Prof. Sanja Hinić-Frlog traces a path from evolutionary biology, fossil birds, and paleontology fieldwork into teaching and educational leadership. She reflects on how museum collections, remote digs, experiential learning, and community-building shaped both her research and the way she now helps students learn biology at UTM.
Transcript click a line to jump the video Hide Transcript▴ 00:01 Derek Can I, can I ask you a question, please? 00:03 Given Yeah, what's up? 00:06 Derek Be honest with me. 00:07 Given Yeah. 00:07 Derek Do you think birds are real? 00:11 Given Do I think birds are real? 00:13 Derek Yeah. 00:15 Given Uh, I mean, I know that birds are real, yes. 00:17 Derek Okay, no, no, no, that's— I, I can beg to differ because— 00:22 Given What are you talking about? 00:24 Derek I have proof that Birds are actually spies sent by the government to spy on us. 00:30 Given Birds are spies by the government? 00:33 Derek Yeah. 00:33 Given Why would the— why, why would the government do that? 00:36 Derek To know what we're doing. 00:38 Given Bro, you can— it's a bird. It eats, like, it flies. 00:42 Derek And it watches. 00:44 Given Okay, okay, so you, you really think that— 00:47 Derek I, I know, not think. I know that they're fake. 00:50 Given Bro, you should go on the Reddit. You should go on UTM Reddit. 00:53 Derek Okay, I'll post it on Reddit. 00:55 Given Yeah, post it. 00:56 Derek Let's see what people say. 00:56 Given Let's see what people say. 00:58 Derek Okay, I'm pausing right now. I'm pausing right now. 01:00 Given Who do you think is really gonna agree with you? 01:01 Derek I'm asking Siri too. I'm asking Siri. 01:03 Given Bro, do you see that? Who is she? 01:06 Derek What? 01:07 Given Why is she coming over here? 01:08 Sanja What are you boys talking about? 01:11 Given This guy thinks that birds aren't even real. 01:14 Sanja Oh, come on. Let's go talk about it. 01:22 Given Hey guys, welcome back to the So You Studied Bio podcast. 01:26 Given My name is Given, and behind the camera is your co-host Derek. 01:30 Given Today we are lucky to be joined by Professor Sonja. 01:33 Derek Hello. 01:34 Given So, Professor Sonja, for those who do not know you, what is it that you do? 01:40 Sanja Well, hello everybody. I am an associate professor teaching stream in the Department of Biology where I teach large, typically large second-year anatomy and physiology courses. 01:52 Sanja I also teach ornithology and biomechanics. I also serve as Associate Dean Teaching and Learning in the Dean's Office. 02:01 Sanja I'm currently also on research leave, so I'm, you know, having a little bit more time than usual. 02:08 Given Than usual. Okay, fantastic. And now, what is your background? 02:13 Given Where are you coming from? What did you take in undergraduate? 02:17 Sanja Oh, so I did my undergrad at Queen's University, and I moved here as an intern— well, At the time, not an international student, but I moved from Serbia to Canada. So it was a very new experience. 02:33 Given It's different, right? 02:34 Sanja Yes, very different. 02:34 Given And how was Queen's? Did you like Queen's? 02:36 Sanja I really enjoyed Queen's. There was— it was hard as somebody who was new to the country. 02:43 Sanja But after first year of finding your people, it was wonderful. 02:47 Given Yes. Awesome. 02:48 Sanja And finding your fellow biologists, I guess. 02:51 Given And what pulled you towards— because you leaned into the evolutionary biology sphere, what pulled you into that? 02:58 Sanja It was probably courses at Queen's. So there was some— what I noticed, like in first and second year, we had a lot of very general courses, but in third year, we started taking some more specific 03:11 Sanja courses on specific topics. Some of my favourites were animal behaviour courses, and in those courses we talked about a lot about competition, mate choice, and that led into discussions of both 03:26 Sanja natural and sexual selection. So this was something that— and it was all about— a lot of examples were about birds. 03:32 Sanja So, and we watched a lot of cool nature videos in those classes. 03:37 Sanja Yeah, that's awesome. So it was definitely something that opened up my curiosity towards learning more about how Birds evolved. 03:46 Given Okay, awesome. Do you think that because you started doing paleontology with birds, do you think that there is maybe a specific course or a person that led you into that or made you feel more inclined to learn more? 04:01 Sanja Yeah, definitely. So I think it started with some of those generally kind of being curious about birds and origins of birds through those animal behavior courses, as I mentioned. 