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Interviews

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Q&A: For Too Long, Big-Picture Ecologists Have Left Disease Out Of Their Models. It’s Time To Fix That.

Thursday, May 20th, 2021
Illustration of a virus with red spikes hovering over planet Earth
Image: Gerd Altmann via Pixabay
by Kristen Goodhue

Diseases don’t spread in a vacuum. But as ecologists try to create a more interconnected picture of planet Earth, parasites, viruses and other disease-spreading pathogens have been sidelined. In a new article published May 17 in Nature Ecology and Evolution, a team of scientists makes the case that today, we have the tech and the global connectivity to change that. In this Q&A, we talked with lead author Dr. James Hassell, a wildlife veterinarian, disease ecologist and Keller Family Skorton Scholar with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Global Health Program, and co-author Dr. Katrina Lohan, a parasite and disease ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Edited for brevity and clarity. Click to continue »

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Fred Tutman: Fighting for Justice and Inclusion on the Patuxent River

Friday, April 24th, 2020

by Kristen Minogue

After nearly three decades in television, Fred Tutman left filmmaking to found the Patuxent Riverkeeper in 2004. For 16 years, the Patuxent Riverkeeper organization has empowered citizens to advocate for their right to a healthy environment. Today he’s also lending his leadership skills as a Director’s Circle volunteer with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centeer, and spoke on environmental justice this April at the Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism digital summit. Learn more about some of the Patuxent Riverkeepers’ greatest environmental wins, and how the green movement can evolve to meet the needs of a diverse future.  Edited for brevity and clarity.

Fred Tutman paddling a red kayak on a river

Fred Tutman (Credit: Audobon Naturalist Society)

What motivated you to be involved in conservation?
I thought that my future was going to be in radio, television, media communications. As an activist, because I’d always been an activist, I thought that was the best portal for me to change my corner of the world. And, you know, I did that for 27 years…But I was bored and didn’t feel like I was making a difference in all of these awful problems in the world we were making films about…

So I decided to go to law school, because I knew nobody who knew me thought I could do that, just because I hadn’t done that sort of thing before….It was a different world, a different life for me. It was really hard to reboot. I literally had to change my friends. Not because people were hostile to the work. They didn’t understand how it fit into my past endeavors. And so people were baffled by it. A midlife crisis, I think someone accused me of that. Click to continue »

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Christine Arena: Determined Optimism and Letting Science Speak

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020

head and shoulders picture of young woman with brown hair, in a black jacket and white blouse

Filmmaker and science communicator Christine Arena (Photo courtesy of Christine Arena)

A communicator with a passion for environmental and social issues, Christina Arena left her mark on the environmental film world with the 2018 series Let Science Speak. The short documentary videos go beyond the “war on science” headlines to humanize scientists and let them tell their own stories. Today, she’s donating her time and talent to help produce videos for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). Her newest short film will premiere this April at the Smithsonian’s digital Earth Optimism Summit April 22-24. In this Q&A, she talks about what gives her purpose and optimism. Click to continue »

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Sarah Donelan: How Parents Prep Offspring for Tough Lives Before Birth

Friday, November 22nd, 2019

by Kristen Minogue

Sarah Donelan in red hoodie on sandy beach

Sarah Donelan in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
(Credit: Patricia Donelan)

Every parent wants to give their children the best shot at life. But sometimes, this means more than protecting newborns after birth. Some species can prepare offspring for tough conditions before they enter the world. It’s called transgenerational plasticity. Sarah Donelan, a Smithsonian Environmental Research Center postdoc, has spent years piecing together how it works. This November she published a new article highlighting how humans could be changing this age-old parental strategy. Discover more in the Q&A here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Click to continue »

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Q&A: Jon Lefcheck, MarineGEO Pioneer

Monday, November 26th, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Two men sitting on couch with mugs.
Jon Lefcheck (right) at Swansea University in Wales with colleague John Griffin. Lefcheck taught a course on mathematical modeling in Wales in 2017. (Photo courtesy of Jon Lefcheck)

Jon Lefcheck has spent most of his life on the East Coast. But as the new coordinating scientist for the Marine Global Earth Observatories (MarineGEO), he’s about to get a crash course in doing marine biology on the other side of the country and the other side of the globe. In this Q&A, learn about some of the weird discoveries and creatures he’s encountered so far, and why the coasts make society tick. Edited for brevity and clarity.

