Prof. Christoph Richter reflects on a career shaped by marine mammal research, fieldwork, and teaching. From studying harbor porpoise bycatch and sperm whale behavior to leading students through the Dominican Republic and Galapagos, he explores how curiosity, patience, applied science, and hands-on experience can shape a life in biology.
Transcript click a line to jump the video Hide Transcript▴ 00:11 Given Over there, over there! Do you see that? Yeah, that's definitely— I'm pretty sure that's a whale. 00:18 Derek No, let me see that, bro. 00:20 Derek Let me see. 00:24 Derek Well, that's a goose. 00:25 Given That's not a goose. 00:26 Derek Here. 00:29 Given That's— wait, yeah, maybe it is a goose? 00:34 Derek Well, you gotta get your eyesight checked out. 00:37 Given Hey, I know a marine biologist. 00:42 Christoph Did somebody say marine biologist? Yeah, that clearly is a goose. Let's go and talk about marine science. 00:57 Given Hi, welcome back to the So You Studied Bio podcast. 01:01 Given I'm Given, behind the camera is Derek. Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Richter. 01:08 Christoph Hello. 01:08 Given All good, all good. Awesome. So, Dr. Richter, you are an associate professor. 01:17 Given here at UTM. And so we're going to talk to you a little bit about your research, what you do, your past from your undergraduate, and ultimately try and get down to the bottom of how your career path 01:30 Given can be helpful for undergraduate biology students figuring out what is it that they want to do. 01:35 Christoph Sounds good. 01:36 Given Awesome. Okay, so your doctoral research showed that whale watching boats have a measurably negative impact on how sperm whales behave, but you run courses that put students directly into wild 01:50 Given ecosystems. Do you see a contradiction there, and have you made peace with it? 01:56 Christoph Good question. First of all, if I can, the research showed that there were changes. 02:03 Christoph Whether they're negative or not is a slightly different question, and to be honest, we can't quite answer that. 02:09 Christoph We know that they changed in our presence, and ideally we don't want that, but how important those changes are is much more complicated to establish. 02:20 Christoph So it's the kind of old story about you sitting at a fire and you have mosquitoes flying around, you swat them away, so you change your behavior, but you're not going to get up and move somewhere else. 02:32 Given Okay. 02:33 Christoph It is true that we take students out and Ideally, we do this in a way where we try to minimize any kind of impact. 02:41 Christoph So the one trip where we do take students to go whale watching, we're on a boat that follows kind of best practices in the industry. 02:50 Christoph So where there's a set distance that we approach the whales by, where we approach whales only from a certain direction. 02:56 Christoph So basically they do everything as best as you can. 03:02 Christoph And we're a group of other tourists who do this trip anyway, so we're not adding to the pressure or the activity in those places. 03:10 Christoph That is one way to do it. And with the last part of the question, whether I've made peace with it, it's one of those things where being out there changes everyone. 03:22 Christoph And that doesn't justify us ruining a place. That doesn't justify us Changing a place where it becomes unrecognizable? 03:31 Christoph Obviously not. That's why we think about the places where we do go, and we try to do things in a sustainable— we try to choose sustainable options. 03:39 Christoph But it's also important that, yeah, you do get out and actually experience wildlife. 03:45 Given Good. 03:46 Christoph Yeah. 03:46 Given Okay. That's important for every biologist to get out and experience the world as it is. 03:51 Christoph I would argue, yes. 03:52 Given Okay. 03:53 Christoph That's good. 03:53 Given Awesome. So my first kind of question about yourself and your personal history is, why did you choose marine biology? 04:03 Given What kind of got you into it? What made you interested in marine animals? 04:12 Christoph In hindsight, I probably— I can give you an answer. In the moment, it just happened. 04:19 Given Okay. 04:19 Christoph In some ways. So I grew up basically going, like, with my family, we used to go to the ocean for holidays for a whole bunch of years. 04:29 Christoph So I always loved being on a beach and being by the ocean. 04:34 Christoph Having grown up in a landlocked place, I never thought I could do or I would end up working on marine organisms. 04:46 Christoph And so I had a plan B. I was always interested in animal behavior. 04:51 Christoph That was my thing. And I kind of was willing to work on pretty much anything, any animal anywhere. 04:58 Christoph And I was hoping that it would work out. And it just turned out that there were opportunities that opened up that allowed me to do this. 05:06 Given Do you think that is regular for most of the biology undergraduates that you run into as students? Like that they have a past or history with? 05:18 Christoph I think there's probably sort of 2 groups. One that already come in with, I know what I want to do, and they don't really deviate much no matter what courses they take because they already sort of 05:29 Christoph have a direction that they want to go into. And then there's definitely a large group too that who say, all of this interests me, I'm not quite sure yet where to go. 05:39 Christoph Many times they feel they need to know where to go, which I would argue you don't. 05:45 Christoph This is what undergrad is for. Yeah, it was the same for me. 05:48 Christoph I knew I was interested in animal behavior, but I didn't necessarily— I was open to be convinced to go in other fields. 05:55 Given So, I mean, you seem to be, based on your research, kind of convinced to take a look at sperm whales. 06:01 Given So how did that come about? Was it Was there anything specifically about sperm whales that made you interested, or? 06:10 Christoph Not at all. It was simply, there was an advertising or an email message in one of the discussion forums that said, we are looking for a bunch of PhD students. 06:21 Christoph I think it was for 4. 2 were in the field, 2 were in the lab as modelers. 06:25 Christoph And I wrote to these profs and said, I don't wanna do modeling. 06:30 Christoph I wanna be out in the field. And one of those projects was in sperm whales. 06:33 Christoph I'd never seen sperm whales at that point. I knew about them, but I'd never seen them in the wild. 06:39 Given Okay, so that was your first, like, real exposure? 06:41 Derek Yep. 06:41 Given Okay, that's awesome. 06:42 Christoph So again, going back to this idea that marine mammal science is a competitive field, and I knew if I go too narrow or too determined into one particular place, it may be years before I get an 06:55 Christoph opportunity. So I was— I said, okay, anywhere, anything that sounds good, I'll do. 07:00 Given You'll do it. Okay. And that kind of lines up too, because based on what we know about your past and history, history. 07:08 Given Your master's work was on harbour porpoise, which is, I guess, a much kind of almost grimmer type of marine biology. 07:18 Given How did that experience shape the kind of scientist that you became? 07:24 Christoph It was grimmer because we were looking at the bycatch, right? 07:27 Christoph So the incidental catching of harbour porpoise in fishing gear. 07:30 Given Yeah. 07:30 Christoph And that definitely was Yeah, it was not— it's not nice to see these animals come up in nets, usually dead. 07:41 Christoph It wasn't actually necessarily this project itself, it was more my master supervisor who was not a marine mammal person. He started out working on studying primates. 07:51 Derek Oh, okay. 07:52 Christoph And then he moved to Newfoundland and eventually he had a fisherman in his office who said, I have a humpback whale trapped in my fishing gear and nobody's helping me. 08:01 Christoph I've asked everywhere. And John, my supervisor, was John Lean. 08:07 Christoph He said, okay, I'll come out and help you. He had no idea what to do. 08:10 Christoph And he basically then started saying, okay, we need— what I want to do is help the community, in this case, the fishing community, to solve the problems that they're dealing with. 08:20 Christoph And so this Harbour Porpoise project was along the same vein. 08:24 Christoph So we were trying to figure out how can we prevent harbour porpoise from being caught in fishing gear while allowing the fishermen to do their job. 08:33 Derek Okay. 08:34 Christoph And that is really what sort of changed my view of doing science in a sense that you do— in this case, we did it in order to solve a problem. 