It's another milestone for the PhDetails blog with PhDetails #90 and this week it’s been an absolute pleasure to interview my friend Joel Woon - for that reason its a bit of a long one but make up voices for each of us and treat it like the transcript of a podcast and hopefully you’ll still enjoy it! Joel did the same BSc and MRes as me, both at Imperial College London in the UK and it was during our masters degrees that we got to know each other. Joel’s excitement for the subject of Tropical Ecology was obvious from day one of the course and was pretty infectious, especially during the fieldwork elements of the MRes in Borneo. One of the reasons I wanted to interview Joel is not only because of his enthusiasm for his subject, but for the fact that he didn’t settle for any old PhD project. Joel worked hard towards making his dream PhD a reality and as a result his interest for his field has continued to grow. You can find Joel on Twitter @JoelWoon!
RDK: So I normally start these things with a few questions so people can get a feeling for who you are outside of academia - who is your favourite band/musical artist pre 1980?
JW: Ah I’m not sure, probably David Bowie, but The Rolling Stones and The Talking Heads are very close behind.
RDK: What about your favourite band/musical artist post 1980?
JW: Being from Sheffield, my teenage years were dominated by the Arctic Monkeys, I must have listened to their first album thousands of times, but my favourite band are probably Foals. Maybe The Smiths, but Morrisey’s recent racism and xenophobia has tainted their music a fair bit.
RDK: I would have guessed the Arctic Monkeys so I'm glad I’m not totally off! Do you have a favourite movie?
JW: Lord of the Rings (extended editions), back to back - and before you ask which one is my favourite, I consider them all one cinematic experience (but it’s The Fellowship of the Ring). Hot Fuzz is close, I watched it three times during my last field season.
RDK: Lastly, do you listen to podcasts and have any recommendations for me - that’s mostly why I ask this one?
JW: Erm, it depends what you want. For investigative journalism, The Dropout and Dr. Death are very well made, and with compelling stories that are pretty shocking. For Comedy I listen to Off Menu and The Adam Buxton Podcast. For Science stuff Ologies is really good, oh, and I really like Hardcore History by Dan Carlin - although you have to set aside a good chunk of time if you’re listening to that.
RDK: I love the Adam Buxton podcast and will have to check those others out. Now we can really get into it, where do you do your PhD, who is your supervisor and what year are you in?
JW: My PhD is split between The University of Liverpool, where two of my supervisors - Kate Parr and David Atkinson work, and The Natural History Museum in London, where my other supervisor, Paul Eggleton works. I’m about one and a half years in so far.
RDK: I’m pretty sure I remember you telling me about your idea for this PhD long before you started it, could you maybe go into some details about how you ended up doing this PhD?
JW: So as you know, I worked on some similar stuff during my Masters project (looking at the physiological tolerances of termites in Borneo), which I really enjoyed studying, so towards the end of that project I approached Paul (Eggleton) asking about the possibility to continue the research as a PhD project. So over the course of a couple of meetings, Paul, Mike Boyle (one of my Masters project supervisors) and I designed the general questions that would be a natural following point from my Masters work. So from there Paul suggested different DTPs and institutions that we could take the project to, to get funding, and after a few trips around the block, Liverpool funded it!
RDK: And so who specifically is giving you the money – and for how long?
JW: The ACCE (Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment) DTP is providing my funding, and I get a stipend for three and a half years, with a couple of options to extend the funding. One three month extension is based upon a “high-impact” paper, which I can apply for in my final year of funding, and I have an option to participate in a placement scheme, which would extend my funding for however long the placement would be (up to three months).
RDK: Normally I ask people whether they did a masters but of course I know you did because we studied together on the Tropical Forest Ecology MRes at Imperial. Maybe you could tell me the best and worst bits about our masters for you - feel free to talk about Silwood too?
JW: It was an interesting course! As I’m sure you’ll agree, it had its ups and downs and I think we suffered a bit from being the first year to do the course, there were some teething issues mainly to do with admin and fees, which I hope have been sorted. But my overall experience of the Masters course was overwhelmingly positive, I met some great friends and did some enjoyable research, in an amazing place, and got a very good degree out of it! My favourite bit was the research project in general, it was my first proper experience of an experimental project that I could dedicate multiple months towards, and I got to do that in pristine Bornean rainforest, surrounded by friends. The worst would be the issues surrounding project fees. We didn’t really know how much money was being contributed towards our project from our course fee, which caused a fair amount of anxiety about research costs. I was so worried about not being able to afford the cost of my research that I didn’t hire a research assistant, which meant I went into the forest on my own most days (and I know others did this too) - something which is extremely dangerous and should not be done. Thankfully, I don’t have those issues now.