You were the first person in your family to go to college. What motivated you to push yourself in that way?

I always liked school—oddly enough, yeah, I know. I liked science. I pushed my parents to send me to private high school so that I could get more into my studies, and they were hugely supportive the entire way. I think that was their dream, that they would have a kid that would grow up to go on to college. My father said he wanted me to be a doctor when I was born. He meant medical doctor, so I’m not sure how he feels. But, you know, Ph.D.

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Q&A: Sherman’s Lagoon Cartoonist Jim Toomey on Ocean Conservation with Comics

Tuesday, September 12th, 2017

by Kristen Minogue

Artist with cartoon shark and cartoon sea turtle looking over his shoulder

Cartoonist Jim Toomey with two of his characters, Sherman the shark and Fillmore the sea turtle. (Image courtesy of Jim Toomey)

Since 1997, a great white shark named Sherman has put a wacky spin on life underwater in the comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon. Jim Toomey, the comic’s creator and conservationist, uses Sherman and his (usually more intelligent) friends to reveal real issues facing the ocean. In this Q&A, Toomey describes adding humor to environmentalism, and what happens when Sherman’s Lagoon meets Chesapeake Bay. Edited for brevity and clarity.

Want to dive deeper? Watch Jim Toomey’s TED Talk online. You can also meet Toomey at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center October 17 at 7pm, for his free evening lecture, “Drawing Inspiration from the Sea.” Details here.

What first sparked your interest in the sea?

I was a little boy, maybe six, seven, eight years old….Some of the TV shows I used to watch, the Jacques Cousteau specials and things were somewhat unique. And it just fascinated me. It really captured my imagination to see this team of scientists explore this completely alien world. Click to continue »

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Q&A Interview With Artist Tanja Geis

Friday, August 11th, 2017

by Ryan Greene, science writing intern

Two women stand in front of a painting on white wall.

SERC ecologist Chela Zabin (left) with artist Tanja Geis (right) at Geis’ exhibit at the Embark Gallery in San Francisco on July 17, 2017. They are standing in front of Geis’ piece “Layer Cake,” a drawing of an experimental native oyster restoration reef painted using pigment from the mud in San Francisco Bay. Credit: Ryan Greene/SERC

This summer, Oakland-based artist Tanja Geis teamed up with Smithsonian researchers for her multimedia exhibition, Lurid Ecologies: Ways of Seeing the Bay at the Embark Gallery in San Francisco. Born out of a collaboration with scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s Tiburon laboratory, Lurid Ecologies’ explores efforts to restore the Bay’s only native oyster, Ostrea lurida. Geis works at the intersection of visual art and ecology. Her exhibit at the Embark Gallery includes oneiric drawings made with pigment from the Bay’s mud, a 3-channel video installation, and assemblages of tools used to study marine life. This exhibit will be free and open to the public until August 19 at the Embark Gallery in Fort Mason’s Center for Arts & Culture.

To learn more about Geis and her exhibit, check out this interview (edited for clarity and brevity).

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When did you start making art, and why?

My mom is a fashion designer and she went to art school, and so she’s always encouraged me to make art. So, in a sense, I’ve always been making art. But I think maybe the more relevant answer is that I started taking art really seriously about five years ago. It was at that point that I realized that it was pretty much the only thing that was going to check all the boxes for me.

For the past couple months, you’ve been working alongside SERC ecologists in San Francisco Bay. Can you talk a bit about your interest in ecology and how your collaboration with SERC scientists has shaped your recent exhibit?

I’ve always been interested in the nonhuman living world ever since I’ve been a kid. I guess I’m always curious about how these little behavioral differences come together and create a functional ecology. And I’ve always had this parallel interest in biology….I’m very interested in how we conceptualize all these complex interactions that we’re calling ecology….

What surprised me most was how often things don’t go as planned. There are many dead-end experiments, and it really requires this kind of dogged will and tenacity to discover new things, new patterns, new behaviors. I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t get to see. 