08:44 Christoph It was interesting to work on these animals. We asked some other questions too about harbour porpoise, but the basic driver was to say, here's a problem. 08:52 Christoph let's work with the fishermen and the community to solve it. 08:55 Given How did you see science before that? 08:59 Christoph So there is this sort of distinction between science, between applied and basic or curiosity-driven science. 09:09 Christoph And in some ways it might be useful in some contexts. 09:14 Christoph I don't quite like it because it sort of makes this distinction that doesn't have to be there. 09:18 Christoph As I said, in this case, we found out things about harbour porpoise that didn't necessarily help solve the problem, but we did this because we were trying to solve a problem. 09:28 Christoph So both of these things work together. And so before that, I was mainly looking at this more curiosity-driven science for its own purpose rather than an applied aspect. 09:40 Given That makes sense. Would you say then, because I'm someone who's been fortunate enough to take a course and learn from you, so I wonder, and I believe you're now teaching some, one or two first-year biology courses? 09:55 Derek One. 09:55 Given One? Okay. How would you say that when you go out and then you do fieldwork in that type of science, how does that kind of differ from what a first-year might learn in biology? 10:05 Given Do you think it's representative of that real-world work or no? 10:12 Christoph I definitely try to bring applied work into the first-year courses. 10:16 Christoph So the idea— my course is on biodiversity, but I'm also trying to continue what Dr. 10:24 Christoph Rall does in the first part of that course to show students how science works. 10:29 Given Yes. 10:29 Christoph And so I definitely show them that there are projects out there that are literally just sort of the curiosity. 10:36 Christoph You go out and try to find something new. But I also give them examples. 10:40 Christoph We talk about examples that are applied. So for one instance, one of the studies we look at is about how to identify whale meat that's being sold in stores, whether that is from whale species that 10:53 Christoph are legally sort of allowed to be captured, for instance. 10:57 Christoph So that's an applied question, right? So yeah, I'm trying to maybe not quite a balance, but to show both. 11:03 Christoph Mix and match. Yeah, definitely give a sense of how both sides can be part of science, what we do as science. 11:08 Given That's awesome. Now, switching gears a little bit from more theology stuff to practical in terms of your work. Your title is you're a teaching stream professor. 11:22 Christoph Correct. 11:22 Given So what are kind of the different streams? What does it mean to be a teaching stream professor? 11:28 Given If somebody's never heard of that before, could you kind of elaborate a bit? 11:33 Derek Sure. 11:35 Christoph So basically there are 2 streams here at UTM. One is called the tenure stream and the teaching stream. 11:41 Christoph And so if I start with the tenure stream, those are profs who have a research lab that has grad students that they supervise, and they obviously also do some teaching. 11:51 Given Okay. 11:51 Christoph But their teaching load is about half of what would we do as teaching stream, and in turn then we don't have a graduate student lab that we have to run. So that's kind of the big trade-off difference. 12:03 Given Okay, I got you. 12:04 Christoph That doesn't mean that we don't do research, but it's different. 12:07 Christoph So a lot of our research is based on pedagogy. So we try to figure out how we can maybe teach a particular content in a more effective way. 12:17 Christoph And we can do that in a scientific manner. And we can do other— some biological research, but it's not supported by graduate students directly. So we can— we don't supervise graduate students. 12:28 Given Okay, so your research would more be geared to how you can teach better, essentially, as opposed to, you know, like a direct lab where you're working and pipetting and all that sort of stuff? 12:39 Christoph And what we do, the biology, the biological research is based together with undergraduate students in ROPs or thesis courses. That's how that works for us. 12:50 Given So did choosing to go into the teaching stream feel like a step away from real science for you? 12:59 Christoph No, it definitely didn't feel like a step away from science. It was a step away from fieldwork. 13:04 Given Okay. 13:05 Christoph Yeah, that's, that's for sure. And for me, it wasn't kind of a decision that— when I started, there were no teaching stream positions. 13:17 Christoph Like, when I was a student, there were no such things. 13:20 Christoph And during my master's and PhD, I started to work as a teaching assistant, and I realized I I really liked the teaching part. 13:27 Christoph And then after my PhD, I applied for a temporary job at a university to teach. 13:34 Christoph And that kind of went year after year and I really enjoyed it. 13:39 Christoph And then I realized, okay, there are some institutions like U of T that actually has positions that allow you to focus on that. 13:46 Christoph And so when that post came up here, I applied and I'm glad I got it. 13:50 Given You got it. Okay, solid. And then I guess, because for some of us we have this stigma surrounding, like, fieldwork in terms of science and it being a little bit boring or maybe monotonous, what would 14:10 Given you say to a student like that who had that kind of opinion? 14:18 Christoph My first The first part of my response would be, yes, it can be. 14:22 Christoph There's no doubt about it. If you're— you just brought up pipetting, you got to do that. That's part of lab work. 14:28 Given That is it. 14:30 Christoph And the same even in the field. I mean, lots of people think because you see the nature documentaries and there's always something happening, right? 14:37 Christoph If they're out watching whales or looking for whales, there's always a whale popping up in the next 2 minutes. 14:42 Christoph In real life, you might be out there for hours and nothing happens. 14:45 Christoph Right. So there are definitely boring aspects too. 14:50 Christoph But the important part is that you got to keep in mind why you're doing it, right? 14:55 Christoph What are you out there to observe? And to have the right mindset too, is that if you do fieldwork, you're not in control of things. You simply got to wait. 15:06 Given Yeah. 15:09 Christoph And once you accept those two, then Yeah, you enjoy that part as well. 15:15 Given Okay. 15:15 Christoph Where you, yeah, you just wait for things to happen and some days nothing might happen and the next day it may be crazy. 15:22 Given You kind of fall in love with the process, you mean? 15:24 Christoph Sorry? 15:24 Given You kind of fall in love with the process, you mean? Yeah. 15:27 Christoph And just the fact that, yeah, you realize we're not, this is not a zoo, right? 15:31 Christoph If you're out in the field, we got to wait what the animals do. 15:34 Christoph And in a lot of cases, it also shows you how little we know about them. 15:38 Given Yeah. 15:38 Christoph In my fieldwork, we had one season where we, or 2 weeks where we didn't see any sperm whales at all. 15:45 Christoph In 3 years, that was the only 2 weeks. We have no idea what happened during this time. 15:50 Given So randomness, randomness can happen. 15:53 Christoph Yeah, exactly. Variability. That's what biology is about. 15:55 Christoph That's why, you know, different to engineering, you don't, something might work one day, it may not work the next. 16:00 Given The next. Okay, that's fair. 16:02 Christoph And so just to go back to the boring part, I think Yeah, once you keep your goal in mind and the question, these things don't become necessarily that boring anymore. They're just part of the process, as you said. 16:14 Given That ties into what you were saying before about kind of having a reason and having a goal for your science, right? 16:20 Christoph Yep. 16:21 Given So there's like an inspiration there, something that makes you feel driven. 16:25 Christoph For sure. 16:26 Given Okay, I hear you. And you're also an associate chair of academic programs, I believe? 16:32 Christoph Correct. 