Leah Gerber is an Associate
Professor of ecology at Arizona State University. Her research is
motivated by a desire to connect academic pursuits in conservation science to
decision tools and effective conservation solutions. This approach includes a
solid grounding in natural history and primary data collection, quantitative
methods and an appreciation for the interactions between humans and the
environment. She is keenly aware of the need for the communication of scientific
results to the public and to government and non-governmental
agencies. This communication is essential for the translation of
scientific results into tenable conservation solutions.
DXS: First, can you give me a quick
overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to
science?
LG: I learned about ecology and environmental
conservation as an undergraduate and quickly became motivated to do science that impacted the
real world of conservation. Learning
about the impacts of humans on nature was a wake-up call for me,
and inspired me to channel my feeling of concern for the demise of nature in a
positive way.

This compelled me to enter a PhD at the University
of Washington, which was largely funded by NOAA. My thesis involved trying to figure out how
to make decisions about endangered species – how to determine which were
endangered and which were threatened.
This was a perfect project given my interest in developing tools to
solve problems. After finishing my PhD,
I did a postdoc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and
developed approaches for marine reserve design and endangered species recovery. I was at NCEAS for three years before
starting on the tenure track at Arizona State University. I’ve been at ASU for about 10 years now.

DXS:
It is too bad that you have to wait until you are more established and have
tenure to go out and engage with the public, because this type of thing is just
so important!

DXS:
We were introduced by another fantastic science communicator, Liz Neeley, who
you met at a communications workshop.
Why is it important to take part in this type of training?
LG: I met the Fantastic and Fashionable Liz through
the Leopold Leadership Program, offered
through the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. The Leopold Leadership training was the best
professional development experience of my career, and has made me a better
translator and communicator of science to policy. Pre-Leopold, I had little training in
communications, and there I was, in a teaching position where I taught hundreds
students. I thought to myself, well, how do I do this? The Leopold experience has solidified my
commitment to teaching students about communication and engaging in policy.

DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a
single thing to do with science?

DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs the creativity you have with your kids or your yoga practice, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
LG: I think there is synergy with my
science and my kids and my yoga practice in helping me to accept things and be
mindful – but not in any conscious way.
For instance, when doing my science, the type A person that I am, I have
an inclination to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. My kids and my yoga help me to shift gears
and accept that things are going to happen when they happen. I try to let the kids be kids, including the associated
chaos, and accept that this is a snapshot in time that they will be
little. Now I find joy in that
chaos. Having kids and yoga gives me a
little more perspective, and the knowledge that things aren’t lined up and
neatly placed in a box. It rounds me
out.
DXS: Are your kids are major influencers in your career?
LG: My first child, Gabriella, was born
just after I submitted my application for tenure - so it was good timing. And I was able to slow down. I quickly realized that I wasn’t able to work
a 60+hour week. Before kids, I lived to
work. Now, I work to live. I absolutely love my job and I feel so lucky
that I have a career that I believe in and that I am actually paid to do it –
it’s not just a hobby. But having kids
made me chill out a little. If I get a
paper rejected, I can let it go instead of lamenting about it for weeks. It has made me healthier. I don’t necessarily know if it has had
positive impact on my career – time will tell.
While my publication rate may be slightly smaller, I think my work now
has different dimensions, and greater depth.

DXS: When you decided to have children, did your colleagues view you
differently? Did they consider that you
were sending your career down the tubes or was it a supportive environment?
LG: I honestly had a really positive
experience. I can’t think of any
negative sentiments from my colleagues, and they were actually really
supportive. For instance, when I was
pregnant with my first daughter, ASU did not have a maternity leave
policy. Before that, you would have to
take sick leave. So my colleague worked
within the parameters of the unit to give me maternity leave. And then with my second daughter, our new
president had established a maternity policy.
The support of my colleagues at ASU has
made me feel loyal to my institution.
Normally, I am loyal to people and not institutions, but overall, the
support has been fabulous. Of course, with
having the kids in each case, I did decline a lot of invitations – some pretty
significant ones – but I did not have a desire to drag a newborn to give a talk,
especially when I was nursing. And it
was hard for me to do this at times, especially given my career driven nature,
and I had to learn to accept that there would be other opportunities.

