Devin Turner

Belleville, Ontario
Biology

Not afraid to get involved on campus and with his academic department, Devin Turner has a long list of memories to take with him as he graduates from Trent with a B.Sc. in Biology.

Over the course of his time at Trent, Devin has been heavily involved in intramural sport, playing ultimate Frisbee and soccer and participating in day-long road hockey and broom ball tournaments, and his summers have been spent doing field research for the Biology Department. This summer he will work in Ivvavik National Park with Dr. Linh Nguyen, a former Trent Ph.D. student, collecting baseline information on songbird productivity.

“I love getting involved with everything going on around me,” Devin says. “I particularly love being outside and have been an avid naturalist for many years. The direct accessibility from campus to so many different nature reserves and trails was a large part of why I chose to study at Trent.”

Coming to Trent from Belleville, Ontario, Devin found the Trent and Peterborough communities to be both comforting and familiar. The small environment and close sense of community also helped him foster many friendships and close working relationships with professors and senior students. “People seem to quickly become friends with their classmates,” he says, commenting on the small undergraduate class sizes. “It’s a great incentive to go to class.”

In 2007, Devin was invited to work as a research assistant in the Boreal Forest with a Trent Masters student. “This job gave me real first-hand experience of how science is planned and carried out,” he says about his work studying the effects of commercial logging on songbird population. “It taught me skills that can’t be taught in the classroom. I don’t know if I’d have had the same opportunity anywhere else.”

In 2009, he continued his hands-on research training when he spent the summer in Nunavut, studying Shorebird nesting behaviour. Multiple opportunities to conduct field research on different Canadian birds has been a true treat for someone who has been interested in birds since high school; Devin participated in his first Christmas Bird Count when he was 16 years old.

Talking about his Trent experience, Devin says he has enjoyed being introduced to amazing aspects of the world and studying in locations that only a handful of people will ever see. He credits Trent faculty and a comprehensive disability services department with realizing many of his dreams so early in his career. “I have been preoccupied with nature since I was a kid,” he says. “At a young age I decided I wanted to be a biologist. Being diagnosed with a learning disability, academics have not been easy. Trent is very accommodating; I’m not sure if my dreams would have come true at any other university.”