Undergraduate opportunities in veterinary entomology and extension: REEVES REEU

The REEVES REEU Internship program is a new 8-week program for the summer of 2025. This program has been created by the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and includes four parent institutions: University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Texas A&M University, Kansas State University, and the University of Georgia. The program serves to provide undergraduate students interested in veterinary entomology/extension to work with a researcher at one of the parent institutions. The four parent institutions will work in conjunction on a larger collaborative project that serves to survey, sample, and then develop control plans for ticks found within agricultural systems. The program is competitive, where only eight students are selected, accounting for a total of 32 students at the project’s conclusion in 2028. As one of the students selected, I was chosen to work with Texas A&M AgriLife extension in Stephenville, Texas surveying ticks in beef, dairy, and wild type systems. Wild type systems being a colony of white tail deer kept at the Uvalde/Kerrville Extension office. Additionally, I will develop and conduct my own research project under the supervision of the researcher in charge of the Stephenville Extension office. Unfortunately, however, the timelines of the internship and the abstract deadline prevented me from having my individual project ready for presentation. Due to this, I will be presenting on my experience within the REEVES REEU Internship and how these opportunities allow students such as myself to gain important industry/research experience prior to attempting graduate school or immediately moving into the industry.