In the Spotlight-Established Researcher.

Abstract

Tamara Franz-Odendaal holds the NSERC Chair Women in Science and Engineering (Atlantic Canada) and is a Fellow of the American Association of Anatomists Tamara is a Guest Co-Editor of this special issue on Cavefish Website: www.bonedevelopmentlab.ca With whom and where did you study? I completed my undergraduate, MSc and PhD degrees at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. For my MSc degree, I studied gene expression during eye development in chicken embryos under the supervision of Dr. Susan Kidson. My PhD thesis explored paleopathologies and paleodiets of 5 million-year-old fossil herbivores from a South African locality called Langebaanweg. My PhD supervisors were paleontologist Dr. Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan and archaeologist Dr. Julia Lee-Thorpe. Notably, these three supervisors are top female scientists, two of whom had families when I was in their research groups. I completed a short-term DAAD scholarship to pursue a post-doc with Dr. Thomas Kaiser at the University of Greifswald (Germany) and then conducted a 3.5-year post-doc with Dr. Brian Hall (Dalhousie University, Canada), where I got my first true taste of the EvoDevo field. What got you interested in Biology? When did you know EvoDevo was for you? I have been interested in animals and the natural world from a young age. My MSc degree was in developmental biology and I branched out into paleontology for my PhD. Therefore, merging my fascination with embryos and fossils was a natural fit for my post-doc. To have the opportunity to do this with such a remarkable scientist as Dr. Hall was a wonderful experience. If you are amazed at animal diversity then EvoDevo may be for you too since how can you not wonder how that diversity arose both over evolutionary and over developmental time scales. What has been your biggest challenge in getting to your position? My biggest challenge to getting to my position was job searching while having a toddler, being a permanent resident of Canada, and having a degree from a university that was not well known in Canada. I received my first faculty position as an NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada) University Faculty Award recipient. This program provided me the mechanism for establishing my research program at Mount Saint Vincent University by giving me a reduced teaching load in my first three-years. As an active and productive researcher in Canada, I often have to justify why I chose a primarily undergraduate institution as my home. There are many benefits to teaching at a smaller university such as closer interactions with students and a sense of community. The first time I was exposed to research was during my undergraduate degree and it was an immensely rewarding experience. I view training undergraduates in research methods and analysis as incredibly important since these are the students that become our graduate students and future scientists. Or alternatively, they become our doctors, dentists, and veterinarians; professions that require an understanding of the scientific process. What advice do you have for junior EvoDevo researchers? My advice for graduate students and post-docs interested in EvoDevo is to thoroughly learn as many different techniques as possible, work on different organisms (this will become important if you need to teach EvoDevo or Developmental Biology), and pick your advisors based on how they treat their trainees and their productivity. It is okay (and the norm) to randomly email PI's to ask if they are taking on new students rather than waiting for a graduate position announcement. Do your homework though, and make sure you have read about their research and that you really want to work with them. We established PI's receive numerous applications from students for positions and are very adept at picking out the students who have done some homework about our research. Your first email to us should be to introduce yourself and tell us why your interests or past experiences align with our research group's interests. Always attach your CV or resumé.