Martin Husemann: During my master’s I had an internship at the National Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia. During this internship, I just looked around for PhD positions in interesting labs. I saw the lab of Kerry Shaw (at Cornell University), who was working on Hawaiian crickets, which is a model system for rapid speciation. I was always interested in her work before because it related in some way to my work. I looked at her homepage, and Patrick Danley, who is now my advisor, announced that he was looking for PhD students. So, I contacted him, and we talked a little bit. He invited me to apply to Baylor and work in his lab. That was in 2009.

GS: While at Baylor, you have been able to do two things that are important to research. You have been awarded grants, and you have been published. Tell us about those processes.

MH: It all starts with money in the sciences. Getting funding is crucial, especially if a lab is not well-funded. In my field, molecular ecology, the reagents for experiments cost a lot of money. For example, we are currently engaged in next generation sequencing, which is a new technique to generate DNA sequence data. Just one run costs $3500. So, it’s necessary to get funding.

Applying for funding is also a big part of what you do as a post-doc, so it is really nice to get this experience early on. I’ve applied for about fifteen grants while at Baylor. I’ve gotten about five of those, which is a fairly good percentage. But, it’s also frustrating when you feel you’ve made a good proposal and you get rejected. I guess that is also part of being a researcher.

GS: You have had the opportunity at Baylor to simulate the life of a professor - you are teaching classes, working on your own research, and supervising undergraduates. How has that been?

MH: It’s sometimes difficult to combine teaching and research because both take a lot of time. Sometimes researchers feel that teaching undergrads is a burden. I don’t feel that way. When it’s done right it can be a very meaningful collaboration.

I worked with one student on an undergraduate research grant, and at this point he is a co-author on a paper, he has given a presentation himself, and he co-authored a poster at an international conference. It’s nice to have these interactions with undergrads where everybody gets something out of it.

GS: You’ve been able to travel quite a bit at Baylor, right?

MH: I went to Malawi for five weeks, which was a great trip and great experience. Before, I was able to go to several other countries for sampling for different projects. The trip to Malawi was funded by my advisor. The purpose of this field trip was basically sample collection. We traveled to different sites around the lake, collecting fish. We collected ecological data, as well. We did a lot of scuba diving and recorded physicochemical properties of the different sampling locations throughout the lake.

GS: Other than teaching and research, you have been very active in promoting collaboration between students throughout the sciences. Tell us a little about your work with the Baylor Life Sciences Graduate Student Association.

MH: I think students are happier when they communicate. I think they are also more productive if they actually interact with other disciplines and colleagues. Much of science is just the exchange of ideas. Everyone has different backgrounds, skills and experiences, which helps bringing everything together for a better understanding of the question at hand. However, there is not enough of that, but we are on a good way.

About a year and half ago, we started the Life Sciences GSA, and I took it over last summer. Since then, we’ve been trying to get more involved in a lot of the faculty activities. We’ve been attending faculty meetings - hoping to have a voice in what the focus and direction of the department will be. We are the ones probably most affected by their decisions and want to have part in the decision making process. We are collaborating closely with our program director, and he is very open to our ideas.

Besides that, we plan leisure activities. We do some community service, like working with Habitat for Humanity. We’ve done some environmental activities where we cleaned up Waco Creek. We play paint ball, and things like that, too. It’s very interesting to meet and spend time with the students in the department. Ultimately, it would be nice to include other departments, too.

Coming up:  Martin Husemman talks about teaching.