Yesterday, Yale School of the Environment student Li Murphy, a Western Resource Fellow with the Ucross High Plains Stewardship Initiative, published an op-ed in The Salt Lake Tribune calling for a rethinking of how we name and relate to “Mormon crickets” in the American West.
The piece explores the ecological, cultural, and political stakes of naming practices and insect conservation in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Drawing from fieldwork with drones, insect-mounted cameras, and conversations with multigenerational land stewards, Murphy highlights the importance of bridging science, society, and lived experience when confronting species often regarded only as “pests.”
Leave a comment on the SLC Tribune website and feel free to email Li with your thoughts about naming, Mormon crickets, or anything the article conjured for you. li.murphy@yale.edu
STUDENT RESEARCHER
Li Murphy – WCC Coordinator | Li is a Master of Environmental Science candidate funded by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, focusing on the social and ecological dynamics of insect-human interactions. She is currently working on a project about Mormon crickets in the Intermountain West. Originally from Idaho, she has a particular fondness for the state insect, the Monarch butterfly. Prior to Yale, Li was dedicated to community science, managing field camps in the Great Basin, driving a roving mobile STEM outreach laboratory, and then briefly piloting a planetarium. She believes in providing more inroads and support to folks, especially those with marginalized identities, to participate in framing and practicing scientific research, especially research that drives allocation of resources and environmental decision-making. She holds a BA degree in biology and geology from Harvard University. Li volunteers for the American Geophysical Union Local Science Partners and serves on the board for the nonprofit Nonhuman Teachers. She can often be found jogging, trying to keep her succulents alive, or surfing badly. See what Li has been up to.
