#11 Sophie Archambeault

This weeks PhDetails is with my friend Sophie Archambeault, a fellow PhD student at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Unlike some of us, however, Sophie came to work at Uni Bern in a rather round about way, first starting her studies in the USA where she is from, and then moving halfway through her PhD to another institute as her supervisor took a faculty position at Uni Bern. Sophie's PhD is only the second I have ever heard of to move during the project and apart from being stressful, as I'm sure it was, it has led to a nice atmosphere at Bern as the Peichel group have brought slightly different study topics and ideas from the US to Switzerland (as well as a cool fishy model system). Sophie's PhD project is definitely the most advanced we have had yet on PhDetails and I think it shows (not least from her publication record). I hope that rather than scaring other PhD students (yes of course i'm scared/intimidated too) it can act as some inspiration to show that the papers will get written, you can figure out the changes in direction of your project as you go along, and at some point you will collect all of the data from that massive experiment!

"Deep sea trawling in Monterey Bay, CA. 

We pulled up these deep sea slugs, 

Pleurobranchaea californica"

What is your favourite band/musical artist pre 1980?

I really don’t watch movies or listen to much other than podcasts these days…

Where do you study and who is your supervisor?

It’s a bit complicated. I’m officially a PhD student at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. I started my research project at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Institute in Seattle, but then my advisor, Katie Peichel, moved her lab to the University of Bern in Switzerland. So I decided to move with her to Europe 2.5 years into my PhD.

What year of your PhD are you in?

5^th year

Who’s giving you the money – and for how long?

I received one year of funding from an NIH training grant when I was in Seattle. Now I just have to stay in the good graces of my advisor. 

Do you have any publications – if so where?

Yes, I have a publication from a lifetime ago in the journal Blood. That is based on work I did in my second job out of college. I published two papers during my Master’s. One was in Aquaculture Research describing how to rear bluebanded gobies in the lab – we were the first ones to rear bluebanded gobies, these amazing fish that can undergo sex change in both directions, which was really exciting. The other was with my labmate Julia Taylor in EvoDevo on comparative expression patterns of Hox genes in paddlefish, zebrafish and bluebanded gobies. 

Did you do a masters - was it about?

Yes, I’m one of a minority of American students who did a Master’s before starting my PhD program. It doesn’t shave any time off my PhD, but it helped me decide what kind of research I find the most exciting. My Master’s work was in an evo devo lab, and I focused on the molecular evolution and expression patterns of Hox genes and their role in patterning distally elongated features in fish, like fins and the gut.

What is the best fieldwork you have ever done and what made it great?

I really enjoy being on, near or in the ocean. So the best fieldwork I’ve done was collecting bluebanded gobies off of Catalina Island in southern California! You have to catch these guys on scuba, and so collecting them requires several days of boating and diving in beautiful kelp forests full of lobsters, abalone, (small) sharks, moray eels and even giant sea bass. When you have free time, you can snorkel with leopard sharks. The water is cool (20˚ C), but the island is desert-y, so you can warm up easily after your dives. Also on land are wild Catalina foxes and formerly domesticated bison. It’s really just a spectacular place. 

"Scientific diving course research projects in Monterey, CA. We decided to find out if different types of organisms lived on flat rock surfaces vs. vertical rock surfaces."

How many PhDs did you apply for – what were you looking for?

I applied to five programs. I was looking for a lab that does evolutionary genetics, especially in fish. Plus I was looking for a great place to live and work.

What is the most bodged piece of equipment you have had to use during fieldwork – did it work?

This is really a story about how crazy good my labmate, Morgan McCarthy, was at catching fish. The first time I went collecting gobies on scuba, we didn’t have the right anaesthetic to catch the fish. But we tried anyway. All we had were tiny aquarium nets, and I just sat there chasing fish around with the nets, but never catching them. It was so frustrating! But Morgan would stalk those fish with the nets and incredible patience, and she actually caught about ¼ of the fish we needed that way. Later, we got the right anaesthetic and things got a little bit easier.

What one piece of advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?

Definitely pick research that is interesting to you, but also pick a good match for a mentor. You will be reliant on that person for the rest of your career, so try to make sure it is someone who you get along with and who cares about you as a person and your career!

What supervisor traits are important to you?

I think flexibility and investment in you as a person is key. I’ve worked for several supervisors in various capacities, and the outstanding ones asked me what I wanted to do, and then worked with me to get me there. They understood that the goal line is a moving target, and were willing to be flexible in how I would achieve success. They facilitated career moves or introductions to people that have helped me move to the next stage of my career. 

