Alpine Ecosystems Research Institute
Sari Dersam
Cofounder, Codirector, and Researcher for Alpine Ecosystems Research Institute
GIS Specialist for Cannon Heritage Consultants
Titles
About Me
Hello! Welcome to my page. Everyone always asks me, "How do you pronounce that?" when they see my name, or, "How do you spell that?" when they hear it said aloud.
The answer is to both questions is, "Seri, spelled s-a-r-i." Scroll down to my Stories section for a laugh, if you want! :)​​
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I am Cofounder, Codirector, and Researcher for the Alpine Ecosystems Research Institute (AERI), formerly the Beartooth Ecosystems Alpine Archaeological Research (BEAAR) Project. I am also GIS Specialist for Cannon Heritage Consultants. I have my M.A. in Anthropology and graduate GIS certificate from the University of Wyoming.
My published research includes spatial analyses of surface wind patterns and high-elevation site locations in the Beartooth Mountains. In that paper, I discuss how a combination of heat conservation and avoidance of biting insects shape the settlement patterning of precontact peoples. I hope to compare the differences between mountain ranges, and different types of topographical features in future wind studies. My technical specialties include GIS, statistics, and programming in R. My anthropological research interests include high elevation diets, hunting strategies, mobility strategies, and the connection between plant species/communities and the peoples who relate with these ecosystems.
I am also expanding my research interests to include the connection between plant health and soil microbiological signatures. Dr. Elaine Ingham, founder of the Soil Food Web School, shows the direct connection between the biomass of beneficial soil microorganisms with plant health and ecosystem resilience. Her courses teach about the benefits of a healthy, resilient soil food web, and the ways that we can move away from chemical agriculture to a system that mimics mother nature. Her work shows that having the proper amounts of all functional groups at the bottom of the food chain—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and microarthropods—can transform any substrate to be highly productive and resilient, requiring little to no inputs once microorganisms have established in the proper amounts.
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One of my big goals is to reinvigorate and restore the edible food patches in mountainous ecosystems including high elevation settings. I also hope to employ research methods to assist white pine species such as whitebark pine to resist the blister pine rust fungus. How do we do this? Come visit my blog: Sow Simple: Fix your MT Soils.​​​​
Story #1: A teacher can make or break your schooling. I happen to look back on my thesis-writing days with joy and accomplishment despite the fact that I was extremely uncomfortable and usually feeling worthless while I was in the thick of it. I was lucky that I started my thesis discussions early, in person with my committee members, so they knew what the project was about before everything moved to online. Near the beginning of my graduate degree, my then-committee-member-later-advisor told me, point blank, that I should change the spelling of my name to "Seri," like the Seri Tribe in Northern Mexico, so he could remember how to say it... I knew that this sentiment was not intended to be a slight in the least bit, it was merely the gesture of a once anthropological journal editor who had a lot to remember trying to connect my name to something he already knew. To this day, we love Bob for his unabashed truthfulness. Thanks for the story that still makes me smile and laugh, Bob. Though nothing makes me laugh like the one time with the ice patch and the trowel...
Story #2: For most of my life I tried to explain that Sari is just a version of Sara, with an -ee sound at the end. My mom came up with the name after my dad gave a resounding "no" to the suggestion of Sara/Sarah, saying it was one of the most common names in the year before I was born and I would have 3 other Sara's in my class! (He was a high school teacher, so he had big opinions about this... Never mind that there weren't any Sara's in my class at all, but it was a small school.) My dad wanted to name me Abby. I think my mom blended the names together. When I was a kid I met two other people with the same pronounced name. "Sairi" went to school with me in high school. When I was a young girl, there was a woman in her 20s working at a shop in Butte, MT whose name was Sari, same as me. I keep hoping to bump into her again someday!
Story #3:Â Scott and I purposefully chose the acronym "AERI" for Alpine Ecosystems Research Institute to rhyme with my name.
Story #4: Funny thing. I grew up in a small town, so most of my school teachers did not have a problem with my name because they all knew my dad, who worked as a biology teacher at the same school for 30 years. I recognized that new people and people outside of our small town didn't always understand my name. However, once I got to college, a never-ending streak plagued every new class day. None of my professors knew my dad, of course, and all of them pronounced my name as "Sorry" or avoided trying it altogether. The sorry exchange was so predictable, I pretty much counted on it with every new professor, every new teacher's assistant, every class member that read my name before hearing it. Anyone calling a roll call for the first time. "Sorry?" "Sari." "Oh, Sorry Seri." ​ Fear not, and apologize not. I won't resent you for getting it wrong. I'm pretty sure my parents didn't have internet at home the year that I was born, so they may not have known about the sari dress in south Asia, nor did they expect that the majority of the populous might connect my name to such a garment, so we can't blame them either. These stories are intended to give a laugh about things we can't change, and to own the things we can.