Black Artist and Scientist Series
Spotlight Artist: Gavriel Cambridge
Written by Dunia Roba
Hello! My name is Dunia Roba, and I am a lab monitor and research assistant at INCUBATOR art lab. This past summer, I visited Guadalajara, Mexico, as a member of the Healthy Headwaters Lab to learn about ecosystem health across North America. Students from both Virginia Tech and locals from ITESO University joined us on our day trips. In December, these students came to the University of Windsor to complete the cycle. Through the roughly three weeks I spent with everyone, I was fortunate to meet Gavriel Cambridge, a Guyanese American master’s student in biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech. We were able to find time to sit down in December and have a conversation about his scientific research, photography, and future goals.
Q: Could you introduce yourself and your work?
Hi, my name is Gavriel Cambridge, I am a biological systems engineering student at Virginia Tech. My studies focus on wetland hydrology, biogeochemistry, and restoration, and I like to pair that with wildlife observations in these systems using different camera systems and camera trapping. I am very interested in subtropical and tropical wetlands and ecology.
![[1] Wetland in southern Florida, DJI Mavic 3 Pro](https://incubatorartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/1.png "[1] Wetland in southern Florida, DJI Mavic 3 Pro")
[1] Wetland in southern Florida, DJI Mavic 3 Pro
Q: Would you walk us through your creative project process when working on a new artistic project?
My main art forms are wildlife photography and camera trapping, and it's oftentimes not really project based. It's more like I’m just walking around and then happen to see this animal or signs of its presence and then launch from there. I start by choosing a scene representative of the habitat that I'm interested in, since it’s mainly the setting that makes the art. Then, I also consider what and how animals travel through the area. When setting up camera traps especially, I have to find a balance between getting the ideal shot with perfect scene and lighting; and minimizing the impact on the subject. I have to be considerate of how disruptive my art can be to wildlife, so I am always trying to make sure the cameras don’t stand out too much into game paths, and that the lighting isn't too bright or direct.
![[4] Florida panther crossing a highway through a wildlife crossing. Game Camera](https://incubatorartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/4.jpg "[4] Florida panther crossing a highway through a wildlife crossing. Game Camera")
[4] Florida panther crossing a highway through a wildlife crossing. Game Camera
Q: How do you stay motivated and inspired to continue your work?
It's usually picking up on the little things. You can check the camera once every week for months and find nothing, but then you'll see animal tracks that run off the frame or a tail in a photo. Moments like that make you want to keep coming back to get it right. I also try to make a personal connection to the places that I go to.
![[5] Florida panther tracks, [6] White tailed deer running out of camera frame](https://incubatorartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Untitled-design-2-1.jpg "[5] Florida panther tracks, [6] White tailed deer running out of camera frame")
[5] Florida panther tracks, [6] White tailed deer running out of camera frame
Q: Are these connections with whatever habitat you're in, like oh, this species is endangered– let me tell this story?
I think it has to do with both my cultural background and the background of people who’ve lived in these places. I often work in wetland systems that have very similar histories to where my family is from in South America. In Guyana, there is a mix of communities who were displaced and disadvantaged due to a lack of opportunity. There are also similar wildlife-human conflicts across many of these systems, just with different scales. It could be a bobcat killing a farmer’s chickens or a jaguar eating cattle, but it's the same core problem.
![[7] Bobcat, Canon EOS t7, and [8-11] various species of salamanders found around Southwestern Virginia, Canon EOR R and Macro Lens](https://incubatorartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Untitled-design-3.jpg "[7] Bobcat, Canon EOS t7, and [8-11] various species of salamanders found around Southwestern Virginia, Canon EOR R and Macro Lens")
[7] Bobcat, Canon EOS t7, and [8-11] various species of salamanders found around Southwestern Virginia, Canon EOR R and Macro Lens
Q: So, it’s not necessarily relating to your personal experiences, but rather to those of your family and community?