What do you think are the worst supervisor traits?

Building on my answer above, other supervisors have not been as invested in my career success. My first boss out of college was supportive to my face, but she held it against me when I moved on to a research job a year and a half later. Since I left on good terms, I can only assume she cared about her lab and not my career. Additionally, it’s been difficult when supervisors are not flexible. I’m happy to work hard towards a specific goal, but when things inevitably go wrong or change, and my supervisor is unwilling to update his/her expectations, it feels demoralizing to me.

In one sentence what is your PhD about?

I’m attempting to link genotype to phenotype to fitness in one of the most well-known adaptive stickleback traits. It’s really exciting, but also intimidating! 

What has been your academic highlight of the last year?

In the last year I have designed, set up and run a huge lab selection experiment in fish. This thing has been a monstrous experiment, but now I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I am so happy to have most of it behind me… It was so much work, and many lonely hours in the fish room. But it’s almost over! 

"Catching stickleback in California"

Which academic idol/scientist have you met?

David Kingsley, Neil Shubin, Karen Sears, Kimberly Cooper, Billie Swalla, Hopi Hoekstra, and Harmit Malik, to name a few. I’ve been really lucky to meet so many stars in their fields!!

Which academic idol/scientist would you most like to meet?

One thing that I love about both the evo devo and stickleback communities is that they are small and tight knit. Conferences are small, and people are outgoing and open, so I’ve been really fortunate to meet a lot of my academic idols.

Do you have a favourite paper?

I have several. First, there are the wonderful stickleback papers that got me interested in this system by sequencing multiple genomes and mapping different traits, such as armor plate loss, spine loss, color, and schooling behaviour (Jones et al., 2012, Colosimo et al., 2005, Miller et al., 2007, Chan et al., 2010, Greenwood et al., 2013). And more mapping papers, such as the paper that mapped the genetic basis of albinism in cavefish to Oca2 (Protas et al., 2005). Or the work in petunias on multiple traits involved in attracting the right pollinator that shows that most of these traits map to the same region of the genome (Hermann et al., 2013 & Sheehan et al., 2016). 

What has been your favourite conference so far – why?

Too many to narrow it down. Anything stickleback or evo devo specific makes me happy!

What hours do you typically work?

It’s taken me six years to figure out my ideal work schedule, so it’s still not typical for me! But I feel the best when I get up and write from 6:45-7:30, then head to lab from 9:30-5:30. 

"Glacier climbing in Patagonia"

What do you do when you’re not working – how do you balance it with your phd?

To be honest, there are months at a time when lab work has been so demanding that I don’t have any free time. But when it hasn’t been crazy busy, my free time has depended on where I am and who is around. During my Master’s, I spent my free time planning weekend dive or snorkelling trips near San Francisco. During my time in Seattle, I bought a house so I spent my time gardening and fixing up the house. Now that I’m in Switzerland, I spend my free time baking bread, biking and hiking. I’ve found that having things to obsess about other than work is really important for my sanity!

If a genie could grant you one wish to help with your phd what would you wish for?

I would wish for someone else to do the repetitive labwork! I’m happiest when I can design and troubleshoot protocols, or when I can read and think about big(ger) questions and directions. So I would love to have help with the monotonous, grinding-it-out stuff. But I can’t complain, because I actually have had help doing some of it, and that help has made my life so much easier and enjoyable! 

What would be your dream job?

I would love to run a research program, ideally from an institution with a natural history museum/collection. It would be so fun to collect and work with both live and preserved fish from around the world, do outreach with the public (both in a museum setting and in the field), and train students in evolutionary genetics and development. 

"Blueberry collecting near Seattle, WA"

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Living in sunny California with a scruffy-looking dog, hopefully in a house I can (barely) afford. Career-wise, I hope to be finishing a post doc position and be going on the job market. 

One word to sum up your future in academia:

Hopeful

What do you want to achieve outside of academia in the coming year?

I will be moving back to California in the fall, so I want to reconnect with my support network there. Several of my close friends have children now, and I want to spend more time with my friends and their families. I also want to reconnect with my diving community and start diving regularly in the spectacular kelp forests of Northern California. Though, I’ve heard the forests have been decimated by urchins since I left in 2014, so I guess that last one might be a bit disappointing. I’d also like to get more informed about local politics, since the San Francisco Bay Area is such a dynamic and interesting place to live.