What with the interdisciplinary thing, I know some delightful and interesting people in quite disparate fields. Starter for 10 is a semi-regular (fortnightly) series of peer interviews, with questions both serious and trivial for your edification.
I’m very excited that this week’s interview is with Professor Rod Page, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Glasgow – although see the answer to the second question for what he really does. I met Rod when I was doing my masters on language evolution, and his immensely useful software methods and text–books made my phylogenetics learning curve much less steep than it could have been! Basically, if it combines computing and evolution, Rod has already thought about it, mashed it up, made it available on iPhylo and Twittered about it before you had your breakfast.
1. In the little space for “occupation” on immigration cards at airports, what do you write?
Professor.
2. Give me your conference tea-break pitch: ” … and what do you work on?”
I’m interested in joining the dots. It drives me nuts that we have all this information about the phylogeny, geographic distribution, and taxonomy of organisms and we can’t quite seem to bring it all together in one place. Think of it as Google for systematics.
3. What’s your origin story – how did you end up in your field? Was there a defining moment, or person, or something else that steered you?
I ended up in biology because it felt that you could still discover things without requiring lots of money or equipment. For instance, my first paper described a new species of pea crab that I found in Auckland harbour. Then I discovered the joys of programming, which is addictive because you regularly feel like master of the universe … at least for a few seconds. But perhaps the thing which grabbed me most as a graduate student was biogeography. New Zealand in the late 80’s was a hot bed of panbiogeography, with Leon Croizat’s work being rediscovered, and it was an exciting time. The wheels rather came off panbiogeography, but being in New Zealand felt like being in the centre of things.
4. And why are you trying to forget about lice? You say so on your old webpage …
Lice have been good to me, but empirical work is hard! All the tracking down collectors, storing specimens, keeping track of data, difficulties sequencing decent genes, struggling to align what sequences we did get, making sense of ropey trees at the end. Methodology is much more fun, especially for somebody like me who is easily distracted by shiny baubles.
5. Do you have a favourite quirky academic paper? Mine is the one about the homosexual necrophiliac duck.
I don’t have a paper, but the “Chicken chicken chicken” talk is a favourite. I show this to undergraduates in tutorials about how to give talks.
6. Professor-level-question: what three things are strikingly different in your field now from when you first started out?
Dub dub dub (WWW). It’s changed everything. That and large scale sequencing. Put another way, biology has become overwhelmingly digital. Some parts of biology have been quicker to adjust to this than than others. [FJ: *sigh* the revolution is still to come in anthropology and linguistics]
7. For a month, you get to do a job-swap outside of academia. What would you do?
Design book covers.
8. Who’s your favourite fictional scientist?
Isadore Nabi [FJ: I think I will start calling myself an “Intrepid Investigator” too]
9. Too much time, money and intellect has been wasted researching what?
Rather than pick something specific, I worry that there’s a poor correlation between amount of money thrown at a subject and the amount of progress made. Results don’t scale linearly with money. I’m underwhelmed by “big science” approaches in biodiversity.
10. Recommend for me (a) a good pop-science book (b) a good history/philosophy/politics book and (c) a poem.
Book: “Envisioning Information” by Edward Tufte ISBN 978-0961392116 – Perhaps not strictly “pop-science”, but just an awesome book, both visually and intellectually. [FJ: EVERYONE should read Tufte]
Philosophy: “The Gentle Art of Philosophical Polemics” by Joseph Agassi ISBN 978-0912050638 – Fierce criticism as a mark of respect, makes me feel good about saying “well this sucks” all the time. [FJ: This arrived in my pigeonhole today, looking forward to it!]
Poem: Robert Burns Tam o’ Shanter “Nursing her wrath to keep it warm” – glorious line.
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Although Rod’s disciplinary interests are firmly within biology, much of what he blogs about at iPhylo has crossover appeal – at the moment he’s reviewing iPad apps for reading scientific articles.