Melissa DeBiasse on Coping with Environmental Stress
When an animal’s home conditions change, they have four options: move, acclimate, evolve, or die. Dr. Melissa DeBiasse, former postdoc in Dr. Morgan Kelly’s lab at Louisiana State University, shares how genetics can help determine which option they will choose, how she studies copepods and their adaptations, and what she’d tell her younger self now that’s she’s a postdoc in the Ryan Lab at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida.
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Transcript
Becky Carmichael
[0:01] This is Experimental where we explore exciting research occurring at the Louisiana State University and learn about the individuals posing the question. I'm Becky Carmichael. Melissa DeBiasse, former member of Morgan Kelly's lab in Biological Sciences, and a current postdoc at the University of Florida Whitney lab for marine bio science joins us to discuss her work on how organisms adapt to environmental stressors, and how this may inform us about climate change responses.
Melissa DeBiasse
[0:31] Have you ever wondered why certain plants and animals can be found in some places but not in others? Many different factors determine where species can exist, but one of the most important factors is an organism's physiological tolerance, which describes the range of environmental and climatic conditions in which it can occur. These environmental conditions include things like temperature, altitude, rainfall, humidity, and in the case of aquatic organisms salinity. My research in the Kelly lab at Louisiana State University focuses on how organisms respond to environmental stressors, particularly temperature and salinity, and tries to understand how populations will respond to climate change. Over the last several decades, we have recorded unprecedented changes in environment and global climate. This is what we know is climate change. Cold places are getting warmer and wet places are getting drier. As sea level rises, coastal habitat is lost and saltwater intrudes into freshwater ecosystems. Plants and animals faced with changing climate have three options. First, they can move to new habitats where conditions are more favorable. Second, individuals can acclimate or adjust to new conditions, sort of like how you might put on a coat before going outside on a cold day, and three; over generations, populations can evolve to new environmental conditions. But if none of these options are available, the species won't be able to survive in the new conditions and it will go extinct. In my research in the Department of Biological Sciences at LSU, I study how organisms cope with environmental stressors, specifically heat and salinity stress, and predict how they will respond to climate change. I work on marine invertebrates including sponges, corals and seastars. My current research project in the Kelly lab focuses on copepods. These small crustaceans, distantly related to shrimp, live in splash pools along the coast of North America. I observe how the behaviors change when they're exposed to low and high salinity environments, and examined gene activation in their genomes. That is, looking to see which genes they turn on or off when they are coping with salinity stress. I'm also testing to see if they have one general stress response strategy, or if they have different strategies depending on the stressor they're facing. We have found that while all copepods are initially knocked out by salinity stress, copepods from San Diego, our southern study location, recover faster than copepods from Bodega Bay, our study site north of San Francisco. The genome data I collected tell us that the northern and southern copepods had similar patterns of gene activation under low salinity stress. But under high salinity stress, the southern copepods activate many more genes compared to Northern copepods. Taken together, these results show us the different populations respond to climate change in different ways and that some populations may not be able to survive as their environment becomes more stressful.
Mark DiTusa
[3:40] So we're interviewing Melissa DeBiasse here and we just heard that are her studies on copepods and ecology. We're really glad to have you here.
Melissa DeBiasse
[3:49] Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Mark DiTusa
[3:52] Yeah, no problem. Um, so how did you get into science like everyone has a different story, some people looked up to the stars and knew it was their calling. Some people just kind of realized that science was cool for some weird reason and just kind of slipped into it. So like, how did you end up where you are now?
Melissa DeBiasse
[4:11] Well, I've always loved being outside. And I've always been curious about nature. When I was younger, my parents took us to the zoo, to the aquarium, to nature centers. We spent a lot of summer vacations at the beach, I've always loved the ocean. And when I was in seventh grade, I loved my seventh grade Life Sciences class with Ms. Zimwalde. I'll never forget her. And that sort of in that time period in junior high, I knew I wanted to do something in biology. And I knew I wanted to do something with the with the ocean. And so as I sort of progressed, in my career, I was a biology major at Indiana University and decided that grad school seems like a great way to stay involved in biology and research. And that's kind of what set me on my path.
