Survivor 48
To start, give me your name, age, and occupation.I'm Eva Erickson. I'm 23 years old, and I'm a PhD student in engineering and fluid and thermal science.That is a mouthful! What does that involve?So my research for my thesis is on how seals use their whiskers to locate objects in water, and how that can be implemented in sensory tech for the Navy.That is incredible. What does the research involve? Do you get to interact with the seals?Unfortunately, I don't work with live seals. But I do a lot of experiments. I have a big, scaled-up seal whisker model that I put in a very large water flume; it's like 2000 gallons. And I do different experiments to see its vibrational profile in response to disturbances. So I'm basically creating a fake fish flapping, and then have my seal whisker respond to it by vibrating in different ways. So we can ultimately create a sensor that's very sensitive to different types of disturbances.How on earth did you find yourself doing a thesis in something like this? Have you always been interested in science and seals?Not specifically seal whiskers. Well, my previous research was also in centipede locomotion. So I mean, I feel like I'm a step up from bugs now. But overall, I wanted to study physics when I was an undergrad because I loved nature, which sounds really contradictory. But growing up, I loved animals so much, and I was really good at math. So I was like, "How can I combine those two things?" And so I wanted to go into the physics of living systems. And so that's what I studied at Georgia Tech. And then, from there, I was able to get involved in really cool research that allowed me to do bio-inspired robotics.Do you have an end goal at the moment once you get through your thesis?I mean, there's a lot of different pathways I can take. I'm getting a really elite degree from a great school, Brown. It's an Ivy League school, so I feel very lucky to have this opportunity. So there's a lot of opportunities for me to do things in aerodynamics or fluid dynamics, going in those pathways, maybe continuing in military research. But something that I thought going forward that I might be interested in transitioning to is, instead of doing animal research, doing more about humans and specifically sports equipment. I love hockey so much. That's a huge passion of mine.Yeah, I saw you wrote in your bio that you're a hockey official on the side.I've played hockey my whole life. I'm still playing hockey, and then I am also an official. I'm an NCAA Division I hockey official. So I'm a linesman, and I also do a ton of USA Hockey national tournaments. They bring me around the country. So that's my side gig, as well as my PhD.How much does it kill you to be out here while game seven of the Stanley Cup is happening?Oh my god, I was dying. I couldn't believe that it made it to game seven. After the first three games were all to Florida, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna see the end of this." No, of course, the Oilers come back and bring it to game seven. And I'm like, "I'm gonna miss it!" I cannot believe I'm missing it. So my dad said he would tell me.I was gonna say, do you want me to tell you what happened?I was told. I mean, I was talking to all the crew that's been around, asking people. I wore an Oilers shirt the first day. So a few of the guys were asking me if I was. The curse remains, yes. Oh my gosh. I was so sad. Florida, of all places! I did not want Matthew to get a cup. But here we are.Well, let's talk about what brings you from the ice to the heat. Why Survivor?I mean, so many reasons. First off, it's a crazy adventure. I mean, we're out in the most beautiful place I've ever been. And just getting to be in nature, that's crazy. That's so cool. I love the outdoors, so that's a big experience. And then I'm so competitive. I've been an athlete my whole life. I'm always been so driven, and this is the biggest competition I'll ever be a part of. It's such a unique experience where I'm competing and living again with people I don't know, and I'm battling the elements as well as these people. And it just brings together to this huge sporting event to me that I'm like, "I want to win!"What's your history with watching Survivor?I'm pretty new to Survivor, actually. I only started watching it in college because my teammates at Georgia Tech created a Survivor drinking game. We played Survivor, but with drinking game challenges, like Flip Cup, Pong, Defend the Dastle, all these classic drinking games. But tribes were playing against each other, and then if your tribe lost, you voted someone out, same as Survivor. We hid an idol around the house. We had Tribal Council, where we're having someone be Jeff asking questions. And so it was a big thing. We did this several times. And the first time that I played it with my teammates, I won. And I was like, "You know what? Maybe I could do it in the real game too."How long did this last for? Was it just a one-night thing?We make a whole night of it. It was a big thing where we'd start at 5:00 p.m., and then we had, all the challenges mapped out, and the breakdown of tribes and everything. It was very fun.That's like playing one of those one-day live reality game versions of Survivor. You may not have won a million dollars, but your BAC level was probably a million at the end of it.Oh yeah. Well, the last challenge for our building fire to be part of the Final Three was everyone had to take a breathalyzer, and whoever was most sober was out. It was great. It was so much fun. And those guys are the best. We all watched Survivor together. We kind of bingewatched it during