We have this idea of scientists in white lab coats with shiny new equipment working under fluorescent lights constantly having these new discoveries. And that’s really not the case. Ecological research is messy, it’s muddy, it’s full of things you can’t control.

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Q&A: Ian Davidson, Aquatic Inquirer

Monday, June 26th, 2017

by Joe Dawson, science writing intern

ICD at Cork Harbor

Ian Davidson in Cork, Ireland (Credit: Ian Davidson)

 Ian Davidson is continuing his work at SERC in a new role: as principal investigator of his own lab. From diving under massive cargo ships to studying an invasive organism ugly enough to be nicknamed ‘rock vomit,’ Ian Davidson looks at how human activities affect marine ecosystems. This includes the methods by which humans transfer marine life around the world (mainly shipping), the effects of coastal development on nearshore environments, and management and policy with regard to marine invasions and organisms.

This is the third of three profiles about the young scientists leading SERC’s newest labs. Edited for clarity and space.

How did you get interested in your area of study?

I grew up in Cobh (pronounced, “Cove”), a small harbor town on the south coast of Ireland, so I had plenty of time in rock pools when I was young. My mother grew up a stone’s throw from the shoreline, right in front of the main shipping channel there, so we were always keeping an eye on the to-and-fro of the port. My dad worked in a shipyard until it closed down too, so I suppose the ingredients were there to pursue a career that heavily featured marine biology and shipping! Click to continue »

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Q&A: Katrina Lohan, Marine Parasite Hunter

Friday, June 23rd, 2017

by Kristen Minogue

Katrina Lohan hiking in a forest

Katrina Lohan in New Zealand’s Abel Tasman National Park. (Credit: Chris Lohan)

Weird truth: There are more parasites on Earth than non-parasites. Katrina Lohan would know, having spent over a decade studying them. After five years with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s Marine Invasions Lab, Lohan is now in charge of launching the center’s new Marine Disease Ecology Lab. In this Q&A, meet some of the weirdest parasites she’s encountered and learn how DNA is helping her unlock their secrets.

This is the second of three profiles about the young scientists heading SERC’s newest labs. Edited for brevity and clarity.

What do you find most fascinating about parasites?

I really like it when stories are complicated. And adding parasites certainly complicates any story. But I’m also intrigued by the David and Goliath aspect of it, that parasites are super small, [often] overlooked, and most people don’t even think about them in terms of what role they play in ecosystems or what they could possibly be doing. Most people would sort of shrug off—oh, they’re probably not really that important.  And yet, they’re extremely important. The more we learn about parasites, the more we realize that they control their hosts. They can actually completely change the behavior of their hosts. Click to continue »

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Q&A: Kim Komatsu, Ecosystem Conservation Ecologist

Friday, June 16th, 2017

by Kristen Minogue

Close-up of Kim La Pierre in prairie

Kim Komatsu in Konza Prairie, Kansas, home to one of the first Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) programs. (Credit: Arjun Potter)

Kim Komatsu does big-picture ecology. The newest senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Komatsu is leading the center’s Ecosystem Conservation Lab. But while working on large-scale global experiments, she also delves into the microscopic world of bacteria. In this Q&A, discover how bacteria give certain plants an edge, and how she blends the very large and the very small.

This is the first of three profiles about the young scientists heading SERC’s newest labs. Edited for brevity and clarity.

You’ve done a great deal of work with legumes—plants in the bean and pea family. Can you talk about their weird relationship with rhizobial bacteria?

The [legume] plants and bacteria are in a mutualism where the plants fix carbon into sugar and give it to the bacteria, and the bacteria are able to take nitrogen from the atmosphere and give it to the plants. This is a source of nitrogen that no other plants have access to. Most plants have to take [nitrogen] up from the soil. Because of this mutualism, legumes can get nitrogen from another source, and that often makes them very successful in different, especially harsh environments….

It’s interesting to think about the different legume species, and how good they are at enforcing cooperation from the bacteria. Thinking about the bacteria as not only potentially being beneficial, but [also possibly] cheating the system—trying to take carbon from the plants and not give back as much nitrogen, especially under high soil nitrogen conditions. Click to continue »

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