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Jamie Cornelius holding a songbird.

As husband races across oceans to get home, songbird researcher prepares for very strange first term at OSU

When Jamie Cornelius came to Oregon State University from Eastern Michigan University, she was ready to adjust to the changes of a new university. But as she began to prepare for her first term teaching at OSU this spring, she began to realize that things were going to be very different.

Cornelius is an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, where she studies the mechanisms wild animals use to cope with unpredictable and extreme environmental events. Her husband, Taylor Chapple, is an assistant professor at the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station in Newport with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. He was on a research vessel in the Indian Ocean doing shark research when the pandemic started making news. As airports started shutting down internationally, his team decided to end their trip early. But getting back home to the U.S was becoming a challenge.

Read more in OSU Newsroom