This week’s PhDetails is with Melissa Ingala. Melissa is a Ph.D. candidate at the Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History. She did her B.S. and M.S. at Fordham University studying White Nose Syndrome in bats before joining this program. Melissa’s dissertation is focused on understanding the structure and function of the gut microbiome in Neotropical bats, particularly as it relates to their nutrition and immunity from parasites. As a comparative biologist, she samples across the diversity of bats, including sometimes more than 20 species. To characterize the microbiome, host diet, and parasites, Melissa uses a combination of microscopy and metagenomic techniques in the lab. Melissa says she absolutely loves being in the field, and has worked in both Belize and Peru during my PhD. You can also find her on twitter @bat_biomes!
What is your favourite band/musical artist pre 1980?
Definitely Fleetwood Mac.
Favourite band/musical artist post 1980?
These days I listen to a lot of reggaetón—my favorite artists are Bad Bunny and Karol G.
Favourite movie?
The Green Mile
Do you listen to podcasts? What are some of your favourites?
I have a long commute, so I usually to listen to Radiolab and This American Life on the train.
Where do you study and who are your supervisors?
I’m a student at the Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History. My co-advisors are Drs. Susan Perkins (Invert. Zoology) and Nancy Simmons (Mammalogy)
What year of your PhD are you in?
I’m in my 3rd year (out of 4).
Who’s giving you the money – and for how long?
The RGGS funds all its PhD students’ stipends internally; we all have exactly four years, so we have to graduate by the end of that period.
Do you have any publications – if so where?
Yes! I published my first two dissertation chapters last year in Frontiers in Microbiology and mSphere. HERE and HERE
Did you do a masters – where was it and was it about?
I did my M.S. at Fordham University; I was studying how various lipids in the skin of bats impacts the growth of the fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome. We wanted to see if bats with certain skin lipids were more or less susceptible to infection with the fungus.
Do you do fieldwork? What is the best fieldwork you have ever done and what made it great?
Every year, a team of AMNH bat biologists (including me) go to Belize. This year, I also had the awesome opportunity to do fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon. This was my favorite (and most challenging) experience, because I was in charge of getting all the permits and planning all the sampling logistics. It was hard work, but we got to see some amazing bats and other wildlife (like pink river dolphins!).
How many PhDs did you apply for – what were you looking for?
I applied to 5 Ph.D. programs; I was looking for a good fit for what I wanted to do (bats & microbiomes), but I also really wanted to get some field experience, since I hadn’t done any fieldwork at all for my masters.
What is the most bodged piece of equipment you have had to use during field/labwork?
I had to tape a whole wad of bead tubes together on a platform to shake on the vortex (because we didn’t have the appropriate adaptor). It worked fine, but it looked and sounded VERY janky!
What one piece of advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?
Get in touch with current PhD students of the PI you are considering working for and ask them to talk to you on the phone. I found out some potential advisors who looked great on paper were not a good fit for me by talking to their current grad students about what it’s like working for them.
How often do you meet with your supervisors?
I meet with one of my supervisors every Friday, and the other only as needed. I find this is a good balance, where I get frequent enough facetime but don’t ever feel micromanaged.
What supervisor traits are important to you?
It’s so important for supervisors to be flexible and supportive. We’re here because we want to finish, but sometimes life gets in the way. It’s nice to have someone who understands, or at the very least doesn’t make it harder on you.
What do you think are the worst supervisor traits?
I dislike supervisors who micromanage, but the hands-down worst trait is punching down. We have enough forces working against us in the academic system. We don’t need to be ridiculed by the people who are meant to be on our side!
In one sentence what is your PhD about?
I’m studying the relationships between the gut microbiome and dietary diversity, parasitism, and immunity in Neotropical bats.
What has been your academic highlight of the last year?
After receiving no grants the previous year, last year I was awarded all 5 of the grants I applied for! It helped me fund the Peru expedition and really relieved my stress about funding my lab work.
Have you had an academic lowpoint of the last year – if so what happened?