Silwood is an interesting place - I wasn’t really aware when I went what a small campus atmosphere would be like, it was great because everyone was living so close, and we were always organising events, board game nights, trips to the pub. But it was also extremely isolating at times, particularly around exam season, where social interaction dropped significantly. It also requires you to do the legwork - there is much less put on for the students, so you do need to be proactive around organising things yourself. But one of the best things about it was that you’re in lovely surroundings - Silwood itself is idyllic and not far from multiple parks and wilderness areas. I’m happy I went, and it was overall a positive experience, but I’m very happy I’m now in Liverpool.
RDK: Putting some of the sketchier stuff aside it sounded like you did some pretty amazing fieldwork for your project - do you think that was the best fieldwork you have ever done? What made it great?
JW: Yeah, one of the best things about working in tropical ecology is that you get to visit and work in some of the most amazing environments in the world. Being able to conduct my Masters work in one of the last pristine rainforests in South East Asia was pretty special, I’ve never experienced a more “full” environment - just a cacophony of noise and colour and life. I think those interactions with nature, wherever you do fieldwork, are really important and make conducting the actual work (which is usually pretty intense) a lot more bearable. Also, experiencing those things with other people makes them considerably better, which is what made my time in Borneo so amazing.
RDK: Have you ever had to bodge field equipment – did it work?
JW: I recently painted a termite mound black to see if it would increase the temperature inside the mound. It was quite hard to explain to my field assistants what on earth we were doing, but we all found it enjoyable in the end. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to make any difference. Thankfully it was just a pilot, and not a major experiment that collapsed at the first hurdle. So my next pilot is going to be covering them with some insulating material. It’s also a good cautionary tale on why you should test your ideas before you commit lots of time and effort to them...
I’ve also used combinations of egg boxes, cotton wool, and silica gel to try to desiccate small enclosures for termites, which did work! I was pretty proud of that, because I designed my own experiment, cobbled it together from stuff I found in the field lab, and it went on to get published.
RDK: I guess you thought a lot about your project before starting it and know quite a lot of people doing PhDs, what advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?
JW: Yeah, a fair amount of thought went into the initial project outline, and then it had to be tailored to each DTP or institution. I think my main advice would be make sure you’re applying for projects that you think you’ll enjoy, don’t apply for a PhD for the sake of doing a PhD. It is a long process with ups and downs, but every step of that process is easier if you enjoy the research you’re conducting. And if you have a supervisor that is willing to help you out and plan a project with you, it is extremely fulfilling, and takes a lot of the anxiety out of the equation!
My other piece of advice would be don’t give up. It’s pretty cliched, but I think it’s worth repeating throughout all levels of academia. We took this project to five institutions before it got funded, and I was close to packing it in. I’m very happy I didn’t, because I’m now doing my ideal project, but the academic world is extremely competitive, so you have to keep plugging if it’s something that you really want to do.
RDK: What do you think about supervision, what do you think your perfect supervisor would be like?
JW: I’ve been very lucky with my Supervisors, all three have contributed different things which have massively enhanced my project, and me as a scientist. I think I’m a pretty independent worker, so I like that I’m free to work at my own pace, and do my own stuff without too much micromanagement, but they’re also very experienced and helpful when I do reach out for help. So I probably have close to my perfect supervisory team right now!
“Being a good fit with your supervisor” is something that I hear quite a lot when people give advice to prospective PhD students, and I think while it is good advice, it’s actually quite hard to enact. It’s rare that people get offered multiple PhD placements, so while in an ideal world you could find a supervisory team that is a great fit, a lot of the time you might just have to get lucky, like I did. But I would say there are opportunities to get information about potential supervisors outside of just talking to them. Contacting their current students is the easiest way, and I think the vast majority of PhD students will be honest with their feedback, especially if you ask specific questions. I would highly advise doing that, even if you’re only applying for one project, because it can provide a lot of context and information before you begin your project.
RDK: Can you sum up your PhD in one sentence?
JW: How are termites going to be affected by climate change, and will their mounds protect them?
RDK: What have been your academic high and lowpoints of the last year?
JW: I think both of these revolve around fieldwork - my lowpoint was certainly at the backend of my first field season. I was staying in a village in Southern Ghana, which had no signal and was ~1 hour from the closest town, and I was the only researcher there. Initially it was exciting, and the community was extremely kind and welcoming, but being cut off from my friends and family was a big struggle, and it felt extremely isolating. In hindsight, I planned a field season that was a couple of weeks too long, which I’m certainly going to take into account when I plan my next trips to Ghana.
