though this was an amazing experience for the pair, one thing was missing. "We never did catch the 'big unit', a gigantic male who held a territory of a feeder and many heliconia," recalled Professor Temeles. "We even got up one morning in the dark to try tricking him first thing in the morning by placing a mist net around his feeder. When the sun rose, there he was, sitting on top of the net. He gave the hummingbird equivalent of roadrunner's beep beep, and left us feeling very much like forlorn coyotes!"

Into the real world

Next year, Koularis will be working in medical research at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. She will be doing clinical research with patients, studying cells and other microbiological aspects. Sander has been offered many positions from which she has yet to choose, including an offer at Florida State University to be a lab coordinator, or, as she describes it, a "research minion."

As a lab coordinator, her skills will definitely be tested. "My job will be keeping bugs and plants alive, which will be hard for me as I tend to kill plants," she said. As a "research minion," projects include studying carnivorous plants, the evolution of sexual dimorphism in plankton and computer modeling. She has also been offered a job in California teaching outdoor science, and is interviewing for a position at a school to be a scientist-in-residence, which she describes as "research with minions," and since it's a school with younger kids, has the advantage of "child labor."

When asked what they won't miss about Amherst, Sander's immediately responded "not Val," but continues that she will mostly miss "singing" and the "protected environment" as she faces the "harsh world of paying her own utilities."

"I don't look forward to leaving my roommates, although I'm living with two of them next year," Koularis said. "I'll also miss losing my Amherst family, and the beautiful Amherst College Saturday morning - fields full, people barbecuing and everyone you know is around and happy."