Last year, I had some family problems that required me to miss more time in the lab that I would have liked. The tug-of-war between my family and work obligations was really stressful, but with support from friends and a therapist, I made it through that rough patch.
Which academic idol/scientist have you met?
While I would not call him my “idol”, it was interesting to meet Neil DeGrasse Tyson at one of the museum’s staff holiday parties.
Which academic idol/scientist would you most like to meet?
I’d love to meet Dr. Jane Goodall. I used to watch her on TV all the time!
Do you have a favourite paper?
What has been your favourite conference so far – why?
My home conference is NASBR; I find the bat research community to be really student-friendly and generally very open and collaborative. I never leave that conference without making new friends or collaborators!
What hours do you typically work?
It varies a lot, but I usually work from 8:30-6:00 on weekdays. I work a little bit from home on weekends, but rarely ever come to the museum. Of course, if I have a deadline coming up, I sometimes work more, but I believe in a healthy work/life balance.
How do you avoid procrastinating?
I keep a daily planner on my desk with specific “to-do” items for each day. The planner also has weekly and monthly objectives, which helps me to make sure I am on track in the big picture as well. I find that having a box to check makes me more likely to actually complete the task.
What motivates you in your day to day PhD life?
I truly love working in the museum and studying bats, and it helps that every day is slightly different so I’m never really bored.
What do you do when you’re not working – how do you balance it with your PhD?
I really enjoy cooking, which is great because it saves me from wasting a lot of money on eating out. I try to leave at a reasonable hour every day so I can cook meals at home, which makes me happy because it’s something I enjoy.
If a genie could grant you one wish to help with your PhD what would you wish for?
I wish I could be 10x more literate in statistics! I know there are limitations to the methods I use in my work, but man do I wish I had the math background to be able to create new methods.
What would be your dream job?
I’d love to work for an NGO like Bat Conservation International, but definitely could see myself working for a government agency or small teaching college as well.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Hopefully with a permanent job! By then, I guess I would be done with a post doc, but I’m not sure I’d stay in academia.
One word to sum up your future in academia:
Uncertain
What do you want to achieve outside of academia in the coming year?
I have some fitness goals that I am working towards, including gaining 10 lbs of muscle. It’s hard to find time to get to the gym, but I think I can hit this goal!
What essential tools could you not do your PhD without?
QIIME2 and R, for sure.
Who has been your academic role model/inspiration and why?
My two advisors have been amazing role models for how to be effective mentors and scientists. They inspire me every day and I really hope I am making them proud.
Where is somewhere you would like to work in the future?
I’d love to have a chance to collaborate with people working on bats in SE Asia or Africa. The kinds of questions I’m looking at with Neotropical bats would be so interesting to test there, because those groups of bats diverged from the ones I study so long ago yet share a lot of ecological traits.
Do you have a favourite organism?
It’s really hard for me to choose just one! Apart from bats, I’ve been really interested in geckos lately. Mostly because they have similarly wide distributions and nearly as much ecological diversity as bats.
Are there any social interactions/meetings which have enhanced your PhD experience?
The museum has a Women in Natural Sciences (WINS) group that goes a ton of programming around the museum. It’s a great forum to discuss ways to improve the equity and inclusivity of the museum and meet people from lots of diverse departments. Being able to effect change through this group as the graduate student representative has been an amazing and formative experience.
If you could change one thing about your group/department structure what would it be?
I wish there were a little more integration between PhD students and post docs across the museum; the students get a lot of programming that allows us to form community, but I often feel the post docs get left out. I’m sure that can be really isolating.
What major question in your subject area is yet to be addressed – why is it important and why isn’t anyone addressing it?
I think we really still lack a good idea of just how important gut microbes are in driving changes in their hosts on ecological and evolutionary timescales. Some people think the microbiome controls everything, and others believe its importance in animal evolution/ecology has been vastly overstated. The answer is nuanced and probably somewhere in between, but it’s really hard to get at. Most community ecology models and theories were built for macroecological communities operating on human time scales, but microbes break all the rules, and their communities can turn over really rapidly. But I have hope we will get some better answers because there are tons of scientists working on better models to figure these things out.
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