Garlic Mustard, Grit and a Guy Named Corey: Campus Crusade on an Invasive Villain

By Ibrahim Jamal

Corey Gavigan met me with the kind of easy, sun‑tired smile you only get from someone who spends half their life outside. We settled into the conversation the same way he settles into fieldwork: honest and with a little humor tucked into every answer. Gavigan is a senior environmental science major with a concentration in ecology and a minor in biology. His senior project? Garlic mustard. Yes, the invasive plant you’ve probably walked past a hundred times without noticing.

And this senior project, how did garlic mustard end up becoming your whole life for a year?

Not by choice [laugh]. My senior project is about garlic mustard, which is an invasive species found in New York. I didn't come up with the idea. The way it's done for environmental studies kids is that the professors come in and they each present a couple of ideas, and you select which one you like the best. You get a rank choice vote, and Dr. [Allyson] Jackson chose the best fit for people.

I'm actually very passionate about invasive species. I worked over the summer removing invasive species from campus.

Pinpointed locations of the currently identified Garlic Mustard species on campus. (Photo by Ibrahim Jamal)

Where were you doing that?

This was here. They cut out a big section of forest to run sewage pipes, and then invasives just kind of took over there. So, Dr. Jackson got a grant from the DEC [Department of Environmental Conservation], and yeah, so we did that all summer.

So, for someone who has no idea what garlic mustard even looks like, how do you explain it?

Garlic mustard is an invasive species. It grows; it's a biannual species. In the first year, it will just grow; it has a very iconic shape, but it will not flower. The second year, it will flower and make these little seed pods called siliques that will shatter and spread when they are rustled. They've been here since the 1800s, and they're still slowly making their way across the country.

Corey Gavigan (middle) on a transect with fellow environmental studies students, studying Garlic Mustard. (Courtesy of Corey Gavigan)

Walk me through your actual research days. What does “fieldwork Corey” look like?

So, part of my research was to go out, and measure transects (a portion of a habitat). I did five at each location. I chose three locations: the Alumni Woods, the Sports Fields Woods Loop and the Paved Trail. I would get a read of the surface temperature, take a densiometer, measure the height of any garlic mustard and compare that to canopy cover and surface temperature. I would do this every week.

What ended up being the hardest part of all this? Emotionally or technically, whatever comes to mind.

It was honestly like convincing myself to go out after working in the field. I'm out in the hot sun for eight hours, then I’m like, I gotta go do this for like two more hours in the sun. That's a 10‑hour day. I just want to sleep. Technically, the hardest part is the phenology [focusing on specific, observable stages], the changes can be very small and hard for me, who’s still not an expert. I have to see that happening in real time.

Did anything go totally wrong? Like the kind of thing that makes you rethink your life choices.

Oh yeah. Facilities had just done a number on all of my research. Everything was just destroyed. All the garlic mustard I was measuring for the last three months, just gone. It was heartbreaking.

And then I didn’t really get any conclusive results. No relationship between these variables. But that’s part of science. Sometimes you prove your null hypothesis.

I groan sympathetically. He nods like someone who has fully accepted the chaos of fieldwork.

How do you keep going when the data basically shrugs at you?

It can be hard. I was really bummed. But I guess not finding anything is finding something. I’m helping somebody in the future who will be like, okay, those are the variables I don’t need to account for.

What skills did you pick up that you didn’t expect?

This guy. He picks up the densiometer (a tool that measures how dark or opaque a material is).  At first, it took me ages to count each individual dot on this thing. Now I can do it much more efficiently. And I honed my Excel skills. Dr. [George] Kramer has been helping me with that.

Speaking of Dr. Kramer, what was his role in all this?

He wasn’t out there in the field with me, but he was a big help. He spent time redirecting me, helping me choose a path, and he even gave me an opportunity to collect soil samples. This helped test for organics and hydration. It doesn’t correlate, but it was nice to look at it from a different angle.

The three marked locations of the research sites. (Photo by Ibrahim Jamal)

Okay, fun question. What species freaks you out the most?

