all right I think we are recording so I have dr. Shane Campbell Staton uh and this is I'm gonna start by kind of interspersing some questions from me and some questions from my students but can you start by telling us a little bit about your journey to becoming a scientist rather than me giving a long introduction about you know oh man so my journey to becoming a scientist so I I think my journey was a little bit different from most because I think typically when you hear especially biologists like to talk about their journey they I always talk about it I was a kid and I was hiking or playing in a pond and I saw a thing or picked up a thing and I yeah but just that wasn't I I was raised in South Carolina and um you know it's like a single-parent house and you know so I was kind of a latchkey kid so when I wasn't at school I was in the house so as a kid my main connection through to to nature was actually through television so I really got into nature through like mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and you know Jeff Corwin and Steve Irwin and you know and those guys and um and it was always a thing in the back of my head I was like oh man isn't that cool but you know again I was a you know I was a kid in in the hood in South Carolina so oh yeah I wasn't about to you know I hadn't even been to a you know to a natural area in South Carolina like let alone like in some you know some faraway place but then you know once I got to high school you know I moved up to upstate New York and you know went to the small little hippie school and it really started exploring my own academic interest and you know it was pretty late high school where I decided that you know maybe biology was was something that was going to be interesting and you know so when I got into college I decided to do you know it's like okay well let's major in biology fortunately by that point I had not actually taken the science course really um so this is by uh yeah yeah this is my freshman year at University of Rochester and yeah so I went in and I I said I want to be a biology major then okay well biology chemistry calculus first semester okay let's do that then and I got I got steamrolled like really steamrolled completely completely steamrolled I had no idea what was going on I had no idea what anyone was talking about I you know my first day of class I felt like I was like two years late for the class so my first year did not go well at all and so that summer I you know went back home and you know I talked to my mom I was like I don't think this is gonna work out I tried really hard and I did really poorly and yes that I considered like well maybe I should quit and you know find a job and do something that's not going to be expensive and embarrassing and yeah she was like well you can do that but you know you'll if you do that you'll you always have the question of like what if I continue and so I decided to continue so I that summer actually went to I went back to my high school and I borrowed all the science textbooks I could get my hands on and I spent that summer just reading all the high school science that I missed out on and you know and then I tried it again and did a little bit better at the next semester I did a little bit better and you know I took an extra year to graduate well by the time I was you know I got to the end I was working in the lab I was doing the I had you know a couple of summers of field research and there my belt and yeah and then a year I took a year off after net to study for the GREs and you know and then spent my entire salary that year on graduate school applications and yeah and then it ended up going to going to Harvard for graduate school and that's sort of where I came into myself as an individual and as a scientist and started to hone in on the questions and systems that you know now sort of define me as a as a scientist I guess awesome so one thing that multiple students asked was why annals like what how did you or and then why that specifically and then also the as a bigger question how do you get started with a new scientific question how do you you know how does that idea first come to you yeah and that's a great question so why are nulls and how do you get started with a new reason so I answered them I answered both those things together um because I think that's probably probably most efficient um so basically so the first day I showed up in at graduate school I you know two advisers and I'm one of them sort of arguably the world's experts on world expert on anoles the other is you know a major player in the world of genomics and file the geography and trying to understand how environment shapes genes and an evolution and you know I sat down and you know and I told him explicitly I did not want to work on the Noles oh yeah because I was in in an old lab during my undergrad and yeah okay no is it cool you know whatever I'm yeah I'm over that you know I'm moving on to the big-boy stuff and so and I had this plan I'm like I wanted to study house geckos right which you know they're you know they're extremely widespread and and I really wanted to know where all these populations came from because a lot of it is human mediated dispersal you know like some species supposedly came to America from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade you know or export them like transported in more modern times and I was really interested in sort of tracing the pathways of this global invasion of this group of geckos and I was really interested in sort of reading the story in the genes and I quickly realized after doing some reading that it's really hard to read the story of a species in their genes when there is no Gino so the genome is as kind of the reference you know where you sort of put all these you know all the patterns in context but there was no no genome and so I went back and I talked with with my adviser Jonathan studies in the halls and he you know and he was always very supportive yeah that's like I don't want to work on the nose he's like hey you know you don't have to work on oh no it's all good you do what you want to do you know this is this is your time and you know and then I went back to when I was like Jonathan there's no genome like I don't know if I can do this he's like oh yeah that sucks come on over to the dark side I think okay well I guess maybe I should do that bit so that was sort of you know that's how I got turned into an Olas and you know and then you know in terms of like actually