16:32 Given So what does that part of your job involve? How is it different then from what you do teaching? 16:40 Christoph Basically, that's kind of the behind-the-scenes job in a way. 16:44 Christoph And in particular, what that means is that I'm— we're looking at changing how we offer our programs in biology to make them more effective for students and to make them easier for us to administer. 17:00 Christoph And so one of the things is to try to figure out what the alternatives are to having— like right now we have 10 programs, all the specialists, all the majors, and so on. 17:09 Christoph And there are certain advantages of having so many, but also there are certain disadvantages. 17:16 Given Can you dive a little bit deeper into that? What do you mean? 17:20 Christoph For some students, they enjoy the choice. Yeah. And so for them— 17:26 Given Like the many different courses you can take? Exactly. 17:28 Derek Okay. 17:28 Christoph Not necessarily the courses, but the program. So if you, you know, are you going for health science major, okay, or this biospecialist or the biomajor. 17:36 Christoph And it also can be confusing, right? We have a biomajor, a biospecialist, and a biominor. 17:42 Derek You're right. 17:43 Christoph Which one is the best? And the point is, there is no best. 17:46 Christoph It all depends on what your interests are, okay? And maybe once you know this, what your career goals are. 17:53 Christoph Um, but those are all things that we have to think about. 17:57 Christoph It's supposed to be helping students take the courses they would like to take, and for us to be easy to administer, easy to manage. 18:08 Given Okay. 18:09 Christoph And the other part that we have to do right now is something that is required by the Government of Ontario, is they have every department is being reviewed externally every certain period. 18:24 Given Okay. 18:24 Christoph And that means we have to create a big report about what we're doing, why we're doing it, And then we have guests coming, checking out our department, talking to everyone. 18:34 Christoph And then that goes to the government saying, yeah, they're actually doing bio and they're doing it in a good way, or there are certain things that we would like to change. 18:42 Christoph So that's the other thing that is part of these kind of jobs. 18:45 Given So you have to basically collect some, like you were saying, pedagogical data on what you guys are actually doing, how your methods are helping, that sort of thing. 18:55 Christoph So we're looking at how many students sign up for each of the programs. 18:58 Christoph We ran a student survey in December, November, December and ask students, how does the department work for you? 19:04 Christoph Is there anything that you like, anything you don't like? 19:09 Christoph And we talk to our colleagues, you know, how is it for them to teach these courses? 19:13 Christoph Are there any things that they would like to do or not do anymore? 19:16 Christoph And all of that gets packaged up. And then, as I said, we have 2 profs coming from outside of U of T for a couple of days, and they will talk to everyone and— They will then write that report from 19:29 Christoph the outside to say how things are, how things look. 19:32 Given Okay, so, and in those student surveys that you get, what kind of important information— because obviously we're doing this to help inform students on what it is that they might want to do in the 19:45 Given future and what career paths are available to them— what important things maybe have you heard from students that are helpful or non-helpful in what you guys do? 19:56 Given to kind of prepare them for going on into real biology? 20:02 Christoph I can't— we haven't actually analyzed the surveys yet. 20:05 Christoph We're in the process of doing this, so I can't give you the raw, the fresh data yet. 20:10 Christoph But the kind of things we're looking for is basically, you know, are there sort of choke points where students are trying to take courses and they're full and so they have to wait for long time periods? 20:21 Given Right. 20:22 Christoph Or generally it is difficult for them to work out their schedule in a particular semester because they have to take a certain set of courses and they may not be scheduled in the best way for them. 20:34 Christoph Also, are there things that they think we should be doing in order for them to feel, you know, the department has supported them in their studies as well as in their prep, as you mentioned, for the career? 20:45 Given Okay. 20:45 Christoph Are there things that they think the department could help them better to prepare them for job search? 20:51 Christoph And one of the things that we're doing now is the internship Sorry, the co-op program, right? 20:56 Christoph So those are the kind of things that come out of these surveys and then where we then would implement things accordingly after. 21:01 Given Do you think co-op is usually helpful for students who are interested in doing fieldwork? 21:06 Christoph Well, the co-op is more sort of to get students to work outside of academia for a bit, right? 21:12 Christoph To have the chance to work at an institution that is not— 21:18 Given Like see what it's like in real time. 21:20 Christoph Exactly. 21:20 Given Okay. I get what you're saying. Do you think that's still achievable with a research opportunity program, for example? 21:29 Christoph Definitely. I mean, it's— you would be exposed to different skills, but it definitely helps you. 21:35 Christoph So if one of the things you are thinking about is staying in academia or doing a research-based career, and it doesn't have to be academia, it could be in government or NGOs, doing a research-based, 21:47 Christoph like an ROP or a thesis course, definitely would give you exposure to, let's say, fieldwork or lab work. 21:55 Given How many years have you been teaching? 21:59 Christoph I started here at UTM, I started in 2011. 22:03 Given Okay, so over a decade now. Yeah, I don't want to age you, but thanks. 22:10 Given So then it's been quite a while, then I'd kind of be curious, like, have any of your students that you've had in undergraduate I'm sure some of them have maybe ended up working with you or been— do 22:23 Given you take on postgrads, for example, with any of the work that you do? 22:29 Christoph I haven't, but I know that other teaching stream profs have worked with doctoral postdocs and the like on projects. Yeah. 22:37 Given Okay. But have any of your undergraduate students that you've had in the past kind of gone on to do similar work to Yeah. 22:45 Christoph Yeah? 22:45 Given Yep. 22:46 Christoph I just met a now colleague who took a marine mammal course with me. 22:53 Christoph I don't want to say how many years ago. And she now does marine mammal and fish biology at Dalhousie. She's a prof there. Wow. 22:59 Given Okay. 22:59 Christoph Actually, one of my colleagues who is now at the department, she took an animal behavior course. So I taught at Queen's before I came here. 23:06 Given Okay. Yeah. 23:07 Christoph And she was at Queen's and she took my animal behavior course there. 23:09 Christoph So yeah, there is. There's a bit of a legacy there, which is great. 23:14 Given Is there anything unique about UTM you feel for the sake of like ecology-type courses? Because I know we have a pretty green space. 23:25 Derek Yeah. 23:25 Given So it's a bit different, I'd say, than other campuses in that way. But yeah, how do you feel? 23:31 Christoph I totally agree. I mean, the fact that we have this space in the middle of one of the largest urban centres in North America is amazing. 23:40 Christoph And I don't think I could say it better than one of the first years I was here, I taught ecology in the summer and we took the students out to the old site, the old farm site. 23:51 Christoph And one of the students looked around and said, I can't see any buildings. And I thought, exactly. 23:56 Given That's the point. 23:57 Christoph That's exactly why we do this. And it's an experience for them that I can't— it's the place where we are. 24:05 Given Right. 24:05 Christoph And the land that we're on. So I think that is definitely important. 24:09 Given Okay. 24:10 Christoph And the other thing is, as you brought them up before, the ROPs. 24:13 Christoph That is, if I had been a student, if that had been available for me, I would definitely have taken one of those. Okay. 24:20 Given And what do you think maybe some students— what are some important skills then you've seen from undergraduates that— because I'm sure in the courses you teach, you try and procure some of those 24:30 Given skills and teach them some of both technical things, like we're talking about pipetting, for example, or even just virtues like patience of being able to wait appropriately to see results. 