This is an interview with Dan Brumbaugh who is a marine biologist.
Question: What are the duties performed during a typical day? Week? Month? Year?
Do you have a set routine? How much variety is there on a day-to-day
basis?
Answer: During a typical day, I work in an office in front of a computer doing a
variety of different things: checking and responding to emails from
museum colleagues, doing project administration tasks (such as
submitting travel receipts, checking budgets, etc.), doing online
searches for research articles in my areas of research (and then,
hopefully, reading them), corresponding with collaborators about ongoing
projects or ideas for new research proposal, and various other things.
Since my employer is based in New York City, and I live in Santa Cruz, I
either work in a home office or a space provided by the University of
California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) at their marine campus, Long Marine
Laboratory (LML), where I have an affiliation as an adjunct researcher.
This provides me gives me a fair amount of flexibility, but it also
means that I sometimes have to get up early to make morning calls in
NYC. I also participate in weekly lab meetings, and periodically,
meetings with other research groups, as well as graduate students and
undergraduate interns at LML, and occasionally attend research seminars
and discussion groups either at LML or up on the main UCSC campus.
Depending on the year and what projects are funded, I also generally
spend part of each year conducting fieldwork. These trips generally
range from 1-4 weeks long, and in any given year, there may be 1-4 such
trips. During these trips, I generally do scuba diving to survey coral
reefs to characterize their bottom and fish communities, or set up and
follow underwater experiments. Sometimes, especially with fieldwork
based at field stations, there is also a fair amount of lab work each
afternoon and evening after diving.
Question: What education is needed or recommended for being a marine biologist?
Answer: Typically, people applying for permanent (vs seasonal or other
temporary) professional positions in marine biology need to have a
masters degree. Even with a masters degree, these jobs tend to be pretty
competitive, so having a range of experience and skills is important.
Although it's not universally true, additional educational experience,
such as earning a Ph.D. and then getting post-doctoral experience, can
also be important for obtaining various kinds of more senior positions,
such as a faculty position at a college or university, research or
program-director level positions at various non-academic institutions,
such as museums, aquariums, and environmental non-governmental
organizations, etc.
Question: What kinds of courses are most valuable in order to gain skills
necessary for success in marine biology?
Answer: Basic courses in biology, oceanography, chemistry, mathematics,
statistics, and computer science (including geographical information
systems, or GIS), as well as more advanced courses in any number of more
specialized areas of interest, such as invertebrate zoology, phycology,
marine ecology, kelp forests, coral reefs, biomechanics, animal
behavior, conservation science, etc.
Question: What kind of work/internship experience would employers look for in a
job applicant?
Answer: Although many, short-term internships are useful for sampling a
diversity of fields and activities within marine biology, an intern is
likely to get more in-depth experiences working with a internship mentor
over a longer period of time. In turn, mentors of longer-term interns
are more likely to be able to provide strong and compelling
recommendations about work ethic, attention to detail, ease of during
their interns' job applications.
Question: Which skills are most important to acquire? (that employers would look
for)
Answer: Analytical skills, including the ability to identify problems (including
research questions), design and implement practical ways to address
these problems, analyze information, and draw conclusions; and
communications skills, including writing, speaking, and the ability to
take advantage of diverse internet outlets. Specific technical skills in
GIS, knowledge of databases and data management, computer programming,
and statistics will likely remain in demand too.
Question: What are the main or most important personal characteristics for
success in marine biology or biology in general?
Answer: Work in the sciences, including marine biology, generally requires a
combination of thoughtfulness, mental focus, a willingness to work long
hours (and sometimes in physically demanding settings in the case of
fieldwork), attention to detail, and the ability to problem solve when
things (e.g., an experiment, or a teaching approach) aren't working. To
the extent that most scientific work is now collaborative, being able to
get along well with and appreciate a wide range of people is also pretty
important.
Question: Is this a rapidly growing field? Is it possible to predict future
needs for workers in marine biology or biology in general?
Answer: A lot of jobs in marine biology rely on some source of government
funding, either through a state or federal government management agency,
or via government grants. Unfortunately, because government budgets are
likely to remain in a stressed situation for many years to come, I don't
anticipate much growth in terms of numbers of jobs. The number of jobs
in the private sector, such as at such institutions as private aquariums
or in environmental consulting firms, is relatively small too.
Question: What are the different salary ranges?
Answer: I'm not an expert about this, and it'll undoubtedly vary from state to
state, and sector to sector, but my guestimate is that salaries for a
masters-level marine biologist tend to start in the 35-40K range,
whereas Ph.D.-level salaries tend to start in the 40-50k range. At the
top end of the salary range, probably for senior faculty at private
research universities, salaries may be up to 250K.
++Sarah+Russell+Church+1700.jpg)