finals. Gotcha. And watching this, we would all be throwing out our commentary. And the guys knew way more than I did,. And we'd be seeing all these challenges where the female characters were so weak; these were really old seasons. And I didn't like these female characters they had cast. And all the guys were all like, "Oh my gosh, they're so dumb, they're so weak. Eva, you're so much better than them. You could kill everybody in this game." And I was like, "Yeah, I should do that". And so they're really the ones that encouraged me to go try and do this.Give me one winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most.So the two characters that I think I really identify with were Denise. She won. She was from Minnesota, like I am, and she was a challenged beast. That woman, she was small, but she was so strong and fierce. And so I really liked her. I thought she was super cool. And I was like, "You know what? I want to be like that woman." And then someone more recent is Lindsay. And she also was a very strong competitor, and she had a good alliance with Jonathan, I remember, throughout, who were two very strong players. And I thought she was really cool. She also played football, and I'm a woman on an all-men's hockey team. She was a woman on a men's football team. Aand so I also identified that with her as well.Talk to me more about that. What was it like breaking into that environment?I mean, it was crazy at first, because I was really nervous. I'd been playing girls' hockey all growing up. I'm from Minnesota, so there's just as much girls' hockey as boys'. And it's very high level, the best hockey for women in the country. And then I went down to Georgia Tech for college, going there because I wanted to go to a great school, not for hockey. But I found out they had a men's hockey team. I was like, "Well, I don't want to give up on my passion for hockey. I'm gonna try out. We'll see where I land." And I made the team, and they do cut people. So it wasn't that they're just, "Oh, we have to let her on." I made the team, and at first, the guys were kind of on eggshells a little bit. They didn't really know how to handle having a girl playing with them. They're like, "Can we hit her? Can we joke around the same?"But I really showed them that I'm here to play. I'm an aggressive player, and I can shoot the shit with them just like they can with anyone else. And so quickly, I earn their respect and become one of the boys. And it was funny because one of the guys on the team was talking to me about how he can't talk to girls, and I'm like, "Well, I'm a girl. You're talking to me!" And he's like, "You don't count. You're one of us. You don't count at all." And so I know that I'm just one of them, and they were the best support. They're great guys. And any time that other teams often would target me because they'd never played against a girl. They see me, they're like, "You don't belong." They would try to blow me up. They'd say terrible things to me. My teammates would always have my back. And they'd go fight them for me if I wasn't already fighting them myself.
What's one life experience that has prepared you most for the game?I feel like that [this] is a big thing that has prepared me, because that also has grown my confidence in myself a lot. Everyone says I'm a very confident person, and I know I'm very authentically myself all the time. And that comes from a lot of my autism. That is something that's very important to me, and it's because I don't change who I am for other people. Because I don't recognize the social cues to do that. So I'm just always me. And I think I've grown even more into that as I've gotten older, because I just accept that and go about doing what I want to do. And so joining men's hockey team, I was like, "I like hockey. I'm gonna go do that." And everyone became my friends. And then, I did the same thing when I started my PhD. Going to a new school, I have to start all over with new guys. I was even more ready for it this time because I'd done it before. And I was like, "I know I can show up to the situation, and I can thrive." And I've thrived so much that they've selected me as their captain for next season. Being a girl captain of a men's team when everyone on the team was like, "Yes, 100%. You're who we want." There was no doubt that it was gonna be anyone but me. And that felt amazing to know that they all respect me and all see me as one of them.It's clear you're balancing a lot right now. So what was your prep process like to come out here?I mean, it was a big balancing, because I had a lot of lab work to do. I mean, I'm taking time off for my PhD–which is a very rare thing. It's a year-round thing. It's fully funded. I'm a fellow with the National Science Foundation. And so I have a lot of work to be doing. And luckily, my advisor allowed me to take this time. But I did have to submit a manuscript to him before I left, so that was a lot of work to get this put together. But then, in addition to that, I was training. I was building fires in my backyard all the time. In my little apartment in Providence, I'm building a fire. My neighbors probably think I'm crazy. I was training every morning. I always train every morning. I'm huge into lifting; that's for hockey. And so I just kept up that workout plan, changing it to adapt to different things that I started fasting. I started limiting my food intake a little bit to prepare myself to have less, still having enough to maintain my muscles and be strong. But knowing that I was going from having four meals a day as an athlete, where I eat lots of protein, lots of food, knowing