My highpoint was my next field season. I worked in Mole National Park, which is a protected Savanna area, which was my first proper taste of a savanna environment. I got to spend 7 weeks surrounded by elephants, antelope, termites, and amazing birds (it even ignited the amateur twitcher in me!).
RDK: How do you find maintaining work-life balancing during your PhD?
JW: I think I’m quite good at maintaining a healthy work-life balance, but there’s certainly been personal issues that have bled into my worklife. In those cases I’ve found it best to just take some time off, step away from work for a bit and do things that I enjoy, with people I enjoy being around.
Having outlets for stress, like exercise or hobbies, is very important, having things outside of work to look forward to certainly makes me work better. I’m also very lucky in that I work in an office with 10 other PhD students (all of whom are lovely), so there’s plenty going on socially, which makes it a bit easier to balance your workload. It’s especially hard when you move to a new place to make friends and build a social network, but luckily academia (usually) has a bit of a structure in place, so I would advise people to take full advantage of that.
RDK: Who have been your biggest inspirations/idols in life or your career?
JW: Oof I’m not really sure. As a very basic answer, Sir David Attenborough is probably the person that inspired me to study the natural world. I’m not big into idols to be honest, so he’s probably the main one.
RDK: Would you say you have an academic role model?
JW: Yeah, a supervisor from my Masters project - Mike Boyle. Mike was a PhD student at the time, so he had a lot going on, but he always made time for me. As well as being extremely helpful scientifically, he showed me that the world of academia wasn’t just papers, targets and deadlines, and that there is a lot of opportunity to enjoy yourself - something that I think gets forgotten in academia.
RDK: Do you have a favourite paper?
JW: Not really, there’s nothing that jumps out as “my favourite” anyway. A couple of the people in my lab worked on a paper called “Termites mitigate the effects of drought in tropical rainforest” which is a cool large-scale study, with interesting results, and it’s a really well written paper.
RDK: Can you describe a typical Woon work day?
JW: I’m pretty relaxed about the times I work, I don’t stick to strict hours or anything. Rather than planning my work hours, I set myself goals and work accordingly, if I feel like I’m behind I’ll work longer hours, if I’m ahead I afford myself more flexibility. But I usually get in between 9-10, and work until 5.30ish. Sometimes it’s earlier, sometimes it’s later, and if I hit a wall, I usually don’t hang around, I’ll just head home and get back to it tomorrow. I also try not to work at the weekend outside of field seasons, I just work better if I get those breaks. I’m guessing this might change the closer to my submission deadline I get though.
As for preventing procrastination, I just try to take regular breaks away from my desk and set mini-goals to work towards in the day, although honestly I am a bit of a procrastinator... And I’m yet to be disillusioned by my research! So motivation isn’t a problem. But I think partitioning large goals into smaller, more achievable sections and ensuring work doesn’t envelope the rest of my life has worked in the past. When you leave the office try to switch off.
RDK: Even though I'm not always good at doing it I think having passions/hobbies outside of work is really important - what do you do when you’re not working and how do you balance it with your PhD?
JW: Yeah, they are really important, anything to take your mind off work when you aren’t focussed on it really helps productivity, or it does for me. I have a whole host of hobbies, but most involve some sort of gaming, often with friends. My main hobby is a card game called Magic: the Gathering (MtG), which is a game based in fantasy and revolves around harnessing resources to summon creatures and cast spells. It sounds pretty childish (and in some aspects it is) but it’s also extremely complicated (apparently it holds the world record for having the most rules of any game) and requires a really interesting skill set of prediction, problem solving, strategy and intuition. For anyone that likes strategy based games I’d very much recommend it.
I think it’s also very important to have something to do when you’re in the field, but aren’t working. Some field sites can cut you off from your main hobbies, it’s quite hard to play MtG in the middle of a rainforest, so I make sure I take other things with me to fill those gaps. The main things I do in the field are reading (I notched up 14 books in my first field season) and photography. I like taking advantage of being in beautiful places with amazing creatures, so I spend evenings out searching for stuff to photograph.
RDK: Is there anything you want to achieve outside of academia in the coming year?
JW: One aspect of my life that has really slipped since starting a PhD is my physical fitness, so I’m trying to get back to being healthier and exercise more. In the past I’ve used work-intensive field seasons as a bit of a platform to get healthier, but this time out I’m driven everywhere (it turns out that if there’s elephants around, going for long walks isn’t recommended).
RDK: If a genie could grant you one wish to help with your PhD what would you wish for?
JW: More money. I think it’s a common complaint, and while I think that project planning and money management are vital skills to learn, but it does limit the experimentation I would like to do, and will limit things like conference attendance.
