Birds are fascinating creatures. Most are tiny but capable of incredible feats, of flying thousands of miles in migration without requiring Google Maps or asking locals for directions. They constructed artful nests without hands. Their songs range from improvised jazz to classical sonatas. Falcons divebomb with an imperiousness that causes daredevils to rage with envy. Swallows dart across a summer sky smoother than any technological flying machine. Most birdwatchers are comfortable with appreciating God's creation from a comfortable (and clean) distance. Bucknell women's cross country runner Tori Chace belongs to the select few who wish to understand the inner mechanics of the scientific order. The magic to that group lies not in seeing the actions but in understanding how the trick is done.

Chace grew up in a family of runners and scientists, providing a point for environment in the famous nature vs. nurture rivalry. Of course, her athletic and academic skills argue that she has natural gifts in both fields. Her older sister's involvement in running drove Chace's interest in the sport.

"My older sister, she's five years older than me, she has a big impact on what I've done throughout my life. We both played soccer when we were younger and she started running cross country in middle school. I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I would go on runs with my family and then her. I had a natural gravitation. I was good at it when I was young and I just really loved it. All my really good friends ended up doing it too."

Running wasn't the only option for the fleet-of-foot athlete. Chace danced until her senior year of school. She joined a ballet company and distinguished herself in The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, performing with the grace of a cardinal's song. But the lure of cross country deprived the stage of a star.

Chace collected plenty of honors running cross country in Rhode Island: Four-time All-Class, All-State, and was a three-time New-England Championships Qualifier. Her success encouraged the young athlete to seek Division I athletics. Like most Bucknell admissions, she desired to combine world-class academics with the chance to compete at the Division I level. 

"I looked at a pretty big range of schools. I knew that I really wanted to run in college. I saw my sister ran at Williams College and academics were also really important to me. I looked at some other Patriot League schools. I looked at the NESCACs. I also looked at some other like bigger schools that I couldn't run at for academics."

She chose Bucknell because it fit all her options. The beautiful campus was another selling point, there were research opportunities, and Head Coach Kevin Donner impressed her with his level of knowledge and concern for his student-athletes. Coach Donner is a maestro at the student visit. Every Bucknell athletic employee has encountered him emulating Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka tour guide persona.

"He loves to talk running. He says that, and it's very clear. Sometimes I'll stop by his office, and you're there for 30 minutes, an hour, just talking. It means a lot that he knows so much about us, not just how we race, but what we're doing."

If Division I cross country and track & field weren't enough for the student-athlete, Chace is pursuing a double major in Biology & Anthropology. Biology is easy enough to explain, since her father is a biology professor at Salve Regina University. Anthropology stems from her love of the humanities.

In addition to her busy academic and athletic schedule, she has taken on not one but two teaching assistant roles this semester. The first role is in the Sociology and Anthropology Department, helping students with field research in the local Lewisburg community, and the second class is in the prestigious Management School, assisting with SPSS coding.

Chace has been a star in the classroom, and her professors have readily taken notice. Her shining performance landed the senior two major opportunities last summer. The first chance was working on research with Professor Elizabeth Durden. Chace met the professor at a conference in Boston after she presented a paper on general health conditions and race. The two bonded, and Durden has emerged as a mentor for Chace. Durden had her looking through the National Health Interview Survey results on hypertension prevalence, nativity status, and race. The two are collaborating on a paper that will hopefully be published in a journal.

After those seven weeks, Chace moved onto a different brood to study the Leach's storm petrel with professor Mark Haussmann on Kent Island off the coast of Canada. Bowdoin College, most famed for its alum Colonel Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, owns a scientific station there. The island director there from Bowdoin has a collaboration with Professor Haussmann and the good professor did some of his PhD grad work and other research throughout the years on Kent Island. Three or four Bucknellians joined ten Bowdoin students in researching the remarkable bird.

Kent Island is a tiny little thing, only about two miles long, but over 200 bird species have been seen. Settled in 1799 by John Kent and his family, the island was mostly visited by birds and hunters, until conservationists rallied to save the declining species in the 1930s. Bowdoin established its current scientific station during the decade and over 220 papers have emerged from the remote, desolate, and wave-beaten island.

"Kent Island is an amazing place to study these birds specifically because it was preserved for as a conservation."

Chace joined the long and storied history of studying Leach's storm petrel. The former director, Charles Ellsworth Huntington, began researching the sturdy bird in the 1950s due to its "irresistible charm," and his work has continued uninterrupted to this day, forming "one of the longest data sets on a vertebrate animal in the world."

The Leach's storm petrel is a small and robust bird, averaging 18-21 cm and a wingspan of 43-48 cm. Like sailors of yore, the species is pelagic - called to by the siren sound of the stormy sea, and they feed mainly on the ocean's bounty: plankton. Catbird gray with ink-black wings, their charm lies not in their appearance but in their striking determination. GPS tracking shows that some petrels regularly flew to New York City and back searching for food. They also live a long time for a bird, most averaging around 25 years, with the oldest recorded reaching 38 years.

The petrels represent biparental care - a relatable trait for today's modern families. The female lays one egg in an underground burrow, not the typical tree nest or cavity box like your suburban songbird. The chick can be fed twice a day or go several days without nourishment, once again a different scenario than for your average chickadee or goldfinch, whose babies scream repeatedly for grub.

Chace's research studied how the parents' long-range foraging impacted the chick's development, specifically the hormone corticosterone, which is similar to cortisol in humans. It is important not only for stress, but its energy, metabolism, hunger, and safety. Her favorite bird growing up was the diminutive and cheerful chickadee but her research has moved the Leach's stormy petrel to number one.