this is to fuel me. To then shrinking that down a little bit smaller time frame. I was down to having only two meals, and one of those just being a smoothie, before I came here to prepare myself to know, "Okay, your body's gonna have to function on nothing. So let's dwindle it down a little bit."You're clearly a very athletic person. And you were just voted the leader of your team. How do you think you'll be perceived in this game?I definitely want to be seen on my tribe as an athlete. I do not want them to know that I'm also very intelligent. That's something that I'm gonna keep hidden because otherwise, I'm gonna be too much of a threat.So are you just gonna generically say you're a student?No, I'm gonna say I'm an NCAA hockey official. Because you take one look at me, you can tell that I am very fit. I've got huge muscles, especially for a woman, and my personality really shows that, yeah. And so I can really lean into that. And nobody's gonna look at that side of my life and be like, "Oh, she plays men's hockey. She's an official. She also is probably really smart and goes to an Ivy League school." Nobody's gonna think that. So, if I really lean into this one aspect about myself, I think I can hide the other part and keep that to my advantage. So I am being strategic. I am working on different things, but hopefully, they just see me as a physical competitor.Give me your biggest superpower and your biggest piece of kryptonite when it comes to this game.My autism for both of those. And that's the thing with autism, is that a lot of people think is autism as being something bad and that it's a big roadblock to success. But I believe that I would not have been as successful in my life without having my autism. Because I know it's provided me with so much drive, because I get these fixations on things, which can be very bad. But I've learned in my life to channel that towards my goals and using my fixated mindset to achieve what I want. And sure, there's also a lot of downsides. So that's where the bad part comes in. There are times I'll get super overwhelmed and overstimulated, and that can have a very large physical effect on me. As well as there's other things with autism, like my inability to recognize social cues. I'm a very social person, have a ton of energy, love talking to people. But I don't pick up on the small social cues that everyone else does. And so this game where everyone's lying to me, a lot of that's going to go over my head. So that's where I have to really make sure I'm building strong alliances with people who I can trust to tell me the truth.Well, let's talk about some people you can hopefully trust in. Who are you picking up good vibes from in the preseason?I mean knowing myself and that I'm an athlete, and I look at everyone else in the view of an athlete, this is a competitive, physical game as well as a mental game. I see people who look athletic, and I'm like, "That's someone that I think I could work with." Because oftentimes, people who are very strong and are built, they're hard workers. You put in a lot of time and effort to get those muscles. And to have that strength in sports gives you lots of different morals that people who don't play sports don't have about hard work and teamwork and many things in general. So, I saw two guys over the last couple days that I think I'd really like to work with. One of them, he's a Black guy who looks very strong, great smile. The guy was wearing a lacrosse shirt at one point. I was like, "Lacrosse is pretty close to hockey." That's someone that I think I could get along with. That would be a great ally to have. As well as there's a Asian man who looks about my age as well. Also looks muscular. A guy who's smiley; I like the happy people. And so seeing him too, I think he looks like someone who I could get along with. He just seems like a fun, nice guy. And so those are two people that I'm hoping I could get one of them on my tribe.What's the biggest thing you value in an alliance partner?Like I said, I'm not gonna recognize lying. And so I want to have someone that I'm solid with, that I feel like I can trust and can look at. I look to my teammates, because my teammates are like brothers to me. And I want to find someone who I can have that connection with. Because especially at the beginning of this game, you are a team. And sure, it's a very complex relationship. But at the ground root of it, you want to get further in the game, and that's their goal, too. So how can we do that together? How much do you anticipate your cooperative spirit from a team setting butting up against the individual elements of Survivor?I mean, ultimately, in sports, too, there's a lot of competition that happens outside of just your team playing to win a game. There's also the competition to make the team. We're all at tryouts together, and not all of us are gonna make it. So I've gone through that with the people that were teammates. We've been teammates, but also we're all competing for limited spots on a team, or to be on the first line. There's different little aspects of competition within all of it that you're not always working towards that one goal together. You all have your individual wants as well. But it's just being able to balance that, because you can't be the asshole who's just being a dick to the rest of your teammates, and because you want to be on the power play. You still have to be a team, so you can all work together.Related: Everything to Know About Survivor 48
Next, check out our interview with Survivor 48 contestant Bianca Roses.
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