RDK: Do you have an idea of where you see yourself in 5 years? What would be your dream job to be doing in 5 years?
JW: At the moment I’d like to stay in academia, I really enjoy pursuing long research projects, and hopefully it will still be studying termites! I’d also really like to live and work abroad, there are a lot of world class institutions that have excellent labs working on termites, so I’d love to join one of them for a postdoc. I don’t think I’ve explored academia enough to know what my perfect job would be, but something that isn’t fixed-term would be nice (probably asking far too much though). Outside of academia I’d like to open the batting for England, not sure that’s going to happen though…
RDK: One word to sum up your future in academia
JW: Hopeful.
RDK: Are there any essential tools hardware/software you could not do your PhD without?
JW: A lot of my work revolves around one piece of equipment called a TropiCooler. It is essentially a dry-block heat bath, which was developed to keep volatile chemical or genetic samples at constant temperatures, but it doubles up as a very effective climate control device for things that can fit in eppendorfs, like termites! Other than that, I need a camera with a fisheye lens (partly for my work, partly to take accidental and comical photos on) and a handheld weather station. Thankfully, none of this is wildly expensive - which is something that I do think is important. Where it’s feasible, research should be as accessible as possible, it makes it easier for anyone to replicate and build upon the amazing work we’re all doing. If you use custom-made or extremely expensive equipment, it prices out a lot of people and could stifle the promise of your work. It’s not always possible, certain fields are just expensive to work in (like the stuff you’re doing, the DNA work costs a lot of money), but they’re getting faster, cheaper and more efficient!
RDK: And now the big question - do you have a favourite organism – what is it and why – is it different from your study organism?
JW: Well I have a few different termite groups that I often describe as “my favourite”, mostly because of how cool some of their defensive strategies are. Globitermes ooze a sticky, yellow liquid out of a hole in the middle of their head, causing them to stick to other termites and their attackers (usually pesky ants), which makes an impenetrable mass of insects and blocks up the holes in their nest, protecting the rest of the colony. And a lot of termite species have soldiers with a nasus, which is essentially a spike on their head which fires acid out like a water gun. One of the coolest of these is Rhynchotermes, which have a giant nasus and very large hooked mandibles (you can go here to Gil Wizen’s blog to see some amazing photos of them). Most soldiers with a nasus (e.g Nasutitermes, Hospitalitermes, Trinervitermes) have extremely small mandibles, because the nasus is so effective at defending them from ant attacks, so they don’t need to waste energy developing mandibles, which means they have to be fed by the workers. But Rhynchotermes evolved independently from other nasus wielding species, and it has gone the other way to have these enormous mandibles.
Outside of termites, I love most invertebrates (leaf-cutter ants, walking leaf insects, and horseshoe crabs to name a few) but growing up my favourite animal was elephants. I was, and still am, fascinated by their social structure, intelligence, impact on their environment, but they’re also just incredibly beautiful and impressive. It’s amazing to be able to work somewhere that I get to see them on a regular basis, which has just increased my love for them.
RDK: How do you find your university department? Do you have any group meetings or interactions between PhD students or PhDs and postdocs that you think have been valuable for your PhD experience?
JW: Yeah, I work in an office with 10 other PhD students, from three or four different labs. It’s really nice socially, as they’re all lovely and with a wide range of people there’s a lot of different stuff going on that you can join in with, but it’s also really nice professionally, as I’m in contact with people doing a wide range of research on a daily basis - which has certainly helped me improve as a scientist more than I would if I was only interacting with people working on termites. And the group of postdocs here are also extremely nice, everyone hangs out at lunch and after work, and they’re all very willing to help if we go to them. All in all it’s a really nice and welcoming atmosphere, which has greatly improved my experience of doing a PhD.
RDK: Is there anything you’d change about the university/department structure?
JW: Well our structure is very confusing, so I guess I’d simplify it. Essentially there are multiple Biology-focused departments within the University of Liverpool, and then there are different schools within them. It took me a while to properly understand where our lab fit in the grand scheme of the university, but I think I’ve got it now… But most of the work and structure for my PhD is dictated by my DTP, which is pretty simple.
RDK: Finally, is there a ‘big’ question in your field that you think still isn't being addressed? What is it and why aren't people studying it?
JW: I don’t know if there’s a glaring hole in our knowledge that needs to be filled, but I have a bit of a pet peeve that a lot of climate studies looking at how invertebrates will be affected, most studies look at the changing air temperature. But air temperature isn’t a particularly relevant measure for more inverts, as they’re so small they usually exist in the boundary layer, which is a lot hotter - so something like surface temperature is a much better measure. Unfortunately it’s harder to record.