24:45 Given What are some important things that you think students should try to equip themselves with properly before they consider going into ecology as a greater field? 24:57 Given I use it as an umbrella term right now, but maybe you have a better one. 25:00 Christoph No, just in general, doing science, I think it doesn't have to be ecology. 25:06 Derek Yeah. 25:06 Christoph I think some of the basic things is to know how to do research, to sort of critically evaluate the information that you already have yourself and that you're gathering for, let's say, an essay or a 25:21 Christoph report that you're sort of willing to be a bit critical about how you approach things, to ask yourself, okay, could there be another explanation? Like, this all looks perfectly logical to me. 25:33 Given Yeah. 25:33 Christoph But could there be another factor that I'm not thinking about? 25:37 Christoph Right. And then being willing to critically evaluate your own knowledge and to then start the research and say, okay, let's find out what else is out there. 25:49 Christoph That definitely is important. You brought up patience, not only patience waiting for something to happen, but also patience with yourself. 25:56 Given Yeah. 25:56 Christoph It takes time to become a scientist. You don't just switch and you're a scientist. 26:01 Given In one day. 26:02 Christoph It's not the white lab coat that makes you a scientist. 26:06 Christoph So yeah, be patient with yourself. And also trust yourself to some extent, right? 26:10 Christoph That at some point you say, okay, I think I'm— if you do a presentation at that moment, you are the expert for that topic in that moment with that group of people. 26:24 Christoph And yeah, trust yourself that you know your stuff. 26:27 Given That's fair. That's fair. Now, I did have, and this is kind of a curiosity question on my end, there's some initiative I know that I believe you're doing with game development and teaching students. 26:45 Given I can't exactly remember what it was, but I read something along the lines of that. 26:49 Given I kind of wanted to ask you a little bit about that. 26:52 Christoph Yeah, so this is work with a PhD student in the department, Fernie Cotlier, And it was actually initiated by her and Steve, Dr. 27:02 Christoph Chatfield. And so the idea is that we are developing a sort of a game-based learning tool. 27:10 Given Okay. 27:10 Christoph That in the case for my first-year course would simply get students to think about and interact with some of the material from the labs in a different context. 27:21 Given Okay. 27:21 Christoph So it's not the textbook. It's not the lecture, it's not the lab instructions, but it's sort of this story-based game where they basically have to answer questions about the organisms that we cover in the labs. 27:33 Given That's really cool. 27:34 Christoph And so the idea is, yeah, to draw them in a little bit with bringing them into a story, introducing them to a character, and then sort of almost sort of without them noticing, having them think about 27:47 Christoph microbes, think about plants and things like that. So that's the idea. 27:51 Given Now, I really like that, and the reason why I ask is there's kind of a common misconception, I think, with some students where they feel if they are to be creative or step outside of their bounds, 28:04 Given they're kind of breaking scientific method. They're coming out of— they're not being a scientist necessarily, and that sounds like something pretty creative. 28:11 Given So how do you feel about those sort of initiatives? 28:15 Given Are those possible? regularly in your type of job? 28:21 Christoph You have to make them. You have to create the opportunities, but there's definitely more and more. 28:24 Christoph There's a whole field of— they're called serious games. 28:29 Christoph I'm not sure why they call them serious, but the point is that they're meant as educational tools. 28:35 Christoph People use all kinds of video games already for educational context, right? 28:39 Christoph So there's definitely a push to sort of start just broadening the tools that we have, right? 28:45 Christoph That's what it's all about. Nobody is saying we all got to do everything with games now and that's the best way. 28:50 Christoph No, there's— the bigger your toolkit, the more flexible you can be, the more flexible students can be in how they choose to learn and what to use. That's the point behind it. 29:01 Given Okay. 29:02 Christoph And in terms of creativity, I think most scientists would say every scientist needs to be creative in some ways. 29:09 Christoph Because not in the sense that we look at our data and we come up with creative explanations for it, but coming up with the questions we ask requires creativity. 29:19 Christoph So I think it's a different creativity that most people might think about. 29:26 Given So it's not intuitive. It's not the same way that we often imagine creativity. 29:32 Christoph And we're not creating pieces of art, things like that. 29:35 Christoph But there's definitely There's definitely creative sides in doing science too, for sure. 29:42 Given And do you think that there's— I know obviously you enjoy your job, but do you think that there's kind of some inherent fun that lies in it? 29:51 Given Because we did before chat a little bit about how some people could see it as boring. 29:57 Given And yeah, it can be sometimes, definitely. But I imagine there's some fun too. What ways do you usually find fun in what you do? 30:07 Christoph You mean in my job or doing science? 30:11 Given Yeah, in the field or even teaching too. 30:13 Christoph Yeah. I think the basic, at the very basic level, it's really the job. 30:21 Christoph I mean, where else? In what other job can you literally follow your curiosity? 30:25 Christoph You know, like I teach a course with a colleague from the Historical Studies Department and we look at the Columbus arrival in the New World from an ecological and historical perspective. 30:38 Christoph And we started this course, we both, because we were both interested in doing something together. 30:41 Given Yes. 30:42 Christoph And so we said, let's do a course. 30:44 Given Yeah. 30:45 Christoph Where else can you do this? And the same with research, right? 30:49 Christoph We can literally say, okay, I'm really getting interested in something totally new that I haven't worked on before. 30:58 Christoph And as long as I have the funds for it or do it in a way that doesn't cost any funds, I can do that. 31:04 Given Yeah, and I guess these are also some student-facing questions that I imagine would be interesting too. 31:11 Given What sort of qualifications might you even need to get into, like, if you wanted to do fieldwork as your job, is GPA a very important factor? 31:25 Given Is it kind of overrated? Like, is experience better? 31:29 Given How do you weight that or even your colleagues who have taken on postdocs or whatever the case is? How does that— 31:38 Christoph I think the short answer is it depends. It depends on the project. 31:41 Christoph It depends on the people. Clearly GPAs are important because that's kind of the standard measure that everyone looks at at some point, but it's definitely not everything. 31:53 Christoph So experience matters. The personality of the people matter. 31:59 Christoph You want to work with somebody who you can collaborate well with, who you can develop trust with. 32:05 Christoph And so those are all things that play a role to various degrees. 32:10 Given Okay. So, but you would definitely say that a student would need a combination of both like good academics and good theory plus the actual real-world experience, or do you think they could just get 32:26 Given by with theory and then learn? Because you were saying, for example, like when you knew you were interested in animal behavior, but sperm whales were pretty much completely new to you. 32:36 Given So do you think that as long as a student is equipped with the necessary theory, that that kind of could be broadly applied to whatever fieldwork? 32:47 Christoph Yeah, that's why I said before is, you know, the kind of skills that you should definitely, like aside from sort of pipetting skills and the basics in the field, are sort of these underlying 32:59 Christoph approaches that you need to know. Critical thinking, asking questions. 