#12 Jean Vila

This weeks PhDetails is with Jean Vila, who started his academic career at Oxford University and is now doing his PhD at Yale. I first met Jean during our masters since we lived in the same house and I was immediately struck by his interest and commitment to studying microbial community dynamics (as well as his interest and consumption of wine which may even surpass that of microbial communities). Jean was also the first person who opened up the idea of perhaps moving abroad for a PhD and although it had never really occurred to me his confidence and drive to get a project at a prestigious American university made the thought of me moving abroad less scary. From across the Atlantic here is this weeks PhDetails...

What is your favourite band/musical artist pre 1980? 

Easily David Bowie

Favourite band/musical artist post 1980? 

 Harder, I’d have to go for either Queen (if they count) or Talking Head (they definitely count)

Favourite movie?

The film snob in me want to say, apocalypse now or 2001 a space odyssey, but in reality, it’s probably the lord of the rings trilogy. 

Where do you study and who is/are your supervisor(s)? 

 I’m in the Ecology and Evolution department at Yale University and my advisor is Alvaro Sanchez.
What year of your PhD are you in? 

2^nd year starting my 3^rd

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

So, I have five years of funding guaranteed by the graduate school that comes from my department and includes a combination of fellowship and teaching assistantship.  The can be extended if I manage to bring in external money.

Do you have any publications – if so where.

Not yet, though I recently co-first authored a super cool manuscript that is now on biorxiv and I have a couple of papers in the pipeline that will hopefully be out before the end of the year. 

Did you do a masters - was it about?

I have an MSc in computational methods in ecology and evolution from Imperial College London. For my thesis I developed an individual-based eco-evolutionary model to study microbial invasions.  

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

So, I went all out and applied to 6 PhDs, 3 in the US, 2 in the UK and 1 in Canada.  The main thing I looked at when applying was whether I found the research exciting, got on with the advisor and could imagine myself being happy living and working with the people I met in the department and in the lab group.  I also definitely leaned toward doing a PhD abroad in the US. The 5+ years can seem daunting but having the time to really think about you’re interest and put together your own research projects, as well as the additional experiences you get (like teaching) appealed to me.  Also, whilst I did apply, In the end I decided against going back to universities I’d previously attended (and would recommend the same) as I thought it was important to be exposed to new ideas and intellectual cultures.

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

So, my research is almost exclusively computational or lab based. A few times I’ve had to wander outside and collect soil samples from different locations on campus or in a local park. It was nice to go outside...

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

It’s not that bodged, but when collecting soil, we want to loosen the top soil to get access to some soil below the surface, and without a shovel I’ve found the best way do this is using an ethanol wiped screwdriver. Stabbing manically at the ground with a screwdriver does make me a look a bit ridiculous. (Rishi here: Jean this is definitely a bodge!)

What one piece of advice would you give to a master’s student applying to PhDs now? 

Don’t be afraid to explore as many alternatives as possible. Look at opportunities that will take you to new places, expose you to new ideas and teach you different skills. This can be as simple as joining a lab group that thinks in completely different way about questions you’ve had a long-standing passion for (my case) or even switching fields (remember it may be the one of the last times you get to do this). 

What supervisor traits are important to you?

For me, I think the most important trait is that my advisor is as excited as possible about the science I’m doing and the ideas I have. I’ve seen some PhD students who end up focusing on side-interests of their advisor or smaller projects which include solid science but in which their advisor is not particularly invested.  I’d struggle to work with an advisor who was only half-heartedly interested in my work.

What do you think are the worst supervisor traits?

I think this mostly depends on your own personality. For example, I would not like to have an advisor who I felt was micro-managing my research, but for some people the continuous feedback and direction keeps them motivated.  Similarly, availability is more important for some people than others. Probably the only trait that I’ve occasionally seen and that I think is universally bad, is if the supervisor is exploitative or deliberately undermines their own students. Try to avoid these assholes at all cost. In general, if someone is described as ‘difficult’ think very carefully before choosing to work with them.

In one sentence what is your PhD about?

I study how ecological interactions between microbes; mediated by their collective environment; affects their evolution, and how in turn this evolution can change ecological interactions.

What has been your academic highlight of the last year?

Definitely completing and submitting my first paper.  It has been a super fun and highly collaborative project and I still feel that we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of developing the approach we used.

Which academic idol/scientist have you met?

Robert May

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

Richard Lewontin

Do you have a favourite paper?

It’s impossible only select one. There are papers I like because they are conceptually profound (such as  Lewontin 1983 or May 1976), papers I like because of how elegant I think the experiments and reasoning are (such as Kerr et al 2002 or Blount et al 2008), and papers I like just because they are kind of sassy and it’s more interesting when people actually have something controversial to say (see Locey and Lennon 2016).

What has been your favourite conference so far – why?

In 2017 I went to the Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Population Biology. It’s a small, selective conference based in the middle of nowhere. It was great because the small conference size and location really encouraged people to interact, which helps if you don’t know anyone yet. I even managed to get a collaboration out of it, which ended up being a key part of a paper.

What hours do you typically work?

I’m typically in lab from 10.00-7.00 on weekdays and I usually have to go in the afternoon one day on weekends.  Aside from reading I really avoid working from home, as I’m just unproductive and it’s makes me miserable.

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

So typically, in the evening I’m quite lazy and just end watching TV in the evening.  I love to cook and enjoy wine-tasting so I try to schedule that in to most weeks. Occasionally I’ll also go hiking somewhere or go spend the day in New-York to get out of new haven.

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

A fully trained perfectly competent lab-assistant to delegate all my experiments too, so I can just have fun working at my computer.

What would be your dream job?

I’ll see if things change but as of now and if I can keep doing it I’d love to stay in academia and become a PI. I feel like it’s a job where 2-3 days are awesome; you get to work with great people; be involved in a tonne of exciting projects; and be involved in research that you are passionate about. On the other hand, the other half of the time is pretty shit, filled with pressure for funding, endless grant applications and other admin, as well as teaching (which i don’t hate but I’m a bit ambivalent about). So probably my dream job is to run a small microbial evolution and ecology lab in a top European research institute with plenty of funding and low teaching requirements, maybe somewhere sunny.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Probably doing my first post-doc somewhere in the US or Canada (I think I’d like to explore this side of the Atlantic a bit more before returning to Europe). 

One word to sum up your future in academia:

Ambitious

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

I’d like to get into brewing and breadmaking. Yeast is amazing!