This post is part of our blog series The Unwritten Curriculum. Check out our posts in this series: How to apply to grad school, The grad student life, How to submit a paper, Demystifying the qualifying exams, How to do a remote postdoc, How to apply for a tenure track faculty job in ecology, Paths to ecology I, II, III, and IV, How to prepare for a faculty job interview, and How to give a great (job) talk.
Kelsey is a first-year postdoc who studies the interplay between ecological and evolutionary dynamics, currently in western treehole mosquitoes and their facultative parasite, Lambornella clarki. Kelsey is a novice runner, cat enthusiast, and occasional birdwatcher.
Shaili is a first-year PhD student in the Eco-evo program. She is still figuring out her research interests and is currently rotating with the Cremer and Petrov labs. She is interested in combining mathematical modeling, experimental work, and data science to understand complex biological systems better. Outside of science she enjoys working with animals, visual art, hiking and ultimate frisbee.
Erin is an Associate Professor in Biology who started her lab at Stanford in 2015. Her research centers on understanding how human impacts on the environment affect the health of people and the planet. Outside of work, she enjoys being outdoors, skiing, hiking, and playing ultimate frisbee (she used to be a contender). She has a delightful two-and-a-half year old son and a baby girl on the way.
Isabel is a third-year PhD student in the Microbiology and Immunology program. She is interested in how within-host virus evolution affects transmission dynamics, with a background in molecular virology. Outside of science, Isabel enjoys taking care of her rabbit, long walks, and loves trying new foods.
Q: How important was ecology and nature in your early life?
Kelsey: I have always liked animals and being out in nature, which is why my family (who all have business degrees) assumed that it would translate into becoming a vet. I grew up in Southern California, a few minutes from the ocean, and have fond memories of tide-pooling, hiking through the chapparal, and watching the birds in my backyard. When I was in high school, I joined the science research program, in which students link up with scientists to participate in research. Through that program I assisted the science director at the local land conservancy with tracking coyotes and foxes. That was when I learned the hard lesson that ecological research isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it also involves picking up scat in the freezing rain. Overall, it was a great experience and got me interested in ecology research.
Shaili: I grew up mostly in Bangalore, India, and briefly in Plano, Texas. Neither of my parents had a background or interest in ecology or conservation, but I had always really liked animals and remember wanting to know more about nature – how it worked and where it came from. I think that this, combined with hearing about deforestation and climate change, pushed me towards becoming more seriously interested in biology, and particularly in ecology and evolution. In my school Biology was always presented as a set of facts to be memorized, which I didn’t find compelling or exciting. Evolutionary theory finally gave me a lens through which I could see biology as the result of a systematic process. I was very lucky in high school to be able to spend some time over a couple of summers in the Agashe Lab at the National Center of Biological Sciences working on flour beetles and on butterflies. It all came together for me in a lab meeting where one of the grad students presented a mathematical model explaining some of the population dynamics in beetles. That’s when I realized that my interests in math and biology could actually be combined in a very meaningful way.
Erin: Growing up, we were always outside. My parents got by but didn’t have a lot of money, so our vacations were often road trips and camping trips in the midwest and later the southeast. When we moved to Georgia, I spent lots of time in our backyard playing baseball and trying to avoid the humidity and bugs. I loved sports and being outside but wasn’t one of those kids who loved turning over rocks or identifying birds and trees. Still, my parents helped instill a love of nature. When I got to college, I got to participate in the University of Georgia’s Interdisciplinary Field Program (IFP), a life-changing program that took us hiking and camping across the US, from Sapelo Island, Georgia to Bandelier, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Sequoia, Yosemite, Point Reyes, Glacier, Grand Teton, Badlands, and other National Parks where we learned ecology, anthropology, and geology. That’s where my childhood exposure to nature transformed into the realization that ecology was a science and a compelling career path.
Isabel: I grew up in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, and while I spent much of my time outdoors, I wasn’t so interested in taking in and appreciating any nature I saw. When I was 15, my parents, brother and I took a road trip to the Four Corners Monument (where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado intersect). Along the way, we learned about the pueblo-style adobe architecture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, took a train between beautiful snowy mountaintops from Silverton to Durango, Colorado, hiked Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, and visited Navajo Nation’s Monument Valley in Arizona. The trip sparked my curiosity in nature, which has carried through to today.
Q: What did you major in in undergrad, and how did it lay the foundation for grad school in ecology? Did you consider other paths?
Kelsey: I double majored in Environmental Science and Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. Originally, I planned to be pre-med, but quickly decided that track wasn’t for me. There are two highlights of my undergrad that really solidified my interest in pursuing a PhD in evolution and ecology. The first was a series of natural history field courses. Every Friday, the class would drive to a different park or preserve in California and spend the day learning to identify the native plants and vertebrates. The second was a senior thesis, which was a requirement for the Environmental Science major. I did a project on mapping potential sites for prescribed burning in the Sierras. Also while an undergrad, I started working in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and really fell in love with being a part of a research community, where everyone listened to weekly seminars, labs collaborated on big collecting trips, and undergrads were treated as young colleagues. It was a place that was always buzzing with activity and excitement.
