Hi, I’m Rishi and having decided to start
PhDetails I thought it’s probably a good idea to give you my PhDetails first! I
hope that the blog will become a collection of stories showing the diversity of
people studying biology-related PhDs. Part of my motivation for starting this
is that I’m curious about how different people got into their PhD but also what
currently drives them in their scientific career and what they think about
their future in academia. I also hope to capture the personality of each person
because I think it’s all too easy to become defined by your project in the
academic atmosphere. I remember that especially when applying for PhDs I found
the lack of relatability in some PhD students to be a little scary and
off-putting and want PhDetails to reflect the little details that make each PhD
project and student unique.
Well let’s start by
talking about completely unscientific stuff. Favourite band/musical artist pre
1980?
Fleetwood Mac
Favourite band/musical
artist post 1980?
Ideally I’d have one per genre and even then it
would be a struggle, but I’ll go with Bon Iver
Favourite movie?
There are way too many options, I think for a
long time I would have said Superbad which I still find hilarious but I
recently watched Get Out and for obviously different reasons, I cannot stop
thinking about it (if you’ve not seen it go and watch it right now!).
Where do you study and
who are your supervisors?
I’m doing my PhD in Switzerland and I’m based
at EAWAG and the University of Bern and my supervisors are Philine Feulner and
Ole Seehausen
What year of your phd
are you in?
2nd year
Who’s giving you the
money – and for how long?
The Swiss National Science foundation funds my
project and I currently have 3 years funding.
Do you have any
publications – if so where?
I wrote a short commentary on a review paper
with my supervisor, which was published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology,
and I recently got the project I did as part of my master’s thesis published in
New Phytologist you can check it out here.
Did you do a masters -
was it about?
Yes, I did a Masters of Research (MRes) in
Tropical Forest Ecology at Imperial College London and my project was
investigating the microbiome of Howea palm trees to determine whether the
soil/root microbiome is species-specific, and whether it may have played a role
in speciation.
How many PhDs did you
apply for – what were you looking for?
I applied for 3, I think I was mostly looking
for a study system I could get excited about and the opportunity to work with a
relatively young supervisor who could teach me a lot. I also wanted to be in a
group with a collaborative atmosphere since this, from experience, makes a big
difference when working under pressure – I have learned a lot from other people
at every stage of my studies.
What is the best
fieldwork you have ever done and what made it great?
I was lucky enough to work twice on Lord Howe
Island 600km off the east coast of Australia setting up reciprocal transplant
experiments and collecting microbiome samples for Howea palm trees. It is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular
places I have ever been too and with very few tourists (only <400 at a time
on the 15km2 island) and subtropical weather it has an ideal
fieldwork atmosphere for me. The first time I went to Lord Howe was on my own
and that proved challenging for many reasons but the second time I went with
the post-doc in my group - Owen Osborne, and that made the decision making, fieldwork and
down-time much more enjoyable! The fieldwork varied hugely as well which I
think is also nice. On my first visit a large part of my time was spent
collecting palm seeds with local people who have climbed the palms their whole
lives to collect seeds commerically. On my first
trip I also set up a large reciprocal transplant experiment involving the
planting of over 10,000 palm seeds in different soil types. When I went back I
also spent time collecting soil and root samples to later analyse what fungi
and bacteria are associated with the palm trees. In my down time I was able to
swim and snorkel in the lagoon on the island and to explore the island itself. I also had the incredible opportunity to be shown around by the island’s resident
naturalist Ian Hutton including a hike up Mt. Gower, one of the two peaks on
the island (on the right in the picture below).
Lord Howe Island lagoon - looking south along the island
What is the most
bodged piece of equipment you have had to use during fieldwork – did it work?
