This weeks PhDetails is with Mike Boyle, I met Mike whilst on a month long field course in Borneo as part of my masters. Mike was carrying out his PhD fieldwork at the SAFE camp and was able to instil his huge enthusiasm for studying tropical biodiversity in everyone on the course. As I got talking to Mike more I was struck by the number and breadth of ideas he had and how he was able to formulate scientific hypotheses and logically work through what he would need to do to test them. He also seemed to not shy away from the prospect of learning new analysis techniques which I have learned is a very valuable skill if you can do it! Aside from being a great scientist Mike is a lot of fun to be around and as you will see he has a different take on many of the more traditional aspects of academia. From forests to furniture and featuring new questions here is this weeks PhDetails...
Well let’s start of talking completely unscientific stuff. Favourite band/musical artist pre 1980?
Always find these questions very difficult………Townes van Zandt or Aretha Franklin
Favourite band/musical artist post 1980?
I’m going to say two artists that defined two of my main loves (electronic music and hip-hop) so: Squarepusher and Jeru The Damaja
Favourite movie?
Aliens
Do you have a favourite organism – what is it and why?
Stray dogs. I just feel an extreme affinity with stray dogs.
Where do you study and who is/are your supervisor(s)?
Imperial College London and the National University of Singapore, my supervisors are Rob Ewers and Michiel van Breugel.
What year of your PhD are you in?
3rd year (hangs head in hands)
Who’s giving you the money – and for how long?
I won a scholarship from Imperial and Singapore for 3.5 years of funding.
Do you have any publications – if so where?
No first authorships yet, but we published my masters work in Nature Communications and I’m close to submitting my first chapter to Ecology Letters. I'm also a co-author on a Scientific Reports paper by Ross Gray (check out his PhDetails from earlier this year) which came out of his masters project.
Did you do a masters - was it about?
Yep. I also did my masters at Imperial and looked at how human modification of tropical forests affects the rate of predation on invertebrates. I showed that while predation rates stayed the same between primary and logged forest, in primary forest predation was driven by invertebrates (mainly ants) and in the logged forest it was driven by vertebrates (small mammals and birds). This showed us that tropical forests are quite resilient to disturbance, as there is redundancy in the system. It is unlikely that the logged forest can sustain further disturbance though, as vertebrates are much less diverse than invertebrates and so much of the redundancy has already been used up.
What is the best fieldwork you have ever done and what made it great?
I worked in the Virungas for 9 months collecting population data on primates back in 2010/2011. I was the only non-local person on the project and it was such an amazing place to work. It made me hate primate research to be honest haha, and that was probably what led me to move into functional ecology, but just the place and the people were absolutely amazing.
Where is somewhere you would like to work in the future?
Having worked in the tropics all my academic life I’d like to completely switch it up and go to the Arctic.
How many PhDs did you apply for – what were you looking for?
I applied for loads, probably 8 or 9, and interviewed for maybe 5 of those. I’ve always had a really broad interest in conservation/ecology so I applied for ones as diverse as the evolution of song in neotropical wrens, to the role of scavengers in boreal forests, to the genetics of flowering in dipterocarps. I was actually accepted onto all of those projects, but they didn’t fit well with my personal life as I was in a long-term relationship and my partner was also looking for PhDs, so we needed to both get one in proximity to each other. I’ve always just been interested in anything that requires a bit of problem solving and has quite a lot of freedom to design my own projects and experiments, also it’s important for me to live and work somewhere interesting.
What essential tool hardware/software could you not do your PhD without?
Winkler bags, which are used to extract invertebrates from leaf litter.
What is the most bodged piece of equipment you have had to use during fieldwork – did it work?
Oh god….if you could see the ridiculous things I’ve made over the years.....for that masters work I made little fake plants out of sticks and wire and sheets of plastic for leaves. I then tied little bits of thread around live meal worms and taped them onto the leaves to look like caterpillars. They were pretty bodged, but they worked really well. My main piece of PhD equipment (again of my own design) is a crappy plastic fishtank that I’ve strapped a waterbath heater to the edge of. I then put in a bunch of tubes on a homemade rack made of plastic and tool-clips that I have to weigh down with stones from the forest, and watch insects in them as they get slowly heated to death. It’s given me approximately 100 severe electric shocks and has caused 3 fires so far, but it generates data like a boss.