But at a more general level, we still aren’t really sure the full roles and cascading effects that things like termites have on the ecosystems in which they live. So I think some of the exclusionary experiments that are being done are really interesting and important, to get a proper handle on how much the small things do in complex ecosystems like rainforests, and I think it’ll show that they really do run the world.
RDK: So I normally start these things with a few questions so people can get a feeling for who you are outside of academia - who is your favourite band/musical artist pre 1980?JW: Ah I’m not sure, probably David Bowie, but The Rolling Stones and The Talking Heads are very close behind.
RDK: What about your favourite band/musical artist post 1980?
JW: Being from Sheffield, my teenage years were dominated by the Arctic Monkeys, I must have listened to their first album thousands of times, but my favourite band are probably Foals. Maybe The Smiths, but Morrisey’s recent racism and xenophobia has tainted their music a fair bit.
RDK: I would have guessed the Arctic Monkeys so I'm glad I’m not totally off! Do you have a favourite movie?
JW: Lord of the Rings (extended editions), back to back - and before you ask which one is my favourite, I consider them all one cinematic experience (but it’s The Fellowship of the Ring). Hot Fuzz is close, I watched it three times during my last field season.
RDK: Lastly, do you listen to podcasts and have any recommendations for me - that’s mostly why I ask this one?
JW: Erm, it depends what you want. For investigative journalism, The Dropout and Dr. Death are very well made, and with compelling stories that are pretty shocking. For Comedy I listen to Off Menu and The Adam Buxton Podcast. For Science stuff Ologies is really good, oh, and I really like Hardcore History by Dan Carlin - although you have to set aside a good chunk of time if you’re listening to that.
RDK: I love the Adam Buxton podcast and will have to check those others out. Now we can really get into it, where do you do your PhD, who is your supervisor and what year are you in?
JW: My PhD is split between The University of Liverpool, where two of my supervisors - Kate Parr and David Atkinson work, and The Natural History Museum in London, where my other supervisor, Paul Eggleton works. I’m about one and a half years in so far.
RDK: I’m pretty sure I remember you telling me about your idea for this PhD long before you started it, could you maybe go into some details about how you ended up doing this PhD?
JW: So as you know, I worked on some similar stuff during my Masters project (looking at the physiological tolerances of termites in Borneo), which I really enjoyed studying, so towards the end of that project I approached Paul (Eggleton) asking about the possibility to continue the research as a PhD project. So over the course of a couple of meetings, Paul, Mike Boyle (one of my Masters project supervisors) and I designed the general questions that would be a natural following point from my Masters work. So from there Paul suggested different DTPs and institutions that we could take the project to, to get funding, and after a few trips around the block, Liverpool funded it!
RDK: And so who specifically is giving you the money – and for how long?
JW: The ACCE (Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment) DTP is providing my funding, and I get a stipend for three and a half years, with a couple of options to extend the funding. One three month extension is based upon a “high-impact” paper, which I can apply for in my final year of funding, and I have an option to participate in a placement scheme, which would extend my funding for however long the placement would be (up to three months).
RDK: Normally I ask people whether they did a masters but of course I know you did because we studied together on the Tropical Forest Ecology MRes at Imperial. Maybe you could tell me the best and worst bits about our masters for you - feel free to talk about Silwood too?
JW: It was an interesting course! As I’m sure you’ll agree, it had its ups and downs and I think we suffered a bit from being the first year to do the course, there were some teething issues mainly to do with admin and fees, which I hope have been sorted. But my overall experience of the Masters course was overwhelmingly positive, I met some great friends and did some enjoyable research, in an amazing place, and got a very good degree out of it! My favourite bit was the research project in general, it was my first proper experience of an experimental project that I could dedicate multiple months towards, and I got to do that in pristine Bornean rainforest, surrounded by friends. The worst would be the issues surrounding project fees. We didn’t really know how much money was being contributed towards our project from our course fee, which caused a fair amount of anxiety about research costs. I was so worried about not being able to afford the cost of my research that I didn’t hire a research assistant, which meant I went into the forest on my own most days (and I know others did this too) - something which is extremely dangerous and should not be done. Thankfully, I don’t have those issues now.
Silwood is an interesting place - I wasn’t really aware when I went what a small campus atmosphere would be like, it was great because everyone was living so close, and we were always organising events, board game nights, trips to the pub. But it was also extremely isolating at times, particularly around exam season, where social interaction dropped significantly. It also requires you to do the legwork - there is much less put on for the students, so you do need to be proactive around organising things yourself. But one of the best things about it was that you’re in lovely surroundings - Silwood itself is idyllic and not far from multiple parks and wilderness areas. I’m happy I went, and it was overall a positive experience, but I’m very happy I’m now in Liverpool.