Yeah, my personal experiences only go so far. But other people's stories can cover more ground and build a bigger picture of the meaning of some of this work. You find a way to pass that onto people, too. People in some communities take pride in being from a place, but sometimes it doesn't carry over to the stewardship of their natural resources.
That's what I'm trying to do, to make people care about the unseen. It’s a privilege that I can even see some of these animals in this positive light, because they're not keeping me from eating at the end of the day or affecting my livelihood. This goes both for the science work I do, showing that there are human benefits to maintaining wetlands, but also to the art/photography demonstrating how pretty nature is.
Q: You shared about how you stay motivated in your photography, but what about your scientific work and in your master’s project?
My project is largely focused on the dynamics, sources, and spread of dissolved aquatic carbon in the Great Dismal Swamp. This work is a major missing component in landscape carbon balances. We already consider carbon stock in soil, trees and atmosphere, but it's much harder to quantify landscape transport of carbon in surface and groundwater. I'm currently working in a system that has an extensive logging history, and the drainage of these high-density peat soils has driven significant export of carbon to the water. This all could affect and change the sink or source nature of the system.
![[14] Cypress Trees in the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia](https://incubatorartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/14.jpg "[14] Cypress Trees in the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia")
[14] Cypress Trees in the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia
I have a personal interest in this issue. Guyana both has a lot of draining blackwater rivers and a problem with the dredging of sediments for gold mining. In this mining, they inject mercury, arsenic, and other chemicals to help bind off gold. These chemicals then form complexes with the dissolved organic matter in the water and then become bioavailable. It’s somewhat understudied in that part of the world. There are other studies that look at the effect of those complexes in drinking water systems, but that's not a real concern in the rainforest where these communities are drinking untreated water straight from rain and river water.
[17] Jaguar checking out a game camera, [18] An ocelot and microwave in Belize
[16] Traveling up a creek to the farm in Guyana under a flock of scarlet Ibis
Q: Do you plan to apply what you've done in Virginia to back in Guyana?
Yes, that would be the end goal. Guyana also has an issue with brain drain where people have to leave to obtain a living due to limited opportunities. It’s something that I've always been aware of through my grandparents and father’s situations. So, it's something I would like to do, yes, but it'd have to start off based in a US institution. I appreciate some schools and programs that have placed an emphasis on making sure the community is building their capacity to do this kind of work, and that knowledge is not just being extracted. One great program doing this is the Guyana Marine Conservation Society
Q: Could you share any advice for aspiring artists or scientists?
I think it's always nice to find somebody who is doing similar work. For my camera trapping work I would always look at photographers from National Geographic. It eventually becomes organic– you see this in a magazine, it looks cool, so now you keep it in mind when you're setting up your next camera trap. It's just inspiring to see what could potentially be in the systems you're in.
Q: Do you have any personal experiences that have changed your outlook on or the way you do science or art?
There was one summer I worked in Belize where I got to see a cool art and science combination. The grad student who led the project would lay all these trail cameras around the woods to do the data collection on population dynamics. But then in his personal time, which he didn't have much of, he’d set up this DSLR camera trap and spend hours crawling around to get the framing right. I heard about his work when I was working in Virginia under the same professor, and it was just inspiring to me to see that he was able to balance both. I was inspired to set up my gear and I was able to get this experimental image of an ocelot pausing near an abandoned microwave in the jungle. I think it's also pretty cool how that grad student does a lot of work with community engagement to include the community in their efforts and improve the public’s perception of jaguars and other wildlife.
Here’s a link to some of his work: @mountainman_david88
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![[17] Jaguar checking out a game camera, [18] An ocelot and microwave in Belize](https://incubatorartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Untitled-design-5.jpg "[17] Jaguar checking out a game camera, [18] An ocelot and microwave in Belize")
[17] Jaguar checking out a game camera, [18] An ocelot and microwave in Belize