The Story Collider

This week, we’re presenting stories about the courage to be the person you were meant to be.Part 1: The lessons that Margaret Rubega learns from her dad about fighting back are put to the test when he becomes the one she must stand up to.Part 2: In following her dream of studying chemistry, Charlotte Istance-Tamblin sees how to break the toxic patterns in her relationships.Margaret Rubega is a professor in the Department of  Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. She  has spent her career studying a diverse array of birds, with a  consistent interest in answering the questions: How Does That Work? and  How Does it Matter? She started her career getting crapped on in a tern  colony, then studied a bird that's famous for going in circles. Those  formative experiences probably explain a lot about her subsequent  career. She's always been especially interested in feeding in birds ---  the way they're built, the mechanics, the food -- because a bird that  isn't fed is a bird that's dead