DXS: Given your experiences as a researcher, as a mother, and now as a major science communicator, do you feel that your ability to talk to people has evolved?
LG: Absolutely. I think that the Leopold Training Program,
which selects 20 academics from North America to participate in retreats to
learn how to be better communicate and lead, has re-inspired all who attended. It has recharged our batteries and allowed us
to make realizations that doing good science and putting it out there via
scientific publication is just not enough.
We also have to push it out there and make it available to a broader,
more diverse population. As part of the
training, we also learned about different thinking styles – super analytical or
super emotional – and after I returned, I had my lab group participate in this
type of exercise. And now I feel like I
can better assess a persons thinking style and adjust the way I communicate
accordingly.
DXS: Did you always have the ability to talk to the general public or
does having kids help you to better understand some of the nuances associated
with science communication?
LG: I think so. In fact, I am thinking
back to when I had a paper in Science
come out around the time that I had my first child. It got a lot of news coverage and was
featured in Time magazine. I thought
it was so cool at the time, but looking back on it I realized that have come a
long way. I said something to a journalist,
who then asked me to translate it into “plain English.” It was a little bit of a jab.
Now, with kids, I can tell you a lot
more about my research and can better see the broader impact. Talking to them helps me to do that. Here is
a conversation about my research with my daughter:
L: Mama is working on figuring out how
to help the whales that people like to eat. It’s a big problem because
some people like to eat whales and some like to see them swimming in the ocean.
G: What we have to do is let the people
eat the whales in the ocean, and buy some whales from the pet store to put back
in the ocean. How much do whales cost?
L: Good idea. But you can’t buy whales
at the store. They are too big. And if we take them all out of the ocean there
will be none left.
G: Well instead we should ask the
people to eat bad things like sharks.
L: Another good idea. But if we take
sharks out there will be no predators to eat the big fish. And the whole
ecosystem would collapse.=
G: Well then the people should eat
other things like fish instead of whales. They should buy a fishing pole and
catch a fish and eat those instead of whales.
L: What about chicken, shouldn’t people
just eat chicken?
G: Mama, we can’t kill chickens.
Chickens are nicer than fish, so that’s why we have to eat fish.
L: What about just eating vegetables?
G: Oh mama, some people are
meat-eaters. And there are no more dinosaurs. They all got
extinct. They should have saved some of the dinosaur meat in the freezer
for the meat-eaters. When the dinosaurs come back, there will be enough
meat to eat and people won’t want to eat whales.
The simplicity of taking myself out of my
research bubble and engaging with a creative (and nonlinear?) 7YO has taught me
how to be a better communicator – with the media, with my students, and with
the general population.
DXS: Do you think these efforts in science communication are helping to
shift other peoples perspectives about who a scientist actually is? For instance, are we changing the old crazy
haired white guy stereotype?
LG: Well, I hope so. A couple of examples – again, as a mom, one
of my daughters a Girl Scout and I get to help with the troop. One of the themes was to teach about environmental
and conservations awareness. We did this
Crayola molding experiment where we put our fingers into cold water. We then did the same thing except we put
modeling clay over our fingers before putting them into the cold water and to learn
about adaptations to extreme environments.
Also, we play games where they simulate fishing – what if there is
plastic? What happens to you if you eat
that? My hope is that this shows these
young girls that science is both interesting and fun.
Another thing that just happened today
is that I was contacted by Martha Stewart’s office, and it seems that some of
my research results will be featured in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living. The message here is that I happen to care
about the ocean, but I also love sushi.
I also I care about health. I am not just a nerd in a lab coat. I am a
mom, I do yoga, I have wonderful friends, and here is the kind of science that
I do. It seems to me that it is better
to connect with others when I can give them something that is relevant to their
lives instead of a more abstract ecological theory.
DXS: If you had something you could say to the younger you about getting
on your chosen career path, what would you say?
LG: I feel like I have been very
effective at figuring out how to get from point A to point B, but less
successful at savoring the process. I
think that I’d tell myself to make time to celebrate the small victories. I
have also learned to identify what kind of research is most exciting, and I
would tell myself to say “no” to everything that is only moderately
interesting. I tell my grad students that
if you don’t dive in head first, you won’t ever know. So why just not give it a
try! And if it doesn’t work, move
on. Also, if something isn’t making you
happy, change! Academia isn’t for
everyone, and there is a lot more to life than science.
What an amazing woman!
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