Shaili: In undergrad I majored in Computational and Systems Biology, and also ended up doing a MS in Bioinformatics through a BS/MS program that my school had. I realized during my sophomore year that I really wanted to do more math, so I took several classes in the math department that seemed interesting and ended up with a minor in Mathematics as well. I think that being able to develop a strong mathematical and quantitative foundation as an undergraduate while taking some biology classes and doing some research in this field was very useful. This allowed me to develop a lot of quantitative tools that can be used in a wide variety of situations, and some intuition for which techniques can be effective in different situations. I feel confident that I want to be a research scientist in the long run, and I considered working at research-oriented biotechnology companies.
Erin: I wasn’t sure what to major in and in high school I liked math, biology, English, and Spanish, so I started out just taking classes in all four each semester. Eventually, I settled on an Interdisciplinary Studies major in Mathematical Biology, a double major in English (which I came a literary criticism class short of finishing), and a minor in Spanish. My dad is a biologist who had a passion for telling me about cell biology when I was a child, cutting through the jargon to make the ideas meaningful with great analogies and storytelling. He had an unusual path, getting a GED and starting college in his late 20’s after I was born, going into industry, and bouncing between jobs because of addiction and mental health struggles, but his passion for science was contagious, and no doubt led to me study biology in college. When I started learning about the intersections of math and biology, especially population modeling in ecology and evolution, it really grabbed my interest. The idea that you could work outside, use mathematical models to understand nature, and work on important problems like climate change and infectious diseases drew me into ecology.
Isabel: I majored in biology and minored in chemistry, with a concentration in microbiology. I spent much of my time in college learning about the foundations of general biology. Early on, I joined a lab studying bacteriophage. Diving into the world of molecular biology and viral ecology made me want to pursue a research career. Then, the summer before my senior year, I interned with a lab studying how genetic conflict drives evolutionary change, specifically in influenza viruses. I loved evolutionary genetics and knew I wanted viruses to stay a part of work I did in the future. After college, I completed a postbac program, where I studied molecular virology answering questions on how genetic variation influences viral infection. I loved the work, and this drove me to go to graduate school to continue researching molecular virology and hoping to develop a project that incorporated evolution as well. In reality, ecology was pretty far from my mind. I rotated in the Mordecai lab to learn about how to incorporate mathematical modeling into my research interests. I was taken by the lab’s projects spanning the ecology of infectious disease, and after joining the lab, I now use my training as a molecular virologist to help inform ecology research. I am becoming an ecologist during graduate school, an option I had no idea was possible. I certainly have not had a beeline path to ecology, but I am glad I’m here now!
Q: What or who convinced you to go to grad school to pursue a career in Ecology?
Kelsey: There was no single moment that convinced me, but instead many small influences that pushed me in that direction. I really looked up to my professors who juggled teaching challenging course material and spending time outside of class to get to know students, all while carrying out their own research. Especially in classes with hundreds of students, the effort they put in to interacting with us individually, including taking us out in the field, was impressive. I also had encouragement from several amazing mentors including my thesis advisor Dr. Patina Mendez and my boss at the MVZ Dr. Michelle Koo.
Shaili: Coming out of undergrad, I was confident that I wanted to be involved in some kind of research in quantitative biology, and I was debating between working at a biotech company that was doing research and graduate school. Research had been one of the most rewarding experiences for me as an undergraduate, and I still felt unsure of exactly what field I wanted to be in. While I think both would have been good choices, I ultimately chose to come to graduate school because I feel that it is important for me become an independent scientist and explore my research interests more fully than I have been able to so far.
Erin: I really didn’t have much of a plan. I had worked in a few biology labs during undergrad and wrote an honors thesis with Ron Pulliam in the UGA Ecology department, but I didn’t have a clear passion or direction. In October of my senior year, I decided to think about applying to grad school, and had a great conversation with Sonia Altizer, my professor in a community ecology class. She helped me understand the path to a PhD in ecology and how to choose a good advisor. She and Ron helped me hone my interests and steered me toward excellent people and, crucially, away from problematic ones. She hosted Kevin Lafferty for a talk and invited me to attend lunch with the group, and Kevin’s talk on effects of toxoplasmosis on behavior and culture really piqued my interest. I knew I wanted to get the heck out of Georgia and go west (thanks, IFP!) so I quickly signed up for the GRE and started contacting professors at schools in California, Colorado, and Oregon. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do except that I was interested in the intersections of math and ecology, pursuing fields like disease ecology and community ecology. When I got to visit UC Santa Barbara for an interview, I was blown away by the gorgeous place and the fantastic scientists who would become my PhD mentors, Jonathan Levine and Kevin Lafferty. They were so kind and open to me taking time to discover my interests and every conversation with them left me buzzing with new ideas, so I knew it was the right place for me.
Isabel: I’ve had a lot of support to explore all areas of bioscience, and thus have been able to use my many interests (molecular virology, evolutionary biology, microbial genetics) as angle to study ecology and evolution. My advisors—Dr. Lee Hughes, Dr. Harmit Malik, Dr. Kartik Chandran, and currently Dr. Erin Mordecai—have supported, encouraged, and guided my journey to and through grad school. My mother, Dr. Amarilis Castillo, was the first in my family to earn a PhD and completed it my second year of grad school. She showed me that I could pursue any career I set out for myself. Along the way, I have been fortunate to have a community of friends, family, and colleagues I can lean on to help answer questions, bounce ideas off of, and get advice towards a career involving ecology.