Mark DiTusa
[4:59] That's pretty cool. So, that's really interesting like you just kind of you took biology and you just were kind of like wow you know this this I really want to study animals in this way and and that's really cool. Um, so what did okay sorry I can't remember so Ms. Zimwalde is that the name of your teacher?
Melissa DeBiasse
[5:15] Ms. Zimwalde.
Mark DiTusa
[5:17] Ms. Zimwalde. So what about her class like really took your interest to the next level? I mean, I mean it might not of even took the next level just kind of like started that path.
Melissa DeBiasse
[5:27] I just remember really loving the subject matter because we talked about plants and animals. We talked about where they lived their habitats. And then in eighth grade, it was more of a kind of Earth Sciences. So we talked about geology and that sort of thing, which I also liked, but it was it was the life sciences, the animals, the plants, the habitats, that's what really hooked me.
Mark DiTusa
[5:49] Okay, so how do you rectify, so I guess it might not be so much your problem, but I know there's a lot of people who work with animals and kind of like animal testing. And I don't think you do anything like that. But I'm not sure if you have to harm an animal in your own field of work. But if you do, how do you rectify that? Like you'd love animals, but you kind of have to help them have to at least hurt one of them or multiple of them?
Melissa DeBiasse
[6:12] Sure. Well, one of the one of the great things about working with marine invertebrates, especially sponges and corals is that a lot of the most of the work that I do with them is non lethal. So I might take a tissue sample from a sponge, but the organism stays alive and unharmed. It's almost like if you were to get a haircut, you know, I'm just taking a small piece, I can do my research on that. I can extract DNA extract DNA from that tissue sample, and then the living sponge can stay happily on its coral reef. So I yeah, I think it would be harder if I worked on mice or birds, but working with invertebrates kind of allows you to get away from some of those moral ethical questions.
Mark DiTusa
[6:54] Yeah, okay, fair enough. You dodged that one. But, so okay. So you went to Indiana University, you said for undergraduate, and kind of plotting that path. So where did you go to graduate school?
Melissa DeBiasse
[7:06] I did a Master's at Southeastern University, which is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And that's when I started working on sponges and corals. Okay. And then from there, when I was a master's student, I was reading a lot of research work from Mike Hellberg, and I thought this guy does really cool work. I'm going to email him and see if he's accepting PhD students. And so I sent him an email, and he wrote back very enthusiastically, and I applied to LSU and got a spot in his lab. And I've been here ever since
Mark DiTusa
[7:36] I see. So that's interesting. So as someone who's about to graduate and go to grad school, specifically for a PhD, is it is it normal to go to one place for your masters and then apply somewhere else for your PhD or just kind of like I applied for a master's program? Oh, I want to keep on doing this. Let me go for my PhD kind of, I mean, I'm not sure who listening to this really wants to know exactly that information, but like, I'm just curious.
Melissa DeBiasse
[7:59] Yeah, no sure I think that that's a question that a lot of people at the end of their college career sort of grapple with. I was interested in research. But I didn't have a lot of research experience as an experience as an undergrad. So I thought I'll try the masters. It's usually a smaller time commitment. I'll see how I like it. And then if it's not for me, I can move on to a new career path. So I did the masters and I loved it, and decided to go for the PhD. But I think an equal probably an equal number of people go straight into a PhD from undergrad, I think it just depends on how clear you are and what your goals are and what you want to do, and how much research experience you've had.
Mark DiTusa
[8:39] Yeah, so I mean, in physics, for example, there's very little reason why you'd stop at a Masters for example, so like, that really isn't something that many people do, but like for example, in biology, that's a little bit more; there's a lot you can do with the biology masters and not necessarily go into research and go straight into a PhD. So that's interesting. So at Indiana University, did you not have the opportunity to do research there. Because I know at LSU, I mean, as far as I can tell, I was encouraged very highly to get involved with research there. Is Indiana kind of like was not on the up and up at that time.