A raccoon for sure. Spiders are not it for me, though. I know most spiders won’t hurt you, but I just see a spider, and I’m like, ‘Nah.’ I think it’s the legs. Also, seeing those zoomed-up pictures of spiders is not fun. They look alien.

You know what I can't do? For me, it’s the fangs.

Oh yeah, and the fangs. Also, plant-wise, it would be poison ivy, probably.

What part of biology gets you the most excited right now?

The invasive aspect. What do we do with these invasives? Some invasives were used by native species in ways we didn’t expect. Maybe there’s something we’re not seeing.

If you had unlimited time and money, how would you expand your project?

I would make it a multi‑year project. I’m bummed I won’t be able to see how this year’s growth and next year’s compare, but I’m interested to see if the disturbed areas will grow back stronger.

Graduation is coming up. How are you feeling about that?

I’m feeling good. I’ve been in college since 2018. Get me out of here! I’m ready to be done. I’m a little nervous to see what I’m going to do career‑wise, though, but I’m applying to places… looking at grad school.

Do you think this project prepared you for that next step?

I do. Research is hard. School is like: learn the facts, remember the facts. On the other hand, research is like: what are the facts? Feeling lost in that is interesting. I don’t know if I want to do it forever, but I like doing it now.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Don’t know… maybe research… maybe education… long term, I think I want to be a professor.

If you could design your dream job in biology, whether it be something you already know that exists or something completely fictional.

I just like to be outside and take tests. I would design some sort of after-school program that would get kids more interested in the outdoors.

Why?

Because I think that's something that we're kind of missing. Like, we have all this recycling, and kids know about global warming and all that. But I feel like getting the hands on and actually being out there and seeing what is happening to these ecosystems will really stick in the minds of kids. I was a Boy Scout growing up. So I got that experience at a very early age. And I think that's kind of what made me fall in love with this and have such a respect for the outdoors. I think that's something that we should be doing more to instill in kids.

Outside of science, what keeps you grounded?

I recently got into wood carving… I carve my own hiking sticks… I like hiking… tinkering… 3D printing… and I’m really into comic books…

Really, Marvel or DC?

Big DC fan.

Favorite superhero?

Booster Gold.

That’s such a niche pick. Why him?

He was a football star in the future. But he got in trouble. He got banned from the league for betting on his own games. And they were like, ‘That's no good. He's out.’ But it was devastating since his whole life was football, right? So, he got a job at a museum.

And at this museum, they had a time machine. And he's like, I'm going to go back to the 21st century. I'm going to be a superhero. He starts off wanting the glory and money of being a superhero… but then realizes there’s more to it… he wants to be a good person just to be a good person.

What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?

That's a great question. I feel like I'm pretty open. I would say it's the fact that I'm a first-generation American. Both my parents immigrated here from Ireland.

South or North Ireland?

Both. My dad's from the south. My mom's from the north. There's some tension there.

Is there anything outside the lab that shapes how you approach science?

Thinking like a kid. They have such an inquisitive nature. Adults lose that. The curiosity and the imagination of not knowing what this is, but what it could be. I try to take that mentality with me.

If you could talk to freshman‑year you, what would you say?

Trust the process. I feel like when I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, a lot of my mindset was, well, other people my age aren't graduating at this point. Or they seem to have it all figured out.

But now I look at those people, and they don't have it all figured out. And now they're doing careers that are not remotely related to what they went to school for. And so I went about it a different way, but I think my way is still valid. And I think I was hard on myself initially when I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. But don't worry, you’ll figure it out.

And finally, your advice for future biology majors?

Be okay with finding nothing. Because that is a big possibility. With science, it is hard to prove anything. Which isn't nothing, but it can feel like that. But that's fine. Be okay with failing to reject your null hypothesis.

What's next for you after Purchase?

Something kind of chill and fun for the summer. That's all I am thinking about. I’m never going to have this opportunity again.

And maybe grad school in a couple of years. What I really want to do is outdoor education. That’s what I’m good at. That's what I like.