RDK: Putting some of the sketchier stuff aside it sounded like you did some pretty amazing fieldwork for your project - do you think that was the best fieldwork you have ever done? What made it great?
JW: Yeah, one of the best things about working in tropical ecology is that you get to visit and work in some of the most amazing environments in the world. Being able to conduct my Masters work in one of the last pristine rainforests in South East Asia was pretty special, I’ve never experienced a more “full” environment - just a cacophony of noise and colour and life. I think those interactions with nature, wherever you do fieldwork, are really important and make conducting the actual work (which is usually pretty intense) a lot more bearable. Also, experiencing those things with other people makes them considerably better, which is what made my time in Borneo so amazing.
Photo credit: Matthew Jarvis
JW: I recently painted a termite mound black to see if it would increase the temperature inside the mound. It was quite hard to explain to my field assistants what on earth we were doing, but we all found it enjoyable in the end. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to make any difference. Thankfully it was just a pilot, and not a major experiment that collapsed at the first hurdle. So my next pilot is going to be covering them with some insulating material. It’s also a good cautionary tale on why you should test your ideas before you commit lots of time and effort to them...
I’ve also used combinations of egg boxes, cotton wool, and silica gel to try to desiccate small enclosures for termites, which did work! I was pretty proud of that, because I designed my own experiment, cobbled it together from stuff I found in the field lab, and it went on to get published.
RDK: I guess you thought a lot about your project before starting it and know quite a lot of people doing PhDs, what advice would you give to a masters student applying to PhDs now?
JW: Yeah, a fair amount of thought went into the initial project outline, and then it had to be tailored to each DTP or institution. I think my main advice would be make sure you’re applying for projects that you think you’ll enjoy, don’t apply for a PhD for the sake of doing a PhD. It is a long process with ups and downs, but every step of that process is easier if you enjoy the research you’re conducting. And if you have a supervisor that is willing to help you out and plan a project with you, it is extremely fulfilling, and takes a lot of the anxiety out of the equation!
My other piece of advice would be don’t give up. It’s pretty cliched, but I think it’s worth repeating throughout all levels of academia. We took this project to five institutions before it got funded, and I was close to packing it in. I’m very happy I didn’t, because I’m now doing my ideal project, but the academic world is extremely competitive, so you have to keep plugging if it’s something that you really want to do.
RDK: What do you think about supervision, what do you think your perfect supervisor would be like?
JW: I’ve been very lucky with my Supervisors, all three have contributed different things which have massively enhanced my project, and me as a scientist. I think I’m a pretty independent worker, so I like that I’m free to work at my own pace, and do my own stuff without too much micromanagement, but they’re also very experienced and helpful when I do reach out for help. So I probably have close to my perfect supervisory team right now!
“Being a good fit with your supervisor” is something that I hear quite a lot when people give advice to prospective PhD students, and I think while it is good advice, it’s actually quite hard to enact. It’s rare that people get offered multiple PhD placements, so while in an ideal world you could find a supervisory team that is a great fit, a lot of the time you might just have to get lucky, like I did. But I would say there are opportunities to get information about potential supervisors outside of just talking to them. Contacting their current students is the easiest way, and I think the vast majority of PhD students will be honest with their feedback, especially if you ask specific questions. I would highly advise doing that, even if you’re only applying for one project, because it can provide a lot of context and information before you begin your project.
RDK: Can you sum up your PhD in one sentence?
JW: How are termites going to be affected by climate change, and will their mounds protect them?
RDK: What have been your academic high and lowpoints of the last year?
JW: I think both of these revolve around fieldwork - my lowpoint was certainly at the backend of my first field season. I was staying in a village in Southern Ghana, which had no signal and was ~1 hour from the closest town, and I was the only researcher there. Initially it was exciting, and the community was extremely kind and welcoming, but being cut off from my friends and family was a big struggle, and it felt extremely isolating. In hindsight, I planned a field season that was a couple of weeks too long, which I’m certainly going to take into account when I plan my next trips to Ghana.
My highpoint was my next field season. I worked in Mole National Park, which is a protected Savanna area, which was my first proper taste of a savanna environment. I got to spend 7 weeks surrounded by elephants, antelope, termites, and amazing birds (it even ignited the amateur twitcher in me!).
RDK: How do you find maintaining work-life balancing during your PhD?