04:10 Sanja But there was 2 courses that because of that curiosity, I decided to take. 04:16 Sanja And one of them was a paleontology course in actually a different department, an Earth Sciences department. 04:22 Sanja It was taught by Guy Narbonne, which I remember the names of those 2 profs that were, I think, probably most important in helping me, not necessarily the profs themselves, but probably the profs and 04:36 Sanja the content helping me figure out what it is that I want to do next. 04:40 Derek Okay. 04:41 Sanja We learned there how organisms fossilize, how fossilization impacts how you understand biology. 04:50 Sanja We learned about geology and evolution on a macro scale, so a much larger scale. 04:57 Sanja Then I also took a field ornithology course, so a field bird course in the summer by Colleen Barber. 05:07 Sanja I think in this case, Guy was also amazing, but we were outside together for 2 weeks, and Colleen was— or Dr. 05:15 Sanja Barber was really amazing in helping us learn some research methods for the first time in a very short time span of 2 weeks. 05:23 Sanja And it was all, for some reason, all individuals who identified as women, and we had a great time in the field. Okay, you just saw it everywhere. 05:35 Given Awesome. So what does a day on a fossil dig actually look like? 05:42 Sanja So fossil dig, so if you're depending on, like, I started, or my first experience was as a field assistant, I guess. 05:50 Sanja So it would probably depend on the project. The first experience that I, because of these interests in fossil and birds, I kind of stumbled upon an experience that was a volunteer-based experience in 06:03 Sanja Alberta. So in that experience, you're, as a beginner, you're kind of given tasks of looking out, like walking around, prospecting, looking for fossils. 06:14 Derek Okay. 06:15 Sanja So if you see something, you call it out, people look at it, they say it's nothing a lot of the times. 06:21 Sanja And a lot of the times you're just kind of learning to recognize what a fossil looks like in the field and how to recognize when there's potential for finding more. 06:29 Sanja You're also prepping the fossils for— the idea is that once the fossils are found in the field, you have to prep them them out so they can be brought to the lab for further preparation. 06:41 Sanja So a lot of early mornings, long days, lots of sunshine. 06:46 Sanja I have to remember to drink water. I remember we were in Alberta Badlands and there's no shade. 06:51 Given Yeah. 06:52 Sanja And I had a moment where I was literally hiding behind one tiny hill with water. 07:00 Sanja So it's— there's— it comes with You have to be okay with doing hard work, lifting things, walking a lot. 07:09 Given Being involved. Being involved and getting your hands dirty a little bit. 07:12 Sanja Exactly. And also you're responsible for each other, for each other's safety, for each other's hydration levels, and feeding each other. 07:19 Sanja So we also prep food. So it's really kind of a communal type of living. 07:24 Given That's very cool. Now, would you say, because you've traveled, you've been in Alberta, you've been to China, Germany. 07:33 Given Is there something that really stayed with you all of those years or on a specific part of those journeys? 07:39 Sanja Do you mean kind of in terms of the field experience itself? 07:43 Given In general, because, well, I'm sure to travel and do biology, that's one thing, right? 07:48 Given And then specifically what you're doing in the field is— 07:51 Sanja Yes, I think what stayed with me probably the most is moments of those community building. 08:00 Sanja Okay. Like, because you're— when you're traveling, you're usually in a place you've never been before. 08:06 Sanja You're usually in those field experiences with people you've never met before. 08:10 Given Okay. 08:10 Sanja So there's a certain discomfort that becomes kind of comfort. 08:15 Given Yeah. 08:16 Sanja And becomes the— like, those are the people that you connect with. 08:20 Given Okay. 08:20 Sanja for probably for the remainder of your life, like in some cases. 08:24 Sanja So you build some friendships and some networks, I guess, through those experiences. 08:29 Sanja So I think for me, the moments were that I remember when we had to problem solve together. 08:36 Sanja So like usually it's like with fieldwork in paleontology, like when you find something, you're in a remote area. So how do you get that something to a lab? 08:46 Derek Okay. 08:47 Sanja Sometimes it's just like in Alberta, I remember we were prepping a fossil. 