Networking Project

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.