33:04 Christoph And then that also means that when I applied for that sperm whale job, I didn't claim to have seen sperm whales. 33:09 Given Yeah. 33:10 Christoph I said, this is what I've done in other whales. I've looked at applied questions. 33:14 Christoph I've done fieldwork. So that's how you then sort of structure your application. 33:19 Christoph Say, I have all this experience that can help you. 33:22 Christoph I also have looked at other things that maybe your lab isn't, or your research group isn't currently looking at, that I can bring as a new contribution to that group, right? 33:33 Given Okay. 33:34 Christoph So it's not— it's often a bit of a mixture out of having the skills that they might look at directly, but also then being able to broaden the expertise with you joining that group. 33:48 Given Okay. And you think in the courses that you teach, or even the courses that are usually taught in biology, students will have labs or tutorials where they get actual experience. 34:00 Given Are those experiences relevant for if you were going into something like you can draw on them or How does that— 34:10 Christoph So I probably— and again, like, this all depends on what you're applying for, right? 34:15 Christoph If you were applying to somewhere outside of academia, I wouldn't necessarily say that I took a first-year course that had labs, right? 34:23 Christoph Because that's kind of part of the package. You did an undergrad degree here at this university. 34:29 Christoph It's assumed if you're in biology that you have done some lab work, right? 34:33 Christoph What you can definitely say is that you've done pipetting, you've done gel analyses or things like that. 34:44 Christoph In that case, again, like the ROPs probably are different. 34:47 Derek Yeah. 34:47 Christoph Or the thesis courses are a different aspect because there you can say, I've worked on this project, I've written this report, maybe even published something, right? 34:55 Christoph So that's a different case because that is not something that all students do. 35:00 Christoph And that would be something that I would, in a case like this, I would stress that kind of experience. 35:05 Given Definitely go out and get the experience. 35:08 Christoph Yep. And the same with field courses, that they're not— not many students take them. 35:14 Christoph And so that could be also something where you can say, okay, I've taken a field course, we went there, we did this kind of work. 35:19 Given Yeah, I'm kind of curious about that. How do numbers look like in upper-year field courses Like, is it usually smaller cohorts of students? 35:29 Christoph Yeah, Muslim, just logistically, we have to limit the size of those. 35:33 Christoph So usually there are 20, 24 students. The field course I teach in the Galápagos, or co-teach, the limit was 20 students. 35:44 Given So does that make it kind of competitive to— 35:47 Christoph It does, yeah. 35:49 Given Okay, I hear you. And so if students really couldn't just kind of take it for fun, they kind of need to be interested in it and know they want to stick with it. 36:00 Christoph I mean, if you get in, you could take it for fun. 36:04 Given I guess so. Fair enough. Yeah, right. 36:06 Christoph We hope— the hope is, and the way we structure these courses is that you're taking them— sure, the fun is part of it. 36:12 Christoph There's no question about that. But it's also an academic experience, right? 36:15 Christoph We're not just lying on the beach and enjoying the sun. 36:19 Christoph We're actually doing some academic explorations and lectures and talk to experts. So there is an academic content to it. 36:30 Given Okay. Do you think your lectures are as important as the experience that they get? 36:36 Christoph I hope so. 36:38 Given No diss to you. 36:40 Christoph I'm saying this because Field courses are very different because you're— I'm not in my regular environment. 36:48 Given Right. 36:49 Christoph So that sort of narrows the distance between the profs and the students, right? 36:54 Christoph I'm in a— I mean, I've been to these places before, but it's not my home. 36:59 Christoph It's not like here. I'm not standing in front of you. 37:01 Christoph We're sitting in some cases on a beach and we're talking to each other. 37:05 Christoph And also it's the There's this idea of land-based learning that where you are matters. 37:11 Derek Right. 37:12 Christoph And in these cases, it's a huge difference. Like, if I were to teach you something about the importance of mangroves and we were sitting in IB 110 here, you might find that interesting, but that's 37:25 Christoph probably it, right? But if we're literally standing in front of mangrove trees and we can look in the water and we can see the multitudes of juvenile fish that are there, I don't have to give you a 37:36 Christoph lecture. You can see it right there. And then chances are you'll probably have piles of questions about what you're watching here and how things change just from being there. 37:47 Given So would you say it's kind of more of an intimate experience for the student and the professor in terms of being able to ask questions, like having real inquiry-based learning? 38:00 Given That's one of the models I think even at McMaster that they have for some of their life science, health science programs where students kind of get to have self-directed learning. 38:10 Given Do you think that's what it would feel like at that stage? 38:15 Christoph I mean, I don't want to go as far as saying that we're doing self-directed learning. 38:19 Christoph We usually, at least in the field courses that I do, there's a report at the end that usually the students can choose their topics. 38:27 Given Okay. 38:27 Christoph But that's— I mean, there's plenty of other courses that do that too. 38:30 Christoph So I'm not sure I would call them self-directed, but it's just the matter that we are— because of the way these courses run, there is time for these kind of more open-ended encounters and discussions, right? 38:44 Given Yeah. 38:44 Christoph That we can't really do that much here. In labs, probably to some extent, that gets a little bit there. 38:51 Christoph Like even in ecology, when we go outside, we might see Something that, you know, the previous group hasn't seen. 38:56 Given Okay. 38:57 Christoph So there is definitely a bit of the opportunity there, but in field courses, it's kind of the, the whole course is kind of structured around this kind of experience and encounters. 39:06 Given And if a student wanted to learn more, and like, let's say you were in your second or third year and you're just now pivoting and you're thinking, maybe I would be interested in something like 39:17 Given fieldwork, what would be your suggestion to them to get more experience to learn a little more to see if it is for them? 39:26 Christoph ROPs. That's my stock answer for 2 reasons. One, it gives you credit. 39:34 Christoph Yeah. And even if you afterwards say, okay, I never ever want to go out in the field, there's too many bugs, there's too much whatever, you learn something about yourself. 39:42 Given Yeah. 39:43 Christoph So definitely ROPs are a good way. And there are ROPs that are one semester long, 2 semesters long, so you have a choice how much you want to invest. 39:53 Christoph And they're an amazing way to figure out for yourself, yeah, I can see myself doing this for days on end, pipetting. 40:02 Christoph I don't mind because I know what I'm trying to work at. So I definitely think ROPs are a great way. 40:08 Given But I'm curious though about yourself, because if you didn't go to U— well, you didn't go to this school for your own undergraduate, right? 40:17 Given So how do— how were you so sure, or how might a student who goes to a school that doesn't have the ROP kind of program, how would they figure out, how would they know, how would they be more sure about if they wanted to do this or not? 40:35 Christoph I think the answer to that is it depends on every student, every person, because everyone else has a different— everyone has a different history, a different set of experiences. 40:46 Christoph They come from different places, literally and figuratively. 40:49 Christoph And so for everyone, that answer probably differs. 40:53 Christoph I knew I wanted to do biology, like nothing was getting me away from that. 40:58 Christoph Which type of biology? I was interested in animal behavior, but I could have ended up in genetics too, right? 