JW: I think I’m quite good at maintaining a healthy work-life balance, but there’s certainly been personal issues that have bled into my worklife. In those cases I’ve found it best to just take some time off, step away from work for a bit and do things that I enjoy, with people I enjoy being around.
Having outlets for stress, like exercise or hobbies, is very important, having things outside of work to look forward to certainly makes me work better. I’m also very lucky in that I work in an office with 10 other PhD students (all of whom are lovely), so there’s plenty going on socially, which makes it a bit easier to balance your workload. It’s especially hard when you move to a new place to make friends and build a social network, but luckily academia (usually) has a bit of a structure in place, so I would advise people to take full advantage of that.
RDK: Who have been your biggest inspirations/idols in life or your career?
JW: Oof I’m not really sure. As a very basic answer, Sir David Attenborough is probably the person that inspired me to study the natural world. I’m not big into idols to be honest, so he’s probably the main one.
RDK: Would you say you have an academic role model?
JW: Yeah, a supervisor from my Masters project - Mike Boyle. Mike was a PhD student at the time, so he had a lot going on, but he always made time for me. As well as being extremely helpful scientifically, he showed me that the world of academia wasn’t just papers, targets and deadlines, and that there is a lot of opportunity to enjoy yourself - something that I think gets forgotten in academia.
RDK: Do you have a favourite paper?
JW: Not really, there’s nothing that jumps out as “my favourite” anyway. A couple of the people in my lab worked on a paper called “Termites mitigate the effects of drought in tropical rainforest” which is a cool large-scale study, with interesting results, and it’s a really well written paper.
RDK: Can you describe a typical Woon work day?
JW: I’m pretty relaxed about the times I work, I don’t stick to strict hours or anything. Rather than planning my work hours, I set myself goals and work accordingly, if I feel like I’m behind I’ll work longer hours, if I’m ahead I afford myself more flexibility. But I usually get in between 9-10, and work until 5.30ish. Sometimes it’s earlier, sometimes it’s later, and if I hit a wall, I usually don’t hang around, I’ll just head home and get back to it tomorrow. I also try not to work at the weekend outside of field seasons, I just work better if I get those breaks. I’m guessing this might change the closer to my submission deadline I get though.
As for preventing procrastination, I just try to take regular breaks away from my desk and set mini-goals to work towards in the day, although honestly I am a bit of a procrastinator... And I’m yet to be disillusioned by my research! So motivation isn’t a problem. But I think partitioning large goals into smaller, more achievable sections and ensuring work doesn’t envelope the rest of my life has worked in the past. When you leave the office try to switch off.
RDK: Even though I'm not always good at doing it I think having passions/hobbies outside of work is really important - what do you do when you’re not working and how do you balance it with your PhD?
JW: Yeah, they are really important, anything to take your mind off work when you aren’t focussed on it really helps productivity, or it does for me. I have a whole host of hobbies, but most involve some sort of gaming, often with friends. My main hobby is a card game called Magic: the Gathering (MtG), which is a game based in fantasy and revolves around harnessing resources to summon creatures and cast spells. It sounds pretty childish (and in some aspects it is) but it’s also extremely complicated (apparently it holds the world record for having the most rules of any game) and requires a really interesting skill set of prediction, problem solving, strategy and intuition. For anyone that likes strategy based games I’d very much recommend it.
I think it’s also very important to have something to do when you’re in the field, but aren’t working. Some field sites can cut you off from your main hobbies, it’s quite hard to play MtG in the middle of a rainforest, so I make sure I take other things with me to fill those gaps. The main things I do in the field are reading (I notched up 14 books in my first field season) and photography. I like taking advantage of being in beautiful places with amazing creatures, so I spend evenings out searching for stuff to photograph.
RDK: Is there anything you want to achieve outside of academia in the coming year?
JW: One aspect of my life that has really slipped since starting a PhD is my physical fitness, so I’m trying to get back to being healthier and exercise more. In the past I’ve used work-intensive field seasons as a bit of a platform to get healthier, but this time out I’m driven everywhere (it turns out that if there’s elephants around, going for long walks isn’t recommended).
RDK: If a genie could grant you one wish to help with your PhD what would you wish for?
JW: More money. I think it’s a common complaint, and while I think that project planning and money management are vital skills to learn, but it does limit the experimentation I would like to do, and will limit things like conference attendance.
RDK: Do you have an idea of where you see yourself in 5 years? What would be your dream job to be doing in 5 years?
