New Year & New Knowledge... 5 common questions.

New Year's Resolutions at Church.

In the Mara: Elephant Mum and Babe.

The Paternal Unit - IN KENYA

Hello 2016... and hello to you! I’ve been off the map most of December, enjoying things like my father and his partner Marilyn's visit to Kenya, our trip to the Mara region, and Christmas and New Year in the village. 

Special thank you's are in order to several people who rocked my world this Christmas -

Sister Ivonne - sent me awesome work out clothes. Just looking this good breaks a sweat.

Papa Thompson - brought me a smorgasbord of field equipment… and kind bars.

Nicole Wolfe - went above and beyond, organizing a package of goodies. Thank you to contributors Heather Obasare, Kim Wilson, Ekene Daniel, Hilda Cheng, Lydia Roesser, and Eme Cecutti :).

SuJen Roberts - ever the thoughtful pen pal, sent me a lovely christmas letter.

Clara Cheong - her monthly gift hooked me up with the only eye shadow I have out here.

...Thank you!!!

Christmas Dinner with the legendary Imboma family

A holiday from the worksphere and time with special people did wonders for the ol’ perspective. This is partly because I started to hear questions about what I'm doing with my life that I hadn’t heard in a while… and they got me thinking.

5 common questions I get...

Sky's the limit!

1. What more is there to learn about these animals? This is kind of a big question. Animal behavior, like other sciences, is growing in stages. First, people describe what they see - almost Planet Earth style - they document what you call the “natural history” of a species. Second, people start to see patterns across different animals and groups of animals - like the importance of the mother-offspring bond to normal development in mammals, or that male birds are more colorful and ornamented than are most male mammals. After people notice patterns, they develop hypotheses like “early physical and psychological trauma in mammals leads to shorter lifespans” or “monogamous mating systems are more likely to select for showy males than are polygynandrous mating systems” (just examples, not necessarily true!). After people figure out ways to test those hypotheses, they go test them. As different fields of biology (and even earth sciences) become integrated - genetics, systematics, paleontology, medicine, psychology, neurology, physiology, ecology - the sky is the limit to what new knowledge we can produce.

2. Whoa, a 5 year program! Are you going to be some kind of super specialist?

Most of the time I feel like I'm a specialist in being told, like Jon Snow, "you know nothing." But isn't that exciting? So much to learn. Medical doctor’s take a long time to know the in’s and out’s of the human body and how to practice medicine (for which we’re all grateful). Doctor’s of philosophy take a long time to know the in’s and out’s of generating new knowledge and how to instruct at a university level. 

Yawn.

3. After all this “schooling,” are you going to try to do something more practical? Will I do something outside of academia? Maybe. Practical is a bit in the eye of the beholder. What’s more practical than generating new knowledge and transferring analytical skills to the next generation? Trust I might otherwise be doing interpretive dances at the new age community center - a very practical enterprise indeed!

Homemade sushi for NYE

4. You’re paid?? Yes, I am!
… however poorly. I’m funded by the graduate school of my university, my supervisor’s grants, and the US National Science Foundation. I support myself to live in NYC and to travel abroad. This is the norm for this level of “schooling” … our job as one prof in my department put it is actually “to think and to write… and to do data analysis somewhere in between.” I'm pretty grateful that I'm paid to do these things that I enjoy (FYI - I'm currently in the data collection phase - analysis will come). Although many entry-level research positions are voluntary (contributing in part to some of the underrepresentation in the sciences), biology is no longer a science restricted to monks (Gregor Mendel) and the independently wealthy (Charles Darwin).

 These kids are still excited
for Christmas morning.

5. It’s Summer/Thanksgiving/Christmas/Spring break, isn’t it great to be on vacation? It's kinda nice to have the undergraduates away. They're on break, but graduate students and faculty are actually busy working on their research. They’re pretty desperate to focus on this because, for better or worse, grants for research keep them hired by their institutions and during break they’re not consumed with teaching courses (though next semester still needs planning!).

Cherry on the Sundae…

6. Can you bring one of your monkeys home as a pet? Nooooope. Even if I could manage to do this, I really wouldn’t want to! First, they are way too smart to be domesticated… they would completely TRASH my apartment looking for food. Second, a note on ethics: a lot of animals that live in social groups, especially monkeys and apes, are about as intimately tied to their group members as you and I are to our families, friends, churches, D & D groups, etc.. When these animals are made into pets, they’re made orphans, kidnapped and often full of psychological problems....I would rather get a dog (or hey, a field cat).

My new house cat - Sophie :)

You can add to these questions in a comment! I have left out some big obvious ones, like "how did you get into THAT [what you do]?!?" Take me out to coffee for that one ;o).

Lots of love and I hope you're all having a great start to 2016!

Nicole