Naturalist · Observer · Bay Area, CA

I notice things
most people
walk past.

This is where I share what I find — in farm fields, tide pools, backyards, and terrariums. Not research. Just genuine, sustained curiosity about how animals live.

— Yawen Guo, class of 2027
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Smile Farm, 2023
About Me

I never decided
to love animals.
It just always was.


The first time I noticed something nobody else did was at our local farm — a sheep stood apart from the herd for two mornings in a row, eating less, moving slower. I told one of the farm staff. Turned out she was coming down with an infection. I just noticed.

That noticing feeling is the thread through everything I do: four years at AAH Smile Farm, weekends at the San Francisco Zoo, watching my ball python learn to trust my hands, collecting eDNA samples from a creek I've walked past a hundred times.

This site is my field notebook — messier than a resume, more honest than an essay.

4+
years at Smile Farm
12
species I care for
hours of observation
Field Notes

Things I've observed.
Written down.

Not research papers. Just the moments that made me stop and pay attention.

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November 2024 · AAH Smile Farm
Ovis aries · Domestic sheep
The lamb who waited by the gate every Tuesday

For three weeks she was there before I arrived. Animals notice routines in ways we underestimate.

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November 2024 · Home terrarium
Python regius · Ball python
The afternoon she stopped coiling away from me

Six months in. She rested her head on my wrist and closed her eyes. I didn't move for forty minutes.

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June 2026 · UCSD Scripps Program
Environmental DNA · Field genomics
A creek I've walked past — and what lived in it

We sampled water that looked empty. The eDNA told a different story: three fish species, two amphibians. Invisible life, everywhere.

My Animals

The ones I live with.

Not pets, exactly. More like long-term study subjects who also happen to trust me.

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Luna
Python regius · Ball python · 3 years old

Originally from West Africa, ball pythons form surprisingly calm bonds with people who are patient with them. Luna took four months before she stopped tensing when I picked her up. Now she explores my arms like it's her favorite trail.

The first time she flicked her tongue at my face instead of pulling away, I knew something had shifted between us. I hadn't done anything different. She had just decided.
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Twig
Carausius morosus · Indian stick insect · ~8 months

Stick insects survive by becoming invisible. Keeping one means learning to see differently — you have to look for them in their own enclosure. Twig taught me that noticing takes practice.

She molted for the first time last month. I found the shed exoskeleton and couldn't tell it from her for a full minute. That's either a design achievement or a magic trick, and I genuinely can't decide which.
Experience

Where I've spent my time.

The short version. The longer version lives in the Field Notes.

2021 – Present
AAH Smile Farm
Youth Ambassador · Animals & Client Outreach
Four years of showing up. I started as a nervous volunteer. Now I help introduce animals to visitors with disabilities. The animals didn't change. I did.
2023 – Present
San Francisco Zoo
Volunteer · Animal observation & education
The Zoo taught me that watching professionally is different from watching casually. You take notes. You look for deviation. You ask why an animal did something it didn't do yesterday.
Summer 2026
UCSD Scripps Institution
eDNA & Field Genomics · Student Researcher
My first real lab setting. I learned that science isn't just asking questions — it's designing the right experiment to hear the answer.