08:53 Sanja It was pretty large, and I forget the species of the dinosaurs, but it was a large, large specimen that we had to plaster. 09:01 Sanja So you plaster the bottom of it and then dig it out, and helicopter literally lifted it off and took it to a lab because there was no way we could have driven. 09:11 Derek Physically, yeah. 09:12 Sanja Because it's what you drive to a certain location and then you walk. 09:15 Sanja So it's pretty remote. And then similar experiences in China where we had to problem solve. 09:22 Sanja This time you don't always have a luxury of a helicopter. 09:26 Sanja That's not a very common thing. So you have to figure out, okay, we have to walk like 10K to where we are. 09:35 Sanja How do we carry it? So you build kind of like, just like if you had injured person, you kind of try to build something, makeshift something to travel to. 09:44 Given Amazing. 09:44 Sanja Amazing. carry specimens out. And all of those are problem-solving, team-building type of experiences in the moment, right? 09:53 Sanja They're like everybody just jumps in and you figure it out. 09:56 Sanja Yeah. So I think those are the best parts of the travel to those places. That was kind of in common to all of them. 10:03 Given Now, you were affiliated with Carleton's vertebrate paleontology program, and you later taught paleontology and geology courses there at UC Davis. 10:14 Given So how did being in the field change what you chose to then emphasize in your classroom teaching? 10:21 Sanja Yeah, so when I was— correct, like, I was teaching in geology and paleontology both at UC Davis and then a sessional lecturer at Carleton. 10:31 Sanja Because I was doing those as a sessional lecturer, sometimes what you can do in the curriculum is a little bit limited. 10:39 Sanja So it's basically what I was— but I do recognize when I was actually reflecting on this question, I thought that one of the things that I was already doing at that time is my assessments were not 10:53 Sanja always just typical tests. They were, but there was questions that were based on, you know, imagine like— because we talked a lot about some of the— what field experiences would look like in the 11:05 Sanja course. What would they achieve? So it was more about You're in the field, you're finding this, look at the preservation bias. 11:12 Sanja How would you, like, looking at the preservation bias in the fossil, how would you change what you understand functionally about the animal? 11:20 Sanja Or it would be even like, here's a fossil, you only see this part. 11:24 Sanja How would you— what do we know? How do you— what do we conclude about it? 11:27 Sanja So it was more applied type of questions based on the conversations we had. 11:31 Given That's really cool. Now, back in 2009, I think you had a talk at Carleton called The Locomotion of Fossil Avians and Aquatic Transitions in Birds. 11:42 Given What were you trying to teach? What were you trying to answer here? 11:46 Sanja So this was actually my PhD. So it was— what I focused on in my PhD was understanding how different locomotion evolved in birds. 12:00 Sanja things like locomotion, meaning different types of locomotor modes. 12:04 Sanja Okay. Yeah. So, flight, swimming, and so forth. So, in order to really understand this, you need to understand, like, how— I was focused on swimming— how swimming evolved in birds. 12:18 Sanja You also need to understand what type of locomotion fossil birds had. 12:24 Sanja And we have limited amount of information on behaviors, of course, because we only have bones. 12:29 Given Right. 12:29 Sanja So what my PhD was about was really to use skeletal information to understand, to give clues about what kind of birds. What kind of movement? 12:39 Given Exactly. 12:39 Sanja What kind of— sorry, locomotion they would exist. 12:41 Given Yeah, what kind of movement are they doing? 12:43 Sanja So it's— that's really what this talk was about, or my PhD was about, is kind of just trying to understand what skeletal information we can use to determine early fossil locomotor modes, and then 12:56 Sanja understanding how then that swimming looks across bird lineage. 13:02 Given Okay, so you kind of— did you find yourself comparing then to different, like, species? 13:07 Sanja Yeah, exactly. So I would have a suite of measurements taken, like, my true field site is museum collections. 13:14 Given Okay, awesome, yeah. 13:16 Sanja So I spent a lot of time in the museum collections measuring birds, bird skeletons, and then using those measurements to extrapolate, kind of, if I have a fossil measurement, where we would live in 13:28 Sanja that— we call that morphospace, or space of shape. 