This week’s PhDetails is with Daniel Maskrey. Daniel did his undergraduate degree in Zoology at the University of Exeter 2012-2015. He stayed at Exeter and went immediately on to do a masters in Behavioural Ecology in 2015-2016. After his masters his interests were mainly focused on pure behaviour and how behavioural data might be used to help design effective conservation strategies in the face of human-induced environmental changes. As his PhD has progressed, his interests have widened to incorporate the more mechanistic side of things. He currently works at the University of Liverpool and uses sea anemones and a multi-disciplinary approach to address whether certain individuals within a species might be better equipped to deal with climate change than others. Daniel is also on twitter @dan_maskrey
What is your favourite band/musical artist pre 1980?
Probably something like New Order or Duran Duran.
Favourite band/musical artist post 1980?
I’ve got very lazy with the music I listen to recently, it’s mainly really boring electric stuff which is perfect background noise to write to. Of bands I’ve enjoyed in the past though I reckon Linkin Park, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song of theirs I didn’t like.
Favourite movies?
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. No, there weren’t too many endings.
Do you listen to podcasts? What are some of your favourites?
I’ve just recently go into the podcast thing while trying to get out of my boring music funk. At the moment it’s big ones like Desert Island discs (from before Kirsty Young took a break of course) or comedy fluff on Spotify.
Where do you study and who are your supervisors?
I’m based at the University of Liverpool working under Jack Thomson and Lynne Sneddon. I’m also co-supervised by Rob Beynon from the molecular labs in Liverpool and Kate Arnold at York.
What year of your PhD are you in?
I’m just coming up to halfway through my second year.
Who’s giving you the money – and for how long?
My money comes from NERC through the ACCE doctoral training partnership. I’ve got another two-ish years of funding, but that might extend by three months as I’m looking at doing a placement abroad later this year.
Do you have any publications – if so where?
Just the one from my masters work so far, but watch this space, I’m hoping to publish my first PhD study soon!
Did you do a masters – where was it and was it about?
I did my masters at the University of Exeter on their Falmouth Campus, looking at the relationship between competition and exploration in rockpool prawns and whether multiple strategies coexist with one-another. See above for more details!
Do you do fieldwork? What is the best fieldwork you have ever done and what made it great?
The fieldwork in my PhD is quite limited, just a couple of trips to a rocky shore in North Wales every month to collect my study species (sea anemones). It’s nice to get out and about though and there are often cool things in the rockpools! My current favourite fieldwork experience was a few years ago when I helped run an amphibian and reptile survey in Bawan Forest in Indonesian Borneo. I’d just finished my undergrad, and it was the first time I’d had a hand in running a project. It was great to have complete control over the expedition and the experience taught me some crucial lessons about how (and how not!) to conduct ecological research.
Measuring frogs in Borneo
How many PhDs did you apply for – what were you looking for?
Oh quite a few, all behavioural to some degree. I made the mistake of applying for a couple while I was still doing my masters. I definitely wasn’t ready to barrel straight into a PhD, and the prospective supervisors knew it! The next year I applied for five, three of which were on the same DTP so I had to pick one before funding interviews. I was interviewed for the remaining three, missed out on funding for one and got offered the other two. I was lucky that the one I was offered in Liverpool was the one I’d been most excited about since the beginning!
What is the most bodged piece of equipment you have had to use during field/labwork – did it work?
I keep anemones in three flow-through systems in my lab. They’re great these days now that they’re fully functional (mostly) but it took me a good four months to fix the variety of leaks that they started with. They’d been built in a different lab and when we moved them into mine all their connecting pipes came loose. It felt like every time I would seal up one leak another would spring up. All told I probably used about six canisters of silicone sealant getting it up and running. It wasn’t a fun time!
What one piece of advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?
My personal experience was that it was very difficult to put in the time and effort required for PhD applications while I was still doing my masters. If you’re more conscientious/ better organised than I was though (not difficult), then I’d mainly just say to not limit yourself too much. If you’re applying for advertised projects be aware that a lot of the meat of the project might not be in the advert and that your interests will inevitably shift and develop through the PhD as you make the project your own.
How often do you meet with your supervisors?
We have scheduled meetings with multiple supervisors 1-2 times a month but I work just down the hall from Jack and his door is always open.
What supervisor traits are important to you?
For me, the understanding that the supervisor-student relationship changes over the course of a PhD has been really crucial. I’ve become a much more independent researcher than when I started (which is part of the point I suppose). Jack (my primary supervisor) has been excellent at recognising that shift while still providing support when I need it.
What do you think are the worst supervisor traits?
I think this one varies a great deal person to person but one that’s probably quite universal is negativity. I’ve worked for negative managers in the past and it’s demoralising whatever workplace you’re in. It can simultaneously make you feel like you’re failing whilst also completely killing your motivation to succeed.
In one sentence what is your PhD about?
How and why different individuals of the same species vary in their responses to climate-shifts.
What has been your academic highlight of the last year?
Definitely getting my masters work published last June. It got a lot of traction in the media which I was super-chuffed about and I even got to give a few interviews!
Have you had an academic lowpoint of the last year – if so what happened?