JW: At the moment I’d like to stay in academia, I really enjoy pursuing long research projects, and hopefully it will still be studying termites! I’d also really like to live and work abroad, there are a lot of world class institutions that have excellent labs working on termites, so I’d love to join one of them for a postdoc. I don’t think I’ve explored academia enough to know what my perfect job would be, but something that isn’t fixed-term would be nice (probably asking far too much though). Outside of academia I’d like to open the batting for England, not sure that’s going to happen though…
RDK: One word to sum up your future in academia
JW: Hopeful.
RDK: Are there any essential tools hardware/software you could not do your PhD without?
JW: A lot of my work revolves around one piece of equipment called a TropiCooler. It is essentially a dry-block heat bath, which was developed to keep volatile chemical or genetic samples at constant temperatures, but it doubles up as a very effective climate control device for things that can fit in eppendorfs, like termites! Other than that, I need a camera with a fisheye lens (partly for my work, partly to take accidental and comical photos on) and a handheld weather station. Thankfully, none of this is wildly expensive - which is something that I do think is important. Where it’s feasible, research should be as accessible as possible, it makes it easier for anyone to replicate and build upon the amazing work we’re all doing. If you use custom-made or extremely expensive equipment, it prices out a lot of people and could stifle the promise of your work. It’s not always possible, certain fields are just expensive to work in (like the stuff you’re doing, the DNA work costs a lot of money), but they’re getting faster, cheaper and more efficient!
RDK: And now the big question - do you have a favourite organism – what is it and why – is it different from your study organism?
JW: Well I have a few different termite groups that I often describe as “my favourite”, mostly because of how cool some of their defensive strategies are. Globitermes ooze a sticky, yellow liquid out of a hole in the middle of their head, causing them to stick to other termites and their attackers (usually pesky ants), which makes an impenetrable mass of insects and blocks up the holes in their nest, protecting the rest of the colony. And a lot of termite species have soldiers with a nasus, which is essentially a spike on their head which fires acid out like a water gun. One of the coolest of these is Rhynchotermes, which have a giant nasus and very large hooked mandibles (you can go here to Gil Wizen’s blog to see some amazing photos of them). Most soldiers with a nasus (e.g Nasutitermes, Hospitalitermes, Trinervitermes) have extremely small mandibles, because the nasus is so effective at defending them from ant attacks, so they don’t need to waste energy developing mandibles, which means they have to be fed by the workers. But Rhynchotermes evolved independently from other nasus wielding species, and it has gone the other way to have these enormous mandibles.
Outside of termites, I love most invertebrates (leaf-cutter ants, walking leaf insects, and horseshoe crabs to name a few) but growing up my favourite animal was elephants. I was, and still am, fascinated by their social structure, intelligence, impact on their environment, but they’re also just incredibly beautiful and impressive. It’s amazing to be able to work somewhere that I get to see them on a regular basis, which has just increased my love for them.
RDK: How do you find your university department? Do you have any group meetings or interactions between PhD students or PhDs and postdocs that you think have been valuable for your PhD experience?
JW: Yeah, I work in an office with 10 other PhD students, from three or four different labs. It’s really nice socially, as they’re all lovely and with a wide range of people there’s a lot of different stuff going on that you can join in with, but it’s also really nice professionally, as I’m in contact with people doing a wide range of research on a daily basis - which has certainly helped me improve as a scientist more than I would if I was only interacting with people working on termites. And the group of postdocs here are also extremely nice, everyone hangs out at lunch and after work, and they’re all very willing to help if we go to them. All in all it’s a really nice and welcoming atmosphere, which has greatly improved my experience of doing a PhD.
RDK: Is there anything you’d change about the university/department structure?
JW: Well our structure is very confusing, so I guess I’d simplify it. Essentially there are multiple Biology-focused departments within the University of Liverpool, and then there are different schools within them. It took me a while to properly understand where our lab fit in the grand scheme of the university, but I think I’ve got it now… But most of the work and structure for my PhD is dictated by my DTP, which is pretty simple.
RDK: Finally, is there a ‘big’ question in your field that you think still isn't being addressed? What is it and why aren't people studying it?
JW: I don’t know if there’s a glaring hole in our knowledge that needs to be filled, but I have a bit of a pet peeve that a lot of climate studies looking at how invertebrates will be affected, most studies look at the changing air temperature. But air temperature isn’t a particularly relevant measure for more inverts, as they’re so small they usually exist in the boundary layer, which is a lot hotter - so something like surface temperature is a much better measure. Unfortunately it’s harder to record.
But at a more general level, we still aren’t really sure the full roles and cascading effects that things like termites have on the ecosystems in which they live. So I think some of the exclusionary experiments that are being done are really interesting and important, to get a proper handle on how much the small things do in complex ecosystems like rainforests, and I think it’ll show that they really do run the world.
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