13:32 Sanja Like, is it more like a loon? Is it more like a grebe? 13:36 Sanja Is it swimming more? Is it flying more? Things like that. 13:40 Given Okay, that's really cool. Well, I appreciate these answers. 13:44 Given Really, really interesting stuff so far. We're gonna head right into the second half, so we'll catch you guys in just a second. 14:56 Derek Okay, welcome back everybody to the second half of episode 8 of the So You Study Bio podcast. 15:01 Derek So let's get straight into it. So what does your work look like now that you're on the pedagogical side of things? 15:10 Sanja Uh, so It looks very different. I don't do as much fieldwork, but I can probably consider fieldwork, the fieldwork that I do in classes that I teach. 15:21 Sanja So although I didn't have a chance to do as much experiential learning maybe early on in my career, it's a very fundamental part of my teaching right now. 15:31 Sanja So things like experiential learning, so learning by doing, usually that's fieldwork-based for in my classes. 15:40 Derek Yeah. 15:40 Sanja active learning, those are all really important elements for me because maybe we all do this, but I'm trying to probably recreate some of the opportunities that I had as a student that resonated with me. 15:54 Derek Yeah. 15:55 Sanja They may not resonate with every student, but I do find that it is a good combo, like those experiential learning, active learning, and adding flexibility where you can add flexibility so students 16:10 Sanja can learn safely, or maybe fail safely, in at least some components of the course. 16:17 Sanja All those together, I think, create opportunities to maybe, for students, have memorable moments of something they've learned, or maybe a particular moment they remember, just like when you are in the field, your senses open differently. 16:34 Derek Yeah. 16:34 Sanja You're listening to what is happening outside, and you're learning differently. 16:40 Sanja And I also, maybe for some of them, it'll also be opportunity to think about what's next. 16:46 Sanja Because sometimes it could also be that, oh, I know I don't want to do this, and that's a very good thing to learn. 16:54 Derek Now, how does traveling for science differ from traveling as a tourist? 16:59 Derek What do you actually get to see of a country when you're there for dig or band birds? 17:05 Sanja I've never traveled for the banding birds part, but for digs for sure. 17:10 Sanja Actually, I take that back because we did take students to Ecuador through our ornithology course, or as associated with our ornithology course. 17:18 Sanja You get to see how it's different, is you get to see places that you probably wouldn't see as a tourist. 17:24 Sanja You go— you get to go to more remote areas. You stay with community, local communities. 17:30 Sanja You work with local communities if they will have you and if they want you to work there, which is very important. 17:35 Sanja Some to actually have that conversation with whoever you're working with. 17:41 Sanja So I think it's different in the sense that you probably live a little bit more very temporarily, like maybe part of the local community would, although they will always do their best to give you their best. 17:54 Derek Yeah. 17:55 Sanja So there's limits to how much you're getting spoiled by the local community, or not there's limits, they will They will do their best to host you. 18:05 Given Yeah. 18:06 Sanja But you definitely don't— I don't think as a tourist you get to see those places, and you're not on a tour bus, you're not with other tourists, you're immersed in at least partly the life that the 18:22 Sanja local community would live, and that's the best part. 18:26 Sanja A lot of the times when we were in China, they were feeding us a lot, we were having conversations a lot. 18:33 Sanja It's just different. You get to build relationships. there as well. 18:38 Derek Did seeing these animals extinct or living in such a different landscape change how you think about them scientifically? 18:48 Sanja Yes, I think so, because you only get to, I think, see or notice certain things when you are up close and personal to those animals. 19:04 Sanja So with bird banding, when you're holding a bird, you get to see features. 19:09 Sanja You have a privilege of like, you're like, oh my goodness, seeing something so up close and personal. 19:15 Sanja You see the details of the feather, you see the details of coloration. 