Probably when I was just starting the study which will hopefully form the basis for my second chapter, which involves controlling temperatures in different tanks. I’d spent months fixing the leaks in my new flow-through systems and they were finally ready. I had animals in the lab at last and had done the first half of my first block of data collection. Then, simultaneously, all of the sockets in the lab controlling my heaters and chillers died and the temperature control in the room stopped working. Needless to say all that data was scrapped…
Which academic idol/scientist have you met?
I don’t have any specific idols really, there are so many inspirational scientists out there. Of the researchers I’ve been lucky enough to meet, Andrew Sih, who basically wrote the book on my field, was at a conference I attended in 2016. The seminar he gave was so busy people were sitting in the stairwells listening! I’m also going to mention a second, non-academic idol because why not! I met Steve Backshall, also in 2016, which was pretty awe-inspiring. He made the natural world so accessible to me growing up and was a major reason for my developing an interest in ecology in the first place. 2016 was a bumper year!
Which academic idol/scientist would you most like to meet?
I’d love to have a conversation with Rosemary Grant. She gave a talk at the same conference as Andrew Sih but I didn’t manage to speak to her. The work she does in the Galapagos is amazing.
Do you have a favourite paper?
There’s one that’s stuck with me: “The evolution of menopause in cetaceans and humans: the role of demography,” https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2010.0988 . Totally unrelated to my PhD of course but I just found it fascinating.
What has been your favourite conference so far – why?
ECBB 2018. It was a slightly smaller conference so felt a little more personable. It was also the first time I actually had data from my PhD to present!
What hours do you typically work?
It varies massively. If I’m not in the lab I’ll aim to do 8-9 hours a day on weekdays. During experiments my schedule is more hectic and often includes weekends.
How do you avoid procrastinating?
I don’t. Twitter is the enemy of productivity…
What motivates you in your day to day PhD life?
The fact that I’m seeing real progress, both in terms of my research and in terms of my own personal development. Long may it continue!
What do you do when you’re not working – how do you balance it with your PhD?
I play racquet sports, read, make semi-regular trips to both the pub and the gym with about equal frequency and have recently started to get into board games (Risk is the current favourite). I also like to travel, whether it be major trips overseas or just short trips to see friends and family around the UK- a change of scenery is nice from time to time!
A very wet selfie at the top of Sigiriya Rock in Sri Lanka
If a genie could grant you one wish to help with your PhD what would you wish for?
A tide cycle that gives me more than 6 suitable days per month to collect anemones would be nice. A field site that’s closer than a 2 hour drive away would also work but I feel like fundamentally altering a major natural process is more befitting of a genie (plus I like North Wales).
What would be your dream job?
I really don’t know. A year ago I might have said a prof, now I’m not so sure.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Honestly no idea again. If I’m still in academia hopefully well into postdoc mode, if not then maybe doing something a bit more applied.
One word to sum up your future in academia:
Undecided
What do you want to achieve outside of academia in the coming year?
I’ve been planning a novel for a while now. Making some headway on that beyond a general outline would be lovely!
What essential tool hardware/software could you not do your PhD without?
My trusty flathead screwdriver for prying anemones off rocks! I should also mention, although he’s not a piece of hardware/software, my friend Guillermo, who has come with me on every trip to North Wales except for one (which was before he’d started his PhD). It’s not overstating it to say my PhD as it stands wouldn’t have been possible without him. I just hope I can return the favour somewhere down the line.
In North Wales collecting anemones
Who has been your academic role model/inspiration and why?
I have huge respect for those senior academics who seem to have the work-life balance thing sorted. If I stay in academia I hope I can emulate them.
Where is somewhere you would like to work in the future?
The Galapagos is pretty much every ecologist’s dream right?
Do you have a favourite organism?
Toothed whales, with orcas taking the number one spot. They’re just so smart, with complex social structures and cultures unique to geographical regions. I can well believe if they’d somehow evolved opposable thumbs we’d have welcomed our new orca overlords some time ago!
Are there any social interactions/meetings which have enhanced your PhD experience?
We had a DTP funded weekend in the peaks last year which was great way to get to know people across different universities. Good beer and questionable conversation flowed!
If you could change one thing about your group/department structure what would it be?
Our ecology researchers are split across two departments in buildings at the opposite ends of campus, which I’ve heard is the legacy of a major falling-out between two professors 10-15 years ago. I’m lucky that I have supervisors in both departments, but there are definitely events and opportunities offered by each department that the other never hears about. I’d bring us back together in one department, ideally under one roof.
What major question in your subject area is yet to be addressed – why is it important and why isn’t anyone addressing it? Until recently we tended to think of personality as a uniquely human trait. Then fifteen years or-so ago we decided that animals, too, might have some form of personality and more recently still we’ve found that even animals with really simple cognitive capabilities show clear differences in their behaviour between individuals. Across this period, tonnes of theories about why personalities exist have been suggested. That’s all well and good, but one of the really interesting questions that needs answering now is actually not “why”, but “how”. In the sense that we don’t really understand the finer-scale molecular mechanisms underpinning behavioural differences. How can we make grand-scale suggestions about why behavioural variation exists without knowing what causes it? Are the processes that drive behavioural differences in primates even remotely similar to those that drive them in sea anemones? We need studies across a range of species to answer these questions, and because personality is such a new field of research, they are only now beginning to be addressed.
Comments
Post a Comment