Celia Claire Symons is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Irvine. Initially, Celia majored in math but a summer job after her third year as an undergraduate student changed her career trajectory. During this job, she studied lakes up in the subarctic and in Ontario and learned about what it meant to be a researcher and ecologist. As a field ecologist, Celia finds it the most challenging moving countries and being away from family. While she had to move from Canada to the U.S. and adapt to new cultures and customs, collaborating with people on the job and within science to tackle issues together helped her overcome this challenge. Currently, Celia is studying how ecological communities respond to variations in the environment year to year in her lab. This year is her team’s tenth year of sampling the lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Throughout the decade, they have sampled during the driest year recorded history and the wettest year in history (this year). With this research, Celia hopes to understand how organisms survive these kinds of wild fluctuations year to year and what makes communities resilient to a variable climate. The process of science excites Celia and the fact that she gets to answer questions about lakes, which are really important systems, makes it even better; however there are often misconceptions in her field. Contrary to locals’ belief, lakes in Sierra Nevada are naturally fishless. The addition of fish in the lakes by humans during the late 1800s reduced fog densities, snake densities, and even changed the bird communities. Consequently, there are undergoing fish removals to restore the lakes into a more natural condition. Celia believes these fresh water systems can teach us a lot about connectivity. Not only does agriculture and waste affect the lakes and rivers, but human activity also affects them as well because the same water from the lakes flow from the headwaters of Sierra Nevada to the coast. Celia understands the importance of educating people not only of the significance of biodiversity but also educating people about the climate, thus, taking direct action and explaining why it really matters. Although a lot of her students share the same climate grief, she believes everyone should also know about the success stories in changing environmental impacts. The Clean Air act that prevent the acid rain from killing organism and lakes in Ontario during the seventies is a significant example that Celia hopes others hear about. Climate grief is certainly one of Celia’s biggest concern regarding the climate crisis but she believes thinking about local issues, like the removal of fish in the lakes, can lessen our stress while also tackling the larger scale issues regarding temperature change. Celia encourages PK-12 teachers to keep doing what they are doing and reach out to any resources at universities for support. Lastly, she encourages PK-12 students to get out in nature and enjoy it so they can learn all about their local ecosystems. She believes that one of the most joyous thing in the world is seeing nature and what's around us.