19:20 Sanja You just— even like something that maybe seems like a simple bird, like a house sparrow that you see all day, you see the intricacies of— You're in awe. 19:29 Sanja Exactly, you're in awe is how I would say it. So I think That awe, it could be about complexity, it could be about— I was always in awe when I was holding specimens that were 100 million years old, 19:47 Sanja or they look so different than anything we see in animals today. 19:51 Sanja The patella of one of the birds I was looking at is this huge triangular knee bone, which our knee bone is totally different. 19:59 Sanja Yeah, it's crazy. And even bird There are some birds that have that patella that's triangular but much smaller. 20:06 Given Mm-hmm. 20:07 Sanja So anyhow, all this to say, you just see— you're in awe and you see the details that make you appreciate life that has evolved on Earth. 20:18 Sanja And I think it also makes you appreciate what we have. 20:21 Sanja And for me, it's kind of wanting to share that knowledge with students, but also sharing the passion that we need to protect what we have. 20:30 Derek Yeah. Part of your current research looks at how field-based teaching affects students' learning. 20:37 Derek After everything you've done in the field yourself, what do you think students lose when a course never leaves a lecture hall? 20:44 Sanja So my first— oh, what do I think they lose? 20:47 Given Hmm. 20:49 Sanja I thought you said, do you think students lose? 20:51 Derek And I'm like, yes. 20:51 Sanja I mean, no, it depends. Okay, so what do students lose? 20:56 Sanja I think students may not lose anything, and the reason I say this is because it's important that as a teacher we teach in the way that we're most comfortable because that will create best student experiences. 21:11 Given Yeah. 21:12 Sanja So not every teacher or a lecturer or instructor or faculty member will want to, or can connect to teaching outdoors. 21:21 Sanja So if that's your thing, then I think students can gain some things. 21:25 Sanja And I think what— for me, when you're outside in the field, um, you're just— your alert levels are different. 21:36 Derek Yeah. 21:36 Sanja Like, you are walking on the ground, you're seeing trees, you're hearing birds, you're listening to birds, you're observing automatically your surroundings differently. 21:47 Sanja And think about when you're When then you add, let's teach or problem solve in that space about something that you see in that space, I think it's much more applicable. 22:00 Sanja It's much more something that you can connect to. 22:03 Sanja It's like if I asked you a question to problem solve on a test, like, okay, if you're in a field, what would you do here and here? 22:11 Sanja It's a little bit different than being in the field with your 10 peers. 22:15 Derek Yeah, you're fully immersed. 22:16 Sanja And I say, okay, go find this bird, or like, let's, let's maybe see how bird— what birds we hear and how that has changed over time. 22:26 Sanja Like, I think there's, there's differences in how you— readiness to maybe receive but also discuss different types of information that's shared outdoors. 22:41 Sanja Not to mention that some of it is directly applicable to what you're doing. 22:45 Sanja In field ornithology, we have to be outside to teach those techniques. 22:51 Derek If a biology student today asked you how to build a career with this much travel and fieldwork in it, what's the first thing that you would tell them? 23:01 Sanja I think I would tell them find a course with those opportunities embedded in them or ROP or something like that that you can Because that will— creating those first opportunities will open doors. 23:16 Sanja I think I would also— maybe, maybe I have 2 things. 23:21 Derek That's okay. 23:21 Sanja I would also ask— suggest to them to reflect on what are your life goals? 23:31 Sanja What are your— where do you want to be in like 5, 10 years from now? 23:35 Sanja Because with this much travel and this much fieldwork, there's probably certain things you want to do. 23:43 Sanja Maybe you want to do them earlier rather than later. 23:46 Sanja I think there's a little bit of— because I went through all of this without— it just opportunity showed up and I went for it. 23:54 Sanja But I also, reflecting back, I wonder if there was— I reflected later on in my life, and I think that's part of thinking about what do you want to accomplish through these is something that would be 24:07 Sanja a valuable exercise to go through. But I think for sure, just take a course with it because it'll open up doors, right? 