Most undergraduate AEPi brothers spent their summer working in corporate internships, clerking in law offices, or making money at other jobs. Not Brother Jack Jaworski (Miami University, 2026). He spent his summer in the jungle.
“I study anthropology with a specificity in biological anthropology. Biology and anthropology are the holistic study of humanity and biologic anthropology looks into a lot of primatology and looking at primates because we evolved from them.
Some of my classes are more focused on primates and other classes are more focused on the bridge between us and other primates. Specifically, over the summer, I was studying woolly monkeys at the Tipitini Biodiversity Station.”
That’s the Tipitini Biodiversity Station, located within the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve in eastern Ecuador, which lies in the world’s most species-diverse region : western lowland Amazonia at the intersection of the equator and the Andean foothills. Not a place where the average AEPi spends summer break.
After applying to a program sponsored by the University of Texas – Austin – where his brother also studies anthropology – Jack was accepted into the program and made plans to spend his summer in the Amazon.
“My life in college,” said Jack. “Is AEPi and Anthropology. My two favorite As!”
“We were studying woolly monkeys and specifically we were studying the effects of predation, which is a very understudied area of science due to how random predation events are. (Editor’s note: Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey). Usually, predators will stay away because like nine times out of ten, they’re more scared of you than you are of them. So, it’s really hard to actually see predation events happen. So, the way we get quantifiable data on this, and there’s only a few other studies that have done this, is you go out there with a speaker we played jaguar vocalizations or harpy eagle vocalizations on the speaker, and we would film the monkeys. Basically, we would play the sound and record their reactions.”
But, of course, that wasn’t enough. Another student had the idea of getting a model to see how the monkeys would react to that. “But instead of using a model, they got a jaguar print cloth and put it on me. I got down on all fours and crawled around on the ground trying to look like a jaguar.”
The differences between summer in the Amazon and fall semester in Oxford, Ohio are stark. “Over there, if I looked outside, it was just trees and the river. There are no signs of humanity at all. Here, looking out the window of the AEPi house, there are some trees, but I can see lots of other people too! Time goes by really slowly in the jungle…like, I’m finishing up the sixth week of school here, and that’s mind-boggling to me. But over there, it’s like six weeks feels like six months. But not in a bad way. You really feel the passage of time.”
After spending a summer communicating with monkeys, Jack has had a great time back on campus with his brothers from the Alpha Tau chapter. “The boys love hearing about my summer. I had wi-fi sometimes so I could snap the guys occasionally and show them what I’m doing. I definitely learned to be even more appreciative of where I am and what I’m doing in the moment.”
One area he definitely has already impacted on is in the Alpha Tau chapter house. “In the jungle, you learn to really value cleanliness. You have to clean and dry everything because mold will spawn instantly…honestly, now that I’m back here and serving as house manager, I’m trying to bring that same thing to the house!”
“Being that far away for so long, I kind of came into a new view on life. It’s all really beautiful and precious, both the jungle and life itself.
“Now, I want to bring that energy to AEPi!”
#ProudtobeaPi