What are your major research interests?
I'm interested in ways in which we can explore the biology of past organisms using chemical techniques. Past organisms exhibited a fantastic spectrum of behavior, metabolism, physiology, even symbiosis — all we have left of them is their fossils, which is a very small subset (in every sense) of what they were. The challenge then, is to see what these fossils can tell us. Traditional paleontology has relied on morphology and statistics to pursue these questions. I'm part of a new generation that is using chemical analyses to pursue them.
Did you always know you wanted to go into science?
No, for most of my upbringing and even through college I had no idea. My dad taught at a community college within the rural county where I grew up, and over the years he taught everything from physics to geology to chemistry to calculus there. When we were kids my brothers and I used to go to his teaching labs and he'd let us play with the experiments and demonstrations — rolling balls, magnets, prisms, that sort of thing. We even used to go and sit at the back of his night classes and half watch, half play during his lectures. For this reason I've always had a very comfortable emotional attachment with science, it somehow has always seemed like a very safe emotional place. But nobody ever pushed me to do anything, just to have fun while doing it. In college, I wasn't a straight-A student or anything, but I took a large range of classes. The only advice I got from my dad was to take half humanities and half science classes each semester, then I would stay balanced intellectually. This was good advice, except late in my junior year the office of advisement cracked down on me and said I had to declare a major. I'd never thought about a major let alone a career. I chose geology because all the chemistry, physics, math and biology classes I'd taken could be used to complete the major, and they let me take all the geology requirements in 3 semesters, and then graduate. Plus I really enjoyed the labs and the personalities of the geology professors. I just found that feeling of home within geosciences and it's never left me. Now, this is what I try to recreate as a professor.
What drew you to Johns Hopkins University?
I have a lot of support here from the Dean's level and higher, which allows me to be much more creative than I could elsewhere. At some schools there is tremendous pressure to get grants, etc., you know, the business side of things. Here I have the support I need to pursue creative ideas and not constantly worry about whether my research is "good business" … plus everywhere I turn there are smart people. The biology department here is full of brilliant, welcoming professors — and the medical school/institutes are just amazing. Bright driven people that are positive, willing to try things and broadly interested in a huge range of subjects. Every year I try to learn methods in a new lab somewhere across campus, and people are so welcoming, I guess I still feel like a kid playing in some grown up's lab, and really happy doing it.
What advice would you give to students of the biogeosciences?
Gosh, I don't know. The same advice I give to all students: "follow your bliss". I've ripped off that quote from Joseph Campbell (a modern American author), but I think it is the only good advice that exists. I think that life is too short to do anything that you don't honestly love to do. And if you "follow it" — I mean pursue it with everything you've got, relentlessly, engage totally with it — it will lead you to good places, to the place you are supposed to be. My favorite people are people I know who've spent their lives doing this.
If you could only research one topic for the rest of you life - what would it be?
I have no idea. I can tell you what I am interested in right now, but I have no idea what I'll be interested in next year, and I couldn't tell you last year what I was going to do now … if I wake up with a new idea I just dig at it like a badger until it leads to something or nothing. Right now I am really into trying to incorporate molecular and genetic techniques into geology — the world of biology overwhelmingly relies on these techniques to pursue their questions, and yet we are just discovering the existence of DNA in the earth sciences. I think there's exciting territory there …
How do you contain what seems to be such a broad field?
I follow my bliss. See above.
How do you have time to eat?
Actually I have a lot of hobbies, and also a baby son. For the hours I do work, I work very very intensely, and I love what I do and thrive on it, and so I never get tired. But I am interested in a huge range of things, including really dorky things like underground comics. I practice drawing comix characters a lot, I horseback ride, I love to go to plays, and of course we travel for work (field trips, etc.) a lot too. I try to stay active in the community, working to end homelessness and trying create access to better public healthcare for the mentally ill — these activities keep me from living too much in the Ivory Tower. I'm really lucky to be a scientist, and I'm grateful for the success I've had. I really hope I can lure others into science, because I feel like it has given me so much happiness. I even do interviews where people ask me what I think — amazing!
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