41:06 Given Yeah. 41:08 Christoph That I did my undergrad in Germany. I went for an exchange to Canada. 41:14 Christoph There was a prof who had students taking, or who was taking students for a thesis project in animal behavior. So it fit. 41:23 Given Everything just slid that way. Yeah. 41:26 Christoph I know another friend of mine who was doing her undergrad at the same place. 41:31 Christoph We together went to Newfoundland to volunteer for John Lee, and the prof who became my master's supervisor. 41:37 Christoph And she, for her, the work with the whales was too boring, even though she was as big into whales as me. 41:43 Christoph And she said at that stage, yeah, this is not my cup of tea. 41:49 Given That's not her speed. 41:50 Christoph She eventually went back to working on whales years later. 41:53 Christoph But that's the point here, right? That everyone has a slightly different way of taking these things in and deciding whether that is for them or not. 42:02 Christoph And I think the most important or one important aspect here is that there is no one right way of doing it. 42:07 Derek Right. 42:08 Christoph Some, like me, come in with a kind of an idea of what they want to do. 42:13 Christoph Some of them follow that path. Some of them say, hey, I've never even thought about neurobiology and this is cool. 42:22 Christoph And you go, you've certainly changed direction completely. And that's totally fine. 42:28 Given Okay. 42:28 Christoph We— I remember at Queen's we had a seminar series too, and every so often a prof would say, why I'm in bio. 42:36 Christoph And every prof had a very different reason why they're in bio. There was no two who gave the same answer. 42:42 Given Okay. 42:43 Christoph And I'm sure if you did this with my colleagues here, it'd be exactly the same. 42:46 Given It's a personal journey. 42:47 Christoph Yeah. Yeah. 42:48 Given So what would you do if you weren't doing this? Or what would you want to do? 42:56 Christoph Good question. 42:56 Given Or be interested in? 42:58 Christoph It definitely would be something outside too. For a long time, I sort of thought being a photographer, wildlife photographer, would be cool. 43:05 Given Okay, awesome. 43:06 Christoph I love being out in the ocean, so I admire the captains of research cruise ships. 43:13 Christoph Research ships would be cool because you're out there on the ocean. 43:17 Christoph That's where your work is. So Neither of them were very realistic, but they definitely could be things that I think would be pretty cool. 43:25 Given Awesome. Okay, well, we'll be right back in a minute then to talk a little bit more about the oceans. 43:31 Christoph Sounds good. 43:32 Given Yeah, so. 44:36 Derek Welcome back, everybody. And we're going to go deeper into more of your marine studies and your travel around the world. 44:45 Derek So we're going to specifically talk about the Dominican Republic. 44:49 Derek And we would love if you could explain JBH 471, which is the Worlds Colliding course, to somebody who has never heard of the course. 45:00 Derek What's a biology course doing being co-taught by a historian? 45:06 Christoph Okay. It's a joint biology history course. And the question we are trying to answer is, what are the consequences of Columbus' discovery, in quotation marks, of the New World, historically and 45:25 Christoph ecologically? And our basic premise is that we can't separate the two. 45:29 Given Hmm. 45:29 Christoph When you look at what the world is today, it's because of history and because of ecology, and they interact with each other. 45:38 Christoph And that's what we're trying to highlight in this course. 45:41 Christoph So I teach this with Dr. Cowan from Historical Studies, and we start with sort of a historical account of how Columbus ended up, what were the historical consequences in the Caribbean to start. 45:55 Christoph And then we go into more ecological questions. What are the consequences since then? 46:00 Christoph How have species changed, species composition changed, either in the Caribbean and the Americas, as well as in Europe? 46:09 Christoph And as part of that, we offer that trip to the Dominican because that was actually the second island that Columbus landed on and the first one where he created a settlement, a permanent settlement. Mm-hmm. 46:20 Derek Wow, I've never thought of joining both history and biology in the same sentence, to be honest. 46:27 Derek Like, I feel like they're two— both of them as disciplinaries are so far off. 46:34 Derek But it's— I feel like students can learn a lot from your course the way you're talking about. 46:41 Derek You can't separate the history from the biology aspect. I think that's really nice. 46:45 Given Yeah. 46:46 Christoph And in a way, I totally agree with you. We usually look at these 2 things as very far apart from each other when I would argue they shouldn't be. 47:00 Christoph Because if you want to look at— let's just stay with the Dominican Republic. 47:04 Christoph If you want to explain the way things look like now there, you have to look at both. 47:10 Derek Mm-hmm. 47:11 Christoph You have to look at the history, and the ecology. 47:14 Christoph And to just give you another example, there are places in Europe where Roman settlements, Roman gardens used to be. 47:22 Christoph Even today, there's different— the soil composition there is different from places around it. 47:27 Christoph And you can't explain this without knowing that Roman settlements were there, right? 47:32 Christoph So there's lots of cases where you have to combine both. 47:37 Christoph The place where you're we are here today, it wasn't when the Europeans came. 47:42 Christoph It was— there were people here. They were managing the environment. 47:46 Christoph They were living here. The Indigenous people have shaped this place for generations. 47:53 Christoph This is important to know when we look at what is here today and what we do to it now. 47:58 Christoph So I would argue we should have more opportunities to combine history and ecology. 48:04 Christoph And there's more and more researchers who do just that, who combine the two to answer, in some cases, a historical question, and in some cases, an ecological question. 48:16 Derek So could you walk us through an actual day on the grounds in the Dominican Republic? What do students wake up and do, for example? 48:25 Christoph Sure, it depends a bit on where we are. So we visit 2 places. 48:29 Christoph The first one is usually the capital, Santo Domingo. 48:33 Christoph And there, a day usually looks like, in a way, that we get up and we usually have a museum or 2 that we go to. 48:42 Christoph There's several buildings from Columbus' time that are still there. 48:47 Christoph We might take a walk through some of the streets and look at the historical neighborhood there. 48:55 Christoph And then we talk about what these buildings represent. 49:00 Christoph And what they also represent for the indigenous peoples who used to live in the Caribbean. 49:05 Christoph The second place is in the northeast of the island. 49:08 Christoph It's a peninsula close to the ocean. And there we look at a mangrove forest. 49:15 Christoph They actually have the largest protected mangrove area in the Caribbean. 49:18 Given Wow. 49:19 Christoph And so we take a tour there and talk a bit about what it means that forest is still there. 49:26 Christoph What it means for the Dominican Republic in the past and today. 49:33 Christoph We do also do some whale watching because it's close to the breeding area for humpback whales. 49:38 Christoph So yeah, we get a bit of— we're always outside, we're always doing something. 49:43 Christoph But it depends on whether we are in the city or in Samaná. 49:48 Derek Okay. You open the course with an exercise where students list everything they eat in a day. 49:55 Derek And guess where it came from. And most of the students usually get it wrong, no? 50:02 Christoph At least they're surprised, yeah. 50:04 Derek So what does that exercise teach that a lecture really couldn't? 50:11 Christoph Basically, it shows you how an event that happened centuries ago still changes what we eat or impacts what we eat today. 50:21 Christoph Like, if you think about, for instance, we had students whose family came from India last year. 50:28 Christoph Potatoes are a staple in many of their dishes. Potatoes are from Latin America. 50:35 Christoph Chilies are from Latin America. I don't know if you're a coffee drinker. 