Melissa DeBiasse
[9:11] No, Indiana University is an incredible research institution. I really have to blame this all on my own ignorance. There are incredible people in the biology department at LSU members of the National Academy even. When I was an undergrad, I played varsity water polo. That took up a lot, a lot, a lot of my time. And I think that I just wasn't aware that there were opportunities and research available to me until my senior year. And that's when I kind of thought, I need to figure out what I'm doing after I graduate. And I got involved working with a postdoc who was there, Jennifer Rudgers, and she was amazing. She kind of took me under her wing. I worked on some of her research projects. And that was sort of my baptism into research. The very, very tail end of my undergrad career.
Mark DiTusa
[9:56] That's funny. I mean, did you work on oceans?
Melissa DeBiasse
[10:02] No, I was actually
Mark DiTusa
[10:03] So it's not an actual baptism?
Melissa DeBiasse
[10:04] No, no, no, metaphorical. Yeah, I was actually working on a project, she was looking at the arthropod communities around these grasses and how they respond to fungal and to fight in the grasses. So I was looking at spiders under microscopes and trying to sort them into different categories.
Mark DiTusa
[10:22] Man, there's two different things I could branch off to here. But the thing I was thinking about earlier was so so something I always probe with, I've only done three of these so far. So but something I prob with each one of them is how do you kind of marry this interest in? How do you how do you have be happy? Good, so let me just rephrase that. So some people do jobs because they want to make money. That's, you know, there's some people who go specifically into becoming a doctor because they want to make money or being a lawyer. And that's not to say that people who don't do that don't do that for, you know, loving to help people or not sort of a strong sense of justice, but you know, that that's the thing. So, but I think that a lot of people who get PhDs, especially in like biology and chemistry, pure sciences, they do it because they really love it. And I want to know, kind of how you sort of married your interest with your jobs. You know, like, how did you find a job that you were like, I want to go in and do this every day?
Melissa DeBiasse
[11:18] Yeah. That's that's a great question. I was in graduate school for 10 years, which is a really long time. And my parents would often tease me, you know, when are you going to get a real job. And my ultimate career goal is to be a professor at a research university like LSU. And I think that to marry my job, and my interests, you really have to be passionate about it, because it's hard, and you have failures more often than successes. And it's not a nine to five job, Friday at five. I don't stop thinking about work till Monday, I think about it all the time. In the middle of the night, when I'm in the shower, when I'm cooking, when I'm running, I'm always thinking about it. So I think my job is my life, which might be depressing to some people, but I'm really passionate about it, and I love it. And so it brings me happiness, and I don't mind, having it sort of become a really big presence in my life.
Mark DiTusa
[12:17] Well, I think it's, I'm not gonna say easy, because it isn't easy. But I think that at least with biology, kind of having this passion for the outdoors for animals like that is it is at least a little bit more applicable. Whereas with me in physics, like I know, some people and again, I talked about myself on these interviews all the time, but I always edit that part out anyway. point being, I know some people who really get, you know, really into physics, like they've always you know, they love particle physics, they read books on that, that that's what they love. And like, you know, when I did physics, I'm in physics and chemistry double major. And the only reason why I did it was like, well, I like both kind of, so maybe I'll just do both. Like, it wasn't like, it just was kind of a weird decision. And, and honestly, like, you know, I like physics, but like my real hard these kind of lie with like video games and like those sorts of things. And I but I'm not pursuing that because I don't think I can make money with it. I really still I mean, I really do like physics and science, but I don't, I don't think that much about what I do yet. I'm only undergraduate.
Melissa DeBiasse
[13:14] Wait to you get to grad school.
Mark DiTusa
[13:16] Right? I mean, okay, fine. I will think about it a lot, because it's going to be in my life. But, you know, it's I'm not sure if it's something I'll love, love, love. And I'm not sure like, I'm I don't know how passionate I can feel about an inanimate object. But you know,
Melissa DeBiasse
[13:30] It is important to have a healthy work life balance. And one of the great things about working for Mike Hellberg at LSU and working with Morgan Kelly now and my position here as a postdoc is that they want you to work hard. They expect a lot. They have high standards, but they want you to be a person with a life. That's good. So I'm certainly not working seven days a week. Usually. Occasionally you get two phases in your project where it just has to happen. And then you know, you do it. But yeah, I am a person outside the last I promise.