developing the question or so I know I had this tool that I wanted to use which is the genome and in terms of the question is just reaping right I basically you know I left his office and I just sat down and started reading papers you know old papers new papers you know just trying to find through the holes all right I mean so that's how science moves forward you know new scientists come in and they look at what's been done it's like well we don't really know this thing or we don't really know that thing or now we had these new techniques where we can ask these questions again at a finer scale and so that's that's how I got you know golf playing and I came across this paper that was written in the 1980s about the green anole the species that has the genome sequence and and it talked about temperature and the fact that yeah some of these some populations that live farther north they were able to maintain function at colder temperatures and animals farther south but it was a relatively small study it was only three populations and we didn't really know how the populations were related to each other we didn't know how prevalent you know the this pattern was because it's an extremely wide range basically all of the southeastern United States you can only extrapolate so much from three from three populations you know spread across that entire range so that's what that's sort of how I got into my dissertation you had already decided to focus on sort of temperature and thermal tolerance even before the whole polar vortex yeah yes the polar vortex study was it was actually you know it was sort of a happenstance like my entire dissertation was on the evolution of cold tolerance in you know in this one species right it's the species that comes from Cuba originally which is like really warm and they're stable but then it's migrated into Oklahoma Tennessee northern Mississippi where it gets really cold in the winter and the district just you know struck me as a really odd environment for a subtropical animal to live in so I spent my entire dissertation trying to understand what genes were involved you know how gene flow and environment were linked I'm sorry these questions and then it's actually right after my what was supposed to be my last field season that that yeah I was actually sitting at my office in you know in in Harvard in the MCZ or the Museum of Comparative Zoology and I was on the Boston Globe website and I was sort of looking at pictures they had done this this this photo journal piece on this polar polar vortex storms in the south you know no you know I was from South Carolina it sounds like well let's see how people back home were dealing with this and it was like photos of you know people are trapped in the Piggly Wiggly and you know kids outside you know playing and people trying to push their cars through the snow and big rig stuff those I highly and one of the photos was a green anole dead in the snow and uh I remember because like I think was like three days before I gone into my advisors office like very triumphant like I have done you know I've completed my fieldwork I am been victorious yeah yeah and Jonathan was like alright well get it written up and let's get you out of here and then you know three days later I saw this and I went back into his office and that's like you remember when I said I was done collecting but then this thing happened and I want to go back out yeah and so hopefully the museum supported me you know and they you know and the my advisor supported me in and I went back out to the field and you know bit more data it just so happened that before the storm hit I had this data on cold tolerance and I collected this data on gene expression and I and the whole plan was to sort of look at genetic response to latitude but then this sort of chance event came through and well we can expand this a little bit ask about how these processes play out notable rapid times go well what a cool combination of serendipity and clearly being well-prepared right so you you had been thinking about all those these genes we're floating around in your head and then you're thinking about cold tolerance and then because you're from the south you see this thing and you're you know you're thinking about it back home and then because you have this unique combination of perspectives this this image just pops in your head and like a couple years later science paper but the thing is like that's how science works a lot of the time I mean people like the thing is like people like to think about science as it's really clean like a to be situation I haven't a hypothesis let's test this hypothesis the hypothesis is now tested and we have the answer but a lot of times scientist doesn't work like that it's like I have this hypothesis turns out I can't actually test that so maybe I can test something that's much similar and then the result is like well I don't know what this means let's look into this a little bit further exactly it serve this kind of meandering beast and and it has to be that way and I think you know one of the things that I think makes a successful scientist from a not so successful scientist is the ability to to see where the new questions are and see you know see and to recognize those opportunities and also to have you know have the the the fortitude to chase those new questions yeah yeah so new questions I'm gonna jump off my list a little bit what as you start this new position at UCLA UCLA right yeah uh what are you similar questions new questions similar you know what's gonna change what's gonna stay the same in terms of your research interests yeah so I think my research interests are gonna stay largely the same you know those research interests are mostly trying to understand how how species adapt to extreme environments right a lot of what we know about the process of adaptation right now is based on relatively simple models right so we know things about coke color or you know differences in beak shape these are relatively simple aspects of form and function that typically have a really really simple genetic basis right and that's that has formed the foundation of what we know about the process of adaptation which is great because we need that foundation but a lot of you know a lot of the aspects of form and function that we're most interested in are not that simple they're just way more complex and these are things that are they're governed by many many genes that interact across different types of networks that