50:40 Derek Oh, no, I can't stand coffee. 50:42 Christoph Okay, I'm asking you. Let's take something else then. Let's take chocolate. 50:47 Derek Oh, yeah, I go with chocolate. 50:48 Christoph Again, Latin America, right? Ecuador. So all these foodstuffs did not exist in Europe. 50:55 Christoph Tomato sauce in Italy was unthinkable until Columbus had brought, or people after him brought back from Latin America, tomatoes, right? 51:04 Christoph And at first, they didn't even know what to do with them. 51:05 Christoph They just grew them as decorative plants and thought they were poisonous. 51:11 Christoph So the point of that exercise is to show that today you don't We don't really think necessarily about where our food is from and what influences what we eat and where. 51:22 Christoph But by looking at the history, we can actually trace back, as I said, an event that happened centuries ago to what we still have and don't have today. 51:33 Derek Right. So what's a moment leading from that trip, students or otherwise, that stayed with you? 51:45 Christoph I think it is this point that I just made is that history is part of how we are and what we do and where we are today. 51:57 Christoph And the other thing is too, that it is important to not shy away from complexity. 52:02 Christoph Of course, if we, as an ecologist, if I just had to look at what grows out here and I wouldn't think about the fact that this is what is here has been influenced by generations of Indigenous people 52:13 Christoph or in the Caribbean, it's easier, right? All I have to do is use my standard ecological tools, but it's also an incomplete picture. 52:25 Christoph And by including historical analyses and documents and considerations, the picture becomes more complex, but also more interesting and more complete. 52:37 Christoph And so that is one thing that I really enjoy is that the idea that, yeah, simple explanations are never, very rarely the best ones. 52:47 Derek There's real privilege embedded in a course like this where flights, people take lots of flights, there are expensive fees, and they have to take time off their usual activities. 53:00 Derek How do you think about access and equity for students who can't afford international field courses? 53:09 Christoph You're absolutely right. That is something that is an issue. 53:16 Christoph There is no easy or quick solution. The one thing that— one of the reasons why we— I don't want to say comfortable, but why we're doing this is because there is actually quite a substantial support 53:30 Christoph from the university financially for students who otherwise couldn't make that trip. 53:35 Christoph So at least for most students who do want to go and can't afford themselves, there is support from the university to allow them to go. 53:46 Christoph That is not ideal, no question about it. But rather than saying because of that we don't do it at all, we rather make the argument, look, We have the students who've done this course before. 53:58 Christoph They can vouch for the impact it had on them. Let's expand the kind of things, the support that we can offer students to make it more accessible to more students eventually. 54:10 Derek How is the Ecuador course different in what it's trying to teach compared to the Dominican Republic course? 54:18 Christoph They're very different courses. it's not really a Dominican course because that is just— we just go for the reading break in the winter. 54:27 Given Okay. 54:27 Christoph The rest is we're here in a lecture hall. And so the trip is voluntary and it's only, as I said, for that one week. 54:36 Christoph Whereas the Ecuador course where we go to the Galápagos for the last few years is offered through the summer abroad program downtown in Witsworth College. 54:45 Christoph So that's a 2.5-week course and that's the whole trip, that's the course. 54:51 Christoph So in terms of the focus, it's quite different. The other big difference is that the Galápagos course is open to any student from U of T, from any department, from any arts, science, humanities. 55:07 Christoph Anybody can take the course, whereas our JBH course is open for biology and history, historical studies students only. 55:17 Derek The Galápagos is basically ground zero for evolutionary biology. 55:23 Derek What's it like teaching evolution in a classroom for years and then finally watching a student see Darwin's finches with their own eyes? 55:32 Christoph It's special, and it's definitely a privilege to be able to go there with students. 55:40 Christoph As I mentioned before, like, teaching in the field is very different from teaching in a lecture room because the motivation is different, the setting is different, the inspiration for students is 55:51 Christoph right in front of them. As you said, like when you see the finches, they pick up on the differences without us having to point them out. 56:00 Christoph So it makes teaching a bit easier because again, students are usually motivated to ask questions. 56:07 Given Yeah. 56:07 Christoph So I don't have to sort of try to inspire them. And it's also for myself. 56:13 Christoph If you— one of the things we often do is go snorkeling, and then you come back out and somebody has seen something that I haven't seen. 56:21 Christoph And so we tell each other what we saw. So it's a very different type of exchange and interactions. 56:27 Christoph And that whole unpredictability of what we see is part of the joy of, again, being in the field and doing the teaching. 56:37 Derek Me personally, I enjoy even being in the lab in our course, being able to experience, uh, to look at specimen and compare that to what is shown in lecture slides. 56:49 Derek Yeah, I feel like it's pretty cool seeing the lecture right in front of my eyes, you know? 56:54 Derek Absolutely. 56:54 Christoph And, you know, in a way, there are degrees to which this experiential learning, as it's called, sort of can happen. 57:01 Christoph And labs are definitely a good first approach to this, that you see the material, you can touch it, right? You can feel it. Yeah, absolutely. 57:11 Derek You ran a virtual version of the course back in 2021. 57:15 Given Yes. 57:16 Derek What did you learn about what's actually irreplaceable about being physically present versus what can survive being remote? 57:26 Christoph That's a good question. And that's a I don't— my quick answer is it's not the same. 57:35 Derek Definitely. 57:37 Christoph And it never can be because you're not in the place. 57:42 Christoph There's definitely like the whole aspect of not knowing what we're going to see out there is gone. 57:49 Derek Yeah. 57:50 Christoph The fact that you have to improvise, that the weather might not be great. 57:54 Christoph Somebody who was supposed to be there may not be there. 57:57 Christoph All of that stuff isn't— it's different online. Also, we're not together, right? 58:04 Christoph Where everybody's in a little box on the screen. And so that whole idea of exchanging, you know, like on these trips, we usually have 2 groups of students that go on different boats. 58:14 Christoph And at the end of the day, there's big chats about what everyone saw. 58:18 Derek Sounds wonderful. 58:19 Christoph And that's crucial, right? Because everyone, you suddenly are an expert on blue-footed boobies because you saw them out there, right? 58:25 Christoph And you tell your colleagues, hey, we saw these, they were doing this. 58:28 Christoph And then they tell you about their hammerhead sharks that they saw. Online, it's not there. 58:34 Given No. 58:36 Christoph So it was definitely, it was better than not doing anything. 58:41 Christoph But, and we had a cooking class, so we had actually a chef from the university we work with in Ecuador do an instruction that he cooked an Ecuadorian meal, which was nice, but It didn't replace being on location, being on the land. 59:00 Derek If somebody wanted to emulate exactly what you do, follow you and your exact career path, what steps would they need to take right now? 59:10 Derek Let's say starting in their 3rd or their 4th year. 59:16 Christoph I think first of all, don't emulate exactly what I did. 59:20 Christoph find your own interest and your own focus and your own drive. 59:25 Christoph And if it is teaching, I would definitely try to see whether you can— so what, for in our first year in Bio 153, we have, you can volunteer for the labs as an undergrad student. 59:38 Christoph That's a great opportunity. You sort of, you're not teaching the labs, but you're in the lab. 59:43 Christoph You help your colleagues, your undergrad colleagues to understand material. 