Mark DiTusa
[14:00] Oh, and that's not what I was implying. Obviously, it just was kind of like, especially with, especially with science, I kind of get the idea that it
Melissa DeBiasse
[14:08] It can be all in all consuming.
Mark DiTusa
[14:10] Yeah, exactly. So okay. And then the other, what was the other exact way I wanted to go about it? Okay. Yeah. More fun question. So you mentioned that you got to study spiders under the microscope. And so my seventh grade biology teacher had like a hissing cockroach in her classroom and like she, I don't know, she, she loves weird things, and that's just kind of like her way of expressing that. And so I mean, she had other animals in there, too, including a newt. It was very, very cute. But point being like, do you like spiders? You know, do you? Do you like copepods? I don't know.
Melissa DeBiasse
[14:44] I love animals. Mosquitoes. I might draw the line at mosquitoes. Okay, because they bite and it's awful. But no, I love animals. I have two cats, three fish a lizard. I would have a menagerie if, if I had more time and money. So yeah, I love animals. There's, you know, some things I might not want to show up in my bed like a brown recluse or something, you know, the venomous spiders, but for the most part, yeah, I'm fascinated by all sorts of critters.
Mark DiTusa
[15:13] Yeah, it's just, I mean, I like house cats. But yeah, I'm not really like a huge animal fan in that sense. It's interesting to hear. Okay, so with your research right now, and as we were coming in you were talking about having to analyze data, and so okay, I guess one way I can go about this is so you love working in the field. But like a lot of your time, I mean, you have to do field work, but you also have to analyze this data that you're collecting. And so and so that that obviously probably wasn't exactly what I guess in grad school, you must have had done that a lot and getting your masters and PhD. So you must have known going into that that's what you're going to do. But how much do you enjoy that part of your job? Doing the data analysis and kind of doing the the dirty, the dirty work that isn't necessarily out in the field?
Melissa DeBiasse
[15:58] Right? Yeah. I mean, I initially was inspired by natural habitats and being out in the ocean. And now I'd say 90%, of what I do is behind a computer analyzing data. And that's been sort of a rough transition at times, because I do miss being out in the field. But I really, really like the data analysis side of it. And it's sort of a puzzle that you need to solve. And it's frustrating, but satisfying when you get it to work. And I found for myself, that if I can get out in the field occasionally get re- inspired by what I see that can you know, last me a while when I get back to the lab, and I'm working on data.
Mark DiTusa
[16:38] What are you doing right now? And I mean, you don't have to be like this week, but just kind of like general gist of your research and kind of maybe go a little bit more depth of what your studying recently.
Melissa DeBiasse
[16:48] Sure. Well, actually, exciting news, I submitted all of the work that I've been doing on the copepods last week
Mark DiTusa
[16:56] Nice.
Melissa DeBiasse
[16:56] So I finished analyzing the data, my advisor, Morgan and I wrote up the manuscript, and we sent it off to a journal to be peer reviewed. So that's sort of on the back burner until we get reviews back. And right now I'm working on a side project that I started when I was a grad student. So looking at how ocean acidification affects a species interaction between a sponge and a coral.
Mark DiTusa
[17:23] Okay.
Melissa DeBiasse
[17:24] So right now I'm analyzing the data for that project.
Mark DiTusa
[17:27] So how would that you know, change the interaction between the sponge and coral.
Melissa DeBiasse
[17:30] So on the project took place, we conducted the experiments in Panama, Bocas Del Toro, Panama, in the Caribbean Basin. And on coral reefs, you have competing processes. So corals are building the reef by creating that carbonate structure, and then other organisms like mollusks and bivalves and sponges, particularly bio eroded or they dissolve that structure away. So on a healthy reef, accretion or the growing of the reef outpaces the dissolving of the reef. But because of the way oceans are changing, because of climate change, we're seeing that balance shift. So we're putting a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. And a lot of that carbon dioxide is being absorbed into the ocean. And because that carbon dioxide is acidic, it's actually changing the pH of the ocean. So the ocean is becoming more acidic. And that means that organisms like corals, and crustaceans, and clams and oysters that have to build a shell makes it a lot harder for them to do that, because the water is acidic, and they tend to get dissolved in a way. So I'm looking at how this sponge coral species interaction changes when the water becomes more acidified.