Trying to work out how to carry out microbial fieldwork
in the most sterile way brought up a load of issues. We ended up collecting our
soil and root samples using this device our local collaborator on Lord Howe
called a ‘Peter Lever’. It was basically a bit of scaffolding hammered flat
on one end into a sort of narrow, sharp spade. It did the job for sure and I
think it was much easier to disinfect with bleach in-between samples than a
full-size shovel!
What one piece of
advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?
Think hard about the type of supervision that
works for you and try to find out as much about the supervision style of the
people you are applying with to find a good match.
What supervisor traits
are important to you?
I think a mutual understanding of what is
doable on different time frames is really important. My current supervisor does
plenty of bioinformatics herself so understands the rough time frames we are
talking about with various aspects of my project meaning I never feel that
something unreasonable is being asked of me.
What do you think are
the worst supervisor traits?
I would hate to work with someone who I felt I
couldn’t be honest with – for example giving my honest opinions about types of
analyses or how long things will take. I think I would also struggle to work
for someone who didn’t value me to some extent and only cared about the research
output.
In one sentence what
is your PhD about?
I am interested in finding out about the
genomic basis of adaptation and speciation in Swiss alpine whitefish and at the
moment I’m producing some genomic resources for them, a linkage map and a genome.
What has been your
academic highlight of the last year?
Getting my masters research published, for sure.
It made me realise that although the rewards in science are quite spaced out
they are worth the struggle and taught me a lot about how great collaboration
can be – I couldn’t have done it without the continued help of my supervisor
and the post-doc, Owen, working in my group at the time.
Which academic idol
have you met?
Dolph Schluter
Which academic idol
would you most like to meet?
Patrik Nosil
Do you have a
favourite paper?
There are many papers in my current
topic which I really like, but I distinctly remember James Estes’ 2011 Science
paper ‘Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth’ changing the way I thought about
anthropogenic impacts on the environment. I was in my first year of my Imperial
Biology BSc and I think reading that paper as part of my Ecology and Evolution
course has something to do with the fact I’m still doing science. It really
struck a nerve!
What has been your
favourite conference so far – why?
In January of this year (2018) I went to the
PopGroup conference which was held in Bristol. It’s a UK-based conference
primarily about population genetics and was brilliant. It was great for a few
reasons: it’s quite a narrow topic, for me this made the whole experience great
since you’re really in a population genetics bubble for the four days and
therefore take much more in – luckily there was no waiting through loads of uninteresting off-topic talks.
It’s quite small, ~200 people, and over 4 days this was definitely a small
enough group to get to chat to most people you wanted to as well as going for
drinks and dinner with a load of new people. The timing is also ideal since I
go back to the UK for Christmas so I will try to make it my yearly conference.
What hours do you
typically work?
I generally keep office hours ~10 till 4/5 with
a couple more hours work in the evening – maybe reading papers.
What do you do when
you’re not working – how do you balance it with your phd?
I really enjoy cycling and have been so lucky
since moving to Switzerland for such incredible roads – I’m counting down the
days until spring when I can get back out on the bike. I also boulder and want
to sport climb a bit more and try to do this a couple of times a week. I save
the weekends for visiting different cafes in Luzern and reading.
If a genie could grant
you one wish to help with your phd what would you wish for?
It sounds strange but I’d love to be able to
identify whitefish to species level easily. Part of my difficulty in my PhD has
been having a poor eye for species identification with many whitefish species
very difficult to identify from one another. It’s obvious how this can mess up
all sorts of experimental design by including individuals with incorrect
species assignment so yeah, knowing which fish is which species would be great!
What would be your
dream job?
Easy, some kind of naturalist…yeah you’re
right, I absolutely want to be David Attenborough.
Where do you see
yourself in 5 years?
Hopefully in a post-doc position in a really
academically stimulating, collaborative, group.
One word to sum up
your future in academia:
Determined
What do you want to
achieve outside of academia in the coming year?
Firstly, I really want to climb harder by the end of
2018. But more broadly I want to
have more mini adventures like traveling to places in
Switzerland I’ve never been and hiking as much as possible.
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