24:15 Sanja One, one opportunity like that leads to another, if that's what you want. 24:20 Derek And I guess I would like to ask, do you think it's really competitive to get into these sort of courses where students can be directly in the line of work? 24:32 Sanja I don't think so. I think there's many ROPs that have field experiences embedded in them. 24:38 Sanja I know ROPs are competitive, but I think there's different types of ROPs. 24:44 Sanja Not everything has to be about animals. We have beautiful plants and beautiful plant ROPs. 24:50 Sanja There's also opportunities to maybe look up volunteering in the lab. 24:56 Sanja There's Riverwood Conservancy, there's Credit Valley Conservation in Mississauga. 25:00 Sanja Saga. There might be other volunteering opportunities to look this up. 25:05 Sanja Going back to the courses, some of them have— like, if you get into the course, you will have those experiences embedded in them. 25:13 Sanja There's even ecology in second year has those. That's something. 25:18 Sanja You also have ornithology with those field experiences embedded in it. 25:22 Sanja So sometimes it's, it's really something that already exists in a Mm-hmm. 25:27 Sanja That if you're in a program, you would have access to registering for that course. 25:33 Given Yeah. 25:34 Derek You led UTM's first open access textbook, Introductory Animal Physiology, and you're now interim associate dean. 25:42 Derek How does someone who spent years on remote digs end up reshaping how thousands of students learn anatomy and physiology? 25:51 Sanja This is a hard question. 25:53 Given It's okay. 25:55 Sanja In a good way. Also, it made me realize, oh my God, I feel like I'm disconnected person. 26:02 Sanja But then I thought about it and I think I was looking for connection of what is— how do those early experiences— how did I end up here? 26:15 Sanja And I think what is really common, what I craved as a human always is building relationships. 26:23 Sanja And I think for me, those early challenging experiences where you're in uncomfortable setting, you're learning to be uncomfortable, you're learning through being uncomfortable. 26:35 Sanja What you always had was that community that you were with that you built while you were on those fossil digs in a remote area. 26:42 Derek Yeah. 26:44 Sanja And I find that how I've worked here since I've been at UTM and how I think what's in my core is building relationships and communities. 26:54 Sanja And that's really my pedagogical focus as well, is that when you are able to build that community in the classroom, you get that same experience where you can do hard things together. 27:10 Derek Yeah. 27:10 Sanja And students doing hard things together, but also me. 27:14 Sanja We're a community, we're working together. And I think if you approach it from that lens, then you can, and you have diverse voices that can build those mini communities in a large classroom. I think that's really cool. It works. 27:33 Derek Do you have any advice for a student who wants to study this, and what early steps can they take? 27:43 Sanja I think for field courses and paleontology in general, I think it would be a very similar answer to to my previous answer, which is try it out. 27:54 Sanja Try it out in the courses that you have access to. 28:00 Sanja Don't be shy to ask for help if you don't know where or how to get to those resources or courses or ROPs. 28:09 Sanja Ask around, get help. But I think really, I think it starts with course, finding the course, figuring out which courses you may want to try out. 28:22 Sanja Talk to your profs, talk to your undergrad advisors, and just try things out. That's it. 28:30 Derek Thank you so much, Professor Sonja, for your time. 28:32 Derek We really appreciate you making time for us for today's podcast. 28:36 Sanja My pleasure. 28:37 Derek For the viewers back at home, thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode, and we'll catch you in the next episode. 29:39 Derek Prof. Sonia's journey shows us that sometimes you discover your career one experience at a time. 29:44 Derek From animal behavior and paleontology to field courses and fossil digs, each experience helped shape where she sits right now. 29:53 Derek One of the biggest takeaways was the importance of learning by doing. 29:57 Derek ROPs, volunteering, field courses, and other hands-on opportunities can help you build up these skills, but they can also help you discover what you enjoy and where you might want to take your 30:08 Derek career. And you don't need to travel across the world to get started. 30:12 Derek Sometimes all it takes is trying out a new course or just asking about an opportunity. 30:18 Derek A huge thank you to Professor Sanya for sharing her journey with us. 30:22 Derek Thank you for watching the So You Study Bio podcast, and we'll hope to see you in the next episode. Take care. 30:27 Given Bye.