Mark DiTusa
[18:53] Okay, that's really cool. So going back to some, something not as related to your research, but still a fun question. So what was your favorite mistake that you've made in the lab, or I guess, in science in general?
Melissa DeBiasse
[19:08] Sure, I guess the mistake that I learned the most from happened when I was doing my Masters. I was working on my master's degree, and I'd spent a lot of time trying to generate sequence data for this particular sponge that I was working on. It's a very common sponge in Florida, in the Caribbean. And he designed these special probes that go in, and you use those probes to sort of find the piece of DNA, the region of DNA that you're interested in, and then you can make lots and lots of copies through a process called PCR. And so I've been working on this project for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I finally got some sequence data back. And it turned out that I hadn't actually been focusing on the sponge, I'd been inadvertently developing or, or optimizing these probes for the tiny little, anemones that live on the outside of the sponge. And so I'd spent all this time trying to optimize primers for the sponge, and it ended up I'd actually been optimizing primers for this other organism that sort of lives on the outside of the sponge. And so that was kind of disheartening to go back and start again.
Mark DiTusa
[20:18] Yeah. I mean, were you able to least use that data like, oh, well, maybe we could use this an enemy data for something else? I don't know,
Melissa DeBiasse
[20:26] We thought that there might be a cool comparison, because we thought, okay, this anemone lives on the outside of the sponge, they might have similar patterns or different patterns, we could do like a comparative analysis. But, I don't know how to describe this without being like really technical.
Mark DiTusa
[20:45] Go ahead and do what you need to do. And if it's bad, it's bad. It's good. It's good.
Melissa DeBiasse
[20:50] Okay. So we thought we might be able to use the data that I collected by accident in concert with the data that for the sponge, which I could collect on purpose, this. But the sequence region that we were trying to amplify, in both organisms doesn't show any variation across the range. So basically, I guess the particular marker I was working with, it was uninformative. It didn't give us any information to answer cool questions like, how does the structure of the sponge compare to the structure of the little anemone that lives on outside?
Mark DiTusa
[21:22] Oh, that's too bad.
Melissa DeBiasse
[21:22] It was disappointing.
Mark DiTusa
[21:23] Still a good idea. It's too bad that it kind of you couldn't salvage that work.
Melissa DeBiasse
[21:27] Yeah, it didn't pan out, but it was a good learning experience. And it taught me how to troubleshoot long before you sort of get to the end of the process.
Mark DiTusa
[21:34] Yeah, that's good. Um, let me remind myself of what kind of questions I wanted to ask. Oh, yeah, that was that one. So. So if there's anything you want to tell your younger self, and I mean, this could be science related, or just like, in general for life? I don't know what whatever you what kind of wisdom you wanted to send back there. And maybe even to students today, what would you tell them or yourself,
Melissa DeBiasse
[21:56] My biggest regret, in science specifically, and I say, suppose you could extend this to life is I wish I'd been more bold. I wish I had not talked myself out of ideas. I wish I had not talked to myself out of applying for grants, and just kind of going for it and kind of saying, I'm going to try even if I fail, and I've definitely gotten a lot better at that as I've progressed through graduate school, and now especially onto my postdoc, but I wish I had just thrown caution to the wind a little more and just gone for things instead of being a little timid and thinking, that won't work out. Try.
Mark DiTusa
[22:33] Yeah, I know that feeling, though. I mean, it's really difficult. And the reason why you tell yourself not to do it is because well, that's a dumb idea. Why would anyone do that? Right? And like, sometimes, sometimes you're right, but like, a lot of the time you if you can kind of check when that risk isn't going to be so risky, putting yourself out there, like, it might be worth your time kind of trying something out. So I just got a follow up question is like, so how do you how do you kind of manage, like, no, I'm going, to how do you psych yourself up and go, like, you know, maybe something bad will happen to this, but it's not that bad, you know, or it won't be that bad if I mess up, you know?