What one piece of advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?
DON’T DO IT!! Haha, no I would say be open minded, also don’t get disheartened if you don’t immediately get one. The projects you end up being offered will be a better fit for you than the ones you don’t get offered, so you will enjoy them more and be better at them anyway.
How often do you meet with your supervisor(s)?
Normally once every couple of weeks.
What supervisor traits are important to you?
I like supervisors who are fairly hands off, who I can approach when I need them to help me but otherwise just leave me to get on with my work. I’m also a big fan of lab group drinks and lunches, so people who promote a good social environment in the lab are good.
What do you think are the worst supervisor traits?
I like working to my own schedule and so people who expect me to be in the office 9-5 are incompatible. I also hate paper discussion groups, so people who do all that kind of stuff I’m not into either.
In one sentence what is your PhD about?
How can insects and the functions they perform deal with the altered microclimates in human-modified tropical forests.
What has been your academic highlight of the last year?
Finishing my last field trip for my PhD
Are there any social interactions/meetings which have enhanced your PhD experience?
Having spent so much time doing field work I haven’t really had the opportunity to experience regular group meetings or seminars. I think though that being in a small field camp with a group of international scientists for a few months really gave me a wide knowledge of topics related to, but outside of, my research. My understanding of the plight of tropical forests has definitely been enhanced by all the other people I’ve lived with in the forest over the last few years.
Who has been your academic role model/inspiration and why?
Louise Ashton. I worked with Louise quite a lot in Borneo and at the Natural History Museum, she’s just a supercool badass scientist but she’s really humble and also incredibly supportive. She got her first faculty position at Hong Kong University this year, so congratulations Louise 12
Which academic idol/scientist have you met?
My lab group mate Adam is my academic idol and I’m lucky enough to meet him all the time.
Which academic idol/scientist would you most like to meet?
Do they have to be alive? I would have to say Alfred Russel Wallace, because we have worked a lot in the same regions and it would be fascinating to talk to him about how it’s all changed.
Do you have a favourite paper?
It used to be the independent but it’s gone down the shitter in the last few years. (Rishi: and this is why you can't trust PhD students...)
What has been your favourite conference so far – why?
I’ve never been to a conference. I think they’re a bit of a useless waste of money and air-miles.
What hours do you typically work?
Usually from about 10am until 4pm and then from 8pm until 1am if I’m busy.
What motivates you in your day to day PhD life?
The never-ending panic of being a failure in the eyes of my friends and family. (Rishi: Too real.)
How do you avoid procrastinating?
I can’t, I’m the worst procrastinator in the world. I remember once I measured all the digestive biscuits on my desk once with callipers to see how much variation their was in their diameter and thickness.
If you could change one thing about your group/department structure what would it be?
More support and understanding for people suffering from stress/depression or other mental health issues that can be exacerbated by the intensity of academia. My lab group is a very supportive place, but the wider faculty and university could seriously update their approach to mental health.
What do you do when you’re not working – how do you balance it with your phd?
I’ve recently been doing a joinery and furniture making course one day a week. Other than that I play a lot of music and sing and also have been collecting houseplants recently. I think it’s important to have hobbies that exist both outside work and outside your social life.
If a genie could grant you one wish to help with your phd what would you wish for?
I’ve got about 100,000 ant samples that need identifying and measuring that I don’t have time to do, so that would be a good help.
What would be your dream job?
Making bespoke furniture
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Hopefully not sweating in a tropical rainforest somewhere, I’d like a nice desk-based project in 5 years’ time I think.
One word to sum up your future in academia:
Bleak
What do you want to achieve outside of academia in the coming year?
Run 5km in 17 minutes
What major issue in your subject area is yet to be addressed – why is it important and why isn’t anyone addressing it?
Good question, I think the ecology of the canopy of rainforests is an important frontier that we are only just beginning to understand. We base most of our statistics on the biodiversity and functional importance of tropical forest based on stuff we can measure from the ground, but it’s likely that that there’s even more diversity in the canopy. Traditionally it’s been difficult to study the canopy because of access, but now technology such as drones are enabling us to collect data from previously impossible places, and fancy scanning techniques are enabling us to map the 3D nature of forests in exquisite detail.
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