59:47 Christoph So that definitely would be one thing. And then I would look for opportunities to TA or to work in contexts where you can help people understand. 59:58 Christoph It doesn't have to be bio. It could be something else. 1:00:02 Christoph We've had students who are swimming instructors. So I would find your angle. 1:00:08 Christoph I would find the interest that you want to pursue. 1:00:11 Christoph Again, if it's teaching, I would find any opportunity you can. 1:00:15 Christoph to be in a teaching context. And actually, the other thing, I would go into the courses you're taking and closely watch the profs and figure out for yourself, why is this prof, what they're doing, 1:00:30 Christoph why does that work for me? What is it that I like about this? 1:00:34 Christoph And then sort of think about what makes the difference in what works for you. 1:00:38 Christoph And maybe talk to some of your friends in the course and say, This is what I think is great. 1:00:42 Christoph Do you think— do you agree? And they might say, no, I think this drives me crazy. 1:00:46 Christoph But just think about— start thinking about teaching if that is your interest. 1:00:53 Derek What's the unglamorous logistical side of running these trips that nobody else sees? 1:00:59 Derek Like permits, liabilities, weathers, or even a student falling sick at 2 AM? 1:01:05 Christoph Yep. All of those are part of it for sure. I think the biggest thing is the time commitment. 1:01:15 Christoph For the Dominican Republic trip, we literally leave on Saturday after— at the beginning of the— before the reading break, and we come back on Sunday at the very end of the reading break. 1:01:25 Christoph And then on Monday afternoon after that, we have the next lecture. 1:01:29 Derek It's terrible. 1:01:30 Christoph The whole reading break is gone. Yeah, you haven't had a chance. 1:01:35 Christoph We tell the students when we go, Don't bring any work. 1:01:38 Christoph We won't have time for you to write an essay on there while we're out there. 1:01:42 Christoph So it is a huge time commitment. And you're— we're together morning to evening. 1:01:51 Christoph We have meals together, we travel together. And you got to be able— you got to be willing to do that. 1:01:57 Christoph You got to have patience with each other. You know, it's not always like I'm not— I have my downtime too, where I'd rather not be in a bus full of 20 other people. 1:02:08 Given Yeah. 1:02:09 Christoph So everybody needs their— you know, you got to be patient with each other and you got to be willing to put yourself in the mind frame of traveling with a group and being willing to cut maybe back a 1:02:22 Christoph little bit on what you would normally do, on what you like to do necessarily, because Again, and this brings me back to why I continue doing this, it is an immense privilege to be able to do these 1:02:36 Christoph kind of courses and do these trips with students. 1:02:39 Christoph And seeing, as you mentioned before, seeing students react to the kind of things we show them or that we see together, that's worth it. Every time. 1:02:51 Derek What's a myth about marine biology as a career that you wish more incoming students had unlearned? before declaring their major? 1:03:03 Christoph That's a tough question. I think one of them, and this is probably more general about science, is that everything happens all the time. 1:03:16 Christoph You don't have to wait for things. It's like in the documentaries. 1:03:22 Christoph Everything takes time. Research takes time. So I think that is really the biggest thing. 1:03:28 Christoph You need to be patient and you need to be able to say, you need to know why you want to do this. I think that's the most important thing. 1:03:37 Derek Cool. 1:03:37 Christoph I'm not sure if there's necessarily a myth about marine science out there. 1:03:42 Christoph It is very competitive. Lots of people want to do it. 1:03:45 Christoph There's only a few places because it's very expensive. 1:03:47 Christoph But again, if you You know, I wanted to end up doing this, but I didn't know where they would work out. 1:03:57 Christoph And so having one of my committee members from a master's student says, if you have a plan A, make a plan B, make a plan C, and make a plan D so that you can always— you have options if things don't quite work out the way that you think. 1:04:16 Derek For a student who loves fieldwork but isn't sure they want the traditional research professor track, what should they know about the teaching stream path? 1:04:30 Christoph They should know that there's also research involved. 1:04:32 Christoph If research is not your cup of tea, then teaching stream, at least in the way it's understood here, maybe may not be quite the thing either, because we are expected to do research. 1:04:45 Christoph It is and to some extent pedagogical, which is somewhat different from biological stuff, but it's still research. 1:04:54 Christoph If you are not necessarily into research and you're big time into teaching, then yeah, this is the job for you. 1:05:01 Christoph The other thing is that there are also jobs outside of academia that if you don't want to do a PhD, but you do love the fieldwork, are great opportunities. 1:05:11 Christoph I had a friend of mine who I worked with during my master's, he was exactly like this. 1:05:16 Christoph He didn't want to do a PhD. He didn't want to have to write grants, but he loved being out on boats, you know, doing fish population studies. 1:05:25 Christoph And so he became a tech for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. 1:05:29 Christoph He did a master's and then he applied for a technician job, a field technician. 1:05:36 Christoph And that's exactly what he loves doing. And so there are plenty of— or there are jobs like this for NGOs, so non-governmental organizations, in government agencies, where you basically do the 1:05:50 Christoph hands-on work. You're in the field and you're doing sort of that part, but you don't have to worry about all of the money parts and that kind of stuff if that's not your interest. 1:06:03 Derek What's one concrete thing a biology student could do this year to put themselves on a path towards something like a career? 1:06:10 Derek Research, travel, teaching, a mix, or all these 3? 1:06:18 Christoph Stay curious and talk to people. Talk to profs, talk to anybody who does work that they're interested in. 1:06:27 Christoph Don't be shy. We all love what we do. And I mean, I'm sitting with you here talking about this and I enjoy it. 1:06:35 Christoph So I would say, yeah, don't— I mentioned this before— don't think that there's one correct way to get to where I am or where you might plan to be. 1:06:45 Christoph Most people's path was somewhat circuitous, some more than others, but there's no right way as long as you're doing what you love doing. 1:06:55 Given Mm-hmm. 1:06:56 Christoph That's mostly— that's great. So yeah, what I would say is Stay open to new opportunities, stay curious, and talk to people. 1:07:09 Christoph Another great place, university, is a university like this. 1:07:13 Christoph You have plenty of people here who are willing to tell their story and talk a bit about their work. 1:07:18 Christoph So I would definitely talk to the grad students, the TAs that you work with. Yeah, talk to people. 1:07:27 Derek Okay, thank you so much, Dr. Richter. So thank you everybody for tuning in today to today's episode of So You Studied Bio. And we'll catch you guys in the next episode. 1:08:52 Derek Prof. Richter's journey shows us that you don't need to have your entire career figured out from the beginning. 1:09:00 Derek From working with harbour porpoises and sperm whales to becoming a teaching stream professor, his story shows how the skills you build in one area of biology can carry into opportunities you may have 1:09:11 Derek never expected. One of the biggest takeaways was that being a scientist goes beyond grades or technical knowledge. 1:09:19 Derek Critical thinking, patience, collaboration, and learning to trust your own expertise can be just as important. 1:09:26 Derek Professor Richter also reminded us to stay flexible, stay curious, and be open to different ways that you could use your biology degree. 1:09:35 Derek A huge thank you to Prof Richter for sharing his journey and advice with us today. 1:09:39 Derek And thank you for watching the So You Study Bio podcast, and we hope to see you in the next episode. Take care.