Melissa DeBiasse
[23:10] I try to remember the things that I thought might be risky, that turned out well, and I say, you know, I was worried about this working or I didn't think that I should apply for that grant, but I ended up getting it. So I just try to remind myself that there are times when things work out when you don't expect them to and just try to remember those and forget the failures.
Mark DiTusa
[23:30] Yeah, cuz I mean, it's kind of I think Wayne Gretzky said this, and he's an hockey player, of course I would quote hockey player, but you miss all the shots you don't take.
Melissa DeBiasse
[23:39] Exactly. Yep
Mark DiTusa
[23:39] And so I mean, that's absolutely true. And, and this might be general enough to put on the radio show, Note to self and editing this. Um, but yeah, no, I think that that's an amazing message to, to give to people and your younger self that and something that I've learned over the years that I mean, part of it is being lazy, maybe, but part of it is that if it is hard to put yourself out there, and it's not easy, and
Melissa DeBiasse
[23:44] Rejection is hard.
Mark DiTusa
[24:03] And rejection is very hard. And so and so it is something that's hard to learn, but the more you realize that your ideas, maybe they're a little half baked, but with a little bit of refinement, and in kind of getting out that they could be good. And so in terms of, so your a post-doc currently Yes. And I'm going to say something, and if it doesn't sound good, we're gonna edit it out. But I mean, I don't think a lot of people want to be a postdoc for very long. Usually, this is kind of a stop gap between graduate school and becoming an assistant professor. And so and so I kind of coupled this with the question with what's in your future, like, your postdoc now, and you're doing research? How long do you plan to be a postdoc? And how do you manage being a postdoc? And what are you doing to try to maybe apply for other jobs? Or that's a bad way of putting it. What are you trying to do to prepare for the future?
Melissa DeBiasse
[24:59] Being a post-doc has its pros and cons. The pros are that I have a lot of freedom, particularly in my lab. My advisor Morgan is great. She gives me a lot of freedom to explore ideas and work on projects. You don't have any administrative responsibilities the way you might as a new assistant professor. You don't have to teach, which could be a pro and a con. I really enjoy teaching, but when you don't have to prepare a lecture or grade assignments, all of your time can just be devoted to the research, which is really, really cool. The downsides of a postdoc are that you know, your job security isn't great, you're usually on a two to three year appointment before you need to start thinking about the next thing. And sometimes it can be a little bit lonely because you're not a student anymore. So you don't really hang out with the students as much. But then at the same time, you're not a you're not on the faculty, and you're usually only there for a couple of years. So it can a little bit of a lonely time.
Mark DiTusa
[26:00] Okay.
Melissa DeBiasse
[26:00] Although that said, there's a community of postdocs and the biology department at LSU are amazing. So we've kind of formed our own community, and they've been a great source of camaraderie and advice and that sort of thing. Going forward, I really would love to get a job at a research university somewhere being a professor, teaching, running a lab, having grad students of my own to mentor. And I'm sort of in the process of that right now. I'm applying for faculty jobs. I'm also keeping my eye open for another postdoc. And it used to be that you could go straight from your PhD to a faculty job, no problem. But nowadays, those faculty jobs are really scarce, and so people end up doing one or maybe even two or three postdocs before they can sort of build up the credentials or the resume to land that faculty job.
Mark DiTusa
[26:53] Okay, that's really cool. I guess another thing that so that I've been thinking about is that I'm not sure how much I enjoy teaching just because I haven't gone out of my way to do it, and so a lot of my in fact in my personal statement to Chicago, and why I think part of why I got into Chicago, which was ridiculous. Yeah, I'm sorry, not trying to boast.
Melissa DeBiasse
[27:16] No, that's awesome.
Mark DiTusa
[27:17] It's ridiculous. I mean, I'm, I went on the student visit, I felt like the dumbest person there. But by golly, I got in. So as that I'd like to work at Argonne National Laboratory or Fermi National Lab, because I mean, yeah, there's certainly some sort of component of teaching, but really, it's mostly spent on research and focusing on that. And so I guess, since you enjoy res-, or enjoy teaching, as well as research, I guess you're not as looking so much towards that, and I actually don't know what labs there would be for biology or, or that sort of thing. So I guess that's, but um, but yeah, kind of like, for the job you're looking for, how much is it going to be like, oh, well, I would love to teach? Or how much would you want to focus and research?
Melissa DeBiasse
[27:59] I think that. I'd really like to end up at a at a place sort of like LSU, where you teach one class a semester, and you can devote a lot of time to research? Yeah, I don't know how to.
Mark DiTusa
[28:12] Yeah, sorry. It was poorly worded question and in general, but
Melissa DeBiasse
[28:15] I kind of don't want to come off sounding like I hate on undergrads. Because I don't at all, I really enjoyed teaching.
Mark DiTusa
[28:22] It's not that I don't, I just haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it. And it's just like, at this point, the only reason I see myself in sciences, because I really like doing research. And so like, and so like, just because that I want to keep my options open. I was just like, oh,
Melissa DeBiasse
[28:36] But also, will you have any opportunities to be like a TA?
Mark DiTusa
[28:40] I mean, I that is part of the package. I have to be a TA.
Melissa DeBiasse
[28:44] That could definitely be an illuminating experience. And you can decide if you really like the teaching, or if you really don't like it.
Mark DiTusa
[28:50] Yeah. And the other thing, I guess, and again, I'm not sure how much of this question will be in the actual interview, but just throwing it out there. So my father is a physics professor himself here. And he does. So he started out obviously doing research, he worked at Bell Labs as a postdoc, he got an assistant professorial job at LSU. And, you know, he's been doing research for a very long time. And, and the more that he stays here, the more that he kind of gets shifted less to research and more towards kind of administration. And, and I've talked to him a little bit about this, and if I eventually force him to do a bench top talk, which is going to happen, I swear, it's going to be a great one. Um, I will ask him, you know, how do you feel about that, that really, why you went into physics at first is completely different from what you're doing now? And that's really strange. And how do you deal with that? And, and I guess I, I'm not sure if I'm really posing this as a question you so much, but kind of like, and I kind of got it this in with you doing data analysis, but like, how much have you moved away from the original reason why you went into science? I guess.
Melissa DeBiasse
[30:00] So far, I haven't moved in or moved away from it really at all I don't think, because I've still been able to be very hands on. You know, I plan my own experiments. I can duck them. I analyze the data. I write the papers. I do have a little bit of experience mentoring other grad students and undergraduates who work in our lab, which has been really great. But it's true. I think once you land the assistant professor position, you become, you know, the leader of a group of people, and I think they, they start, they sort of start to perform that research as under your supervision. So you do sort of take a step away, and a step away and a step away. Yeah, that kind of makes me sad when I think about it. So.
Mark DiTusa
[30:46] Yeah. It's, it's interesting. It's something I'll probably probe more professors than postdocs about. But, but it is something.
Melissa DeBiasse
[30:53] And it, but it also could be that as you advance in your career, you're ready for a new challenge. And you're ready for something a little bit different. And
Mark DiTusa
[31:02] And maybe that will be appealing to you that maybe maybe you've been doing research for a long time you like, you know what I've done my fair share, and maybe, maybe I still want to be involved in getting things done. But maybe it'll be from more from a managerial position. And maybe that's something you're excited for. So yeah, that's a good point.
Melissa DeBiasse
[31:16] Because I think if somebody says, Would you like to be the chair of the department? You can probably say, no, if you really wanted to.
Mark DiTusa
[31:23] Yeah, I mean, I mean, you definitely can. I mean, it's not like, I have a feeling you're probably not forced to do that. So thank you, Melissa DeBiasse. This has been great. And I hope that your research and all your future endeavors will go very well.
Melissa DeBiasse
[31:36] Thank you. I appreciate it very much had a lot of fun today.
Mark DiTusa
[31:40] Experimental was recorded and produced in the KLSU Studios here on the campus of Louisiana State University and is supported by LSU's Communication across the Curriculum and the College of Science. Today's interview was conducted by Mark DiTusa and edited by Bailey Wilder. To learn more about today's episode, subscribe to the podcast, ask questions and recommend future investigators visit cxc.lsu.edu/experimental.