are influenced by both environment and genetics and this is everything from you know from you know aspects of physiology that might be related to climate change there are aspects of disease like things like diabetes and cancer all of these are complex what we call phenotypes you know the aspects of form and function that are really complex and are influenced by both environments and genes and I'm really interested in in trying to understand this process both on sort of like long timescales I what we consider these like classical evolutionary timescales nearly thousands or millions of years but then also in contemporary timescales so a lot of you know one of the big questions that I have moving into my job is how repeatable is the process of evolution which is a classic question alright so you know Stephen Jay Gould asked this question famously in like the early nineties like if you replay the tape of evolution do you get the same result and in the certain cases right what we call cases of convergence or parallelism the answer is yes at the whole organism level but then the question is when you even when the answer is yes do you get do you look the same because the same regulatory networks have been affected if those same networks have been affected is it because the same genes within those networks have been affected if it's the same genes the same mutations within those genes so we're going Lensky experiments on Thursday where there are you know in microbes in e.coli you know 12 strains yeah we're gonna be talking about exactly that you know yeah yes so I mean and I think this is a major question and you know Anolis again is a great system for trying to understand this question you know you have each of these islands you know that act as essentially a natural experiment and you know a lot of you know a lot of the questions about Anolis have been asked on the Greater Antilles is like the four large islands of the Caribbean but there are also these smaller islands what we call the Lesser Antilles there are like seven islands that each have one or two species that also this remarkable pattern of replicated adaptation in terms of their physiology and how they deal with deal with variation and climate across the islands I really want to use this system to understand how the repeatability of evolution plays out at different level of biological organization cool now before you mentioned you've mentioned climate change a couple times there were a few students that were specifically interested in hearing more from you about the relevance of your work either future or what's already been done specifically to climate change yeah so um so we take you know if we take this question of the repeatability revolution and we sort of we we flip the lens looking forward right the question like this idea of the fact that if we consider client games if we're trying to understand the biological response to climate change how will species respond to these extremely the how will species respond to these extreme shifts in climate on such a rapid time scale there's this inherent underpinning that evolution is itself predictable alright and like this is still you know again this is still like a major a major question and so I've gotten especially since this this polar vortex paper gotten really into trying to understand how human mediated shifts in the environment affect the the genome of species and how those genomic target's of selection then influence changes it changes at the whole organism level and if I have several projects I can sort of talk briefly about so right now I'm working on a project on Anolis looking at physiological and genomic adaptation to urban heat islands so urbanization causes these really really extreme warm thermally stable micro environments that that are very different from surrounding natural areas so we're trying to understand how these early islands have affected physiological and genomic processes and the normal populations in Puerto Rico I've just put together a collaboration looking at so rapid selection in response to heat waves in Australia in an Australian fruit that's so these extreme heat waves have been they've caused these massive bat die offs and we now have an opportunity to to ask you know how do these natural populations of fruit bats respond and also sort of how oh how long does that signature of selection last right if you have an extreme event like the polar vortex you see this response is it you sort of a transient responses is something that you know sort of goes back to normal after a few generations or is it something so that you can go back and resample those same populations and check are you hoping that route or heat wave so that you can go back to those same populations in the southern US and and look for look for whether the signal of that polar vortex has changed the ability to deal with temperature on the other end yes so so trade offs are definitely definitely a huge huge question now right so we had these these lineages in in the green and all that survived this this polar vortex and now they're better at better now the population is better able to deal with coals but what if the heat wave comes through or what if a drought comes through you know those lineages that may have been better able to survive that type of event they may be lost now because they just didn't have the genetic variance to survive a polar vortex and move consider aspects of climate change right the increase in the frequency and magnitude of all these different types of events including hurricanes and things like that you know how how does selection in response to one thing affect your ability to respond to another thing this fruit bat project actually gives us a chance to start to ask this question because we have data from a previous set of heat waves and it's predicted that there will be a new set of heat waves are coming in the in january/february the Australian summer so we can ask you know when we look at events that are separated by a number of years like do you see the same targets of selection does previous selection of have selection acts again on a population do you get to go to Australia in January that is the plan that's one of the one of the reasons why I decided to do what I do not very seamless transition there was one question that um you know just about your regular schedule not that there is any such thing as a regular schedule but what is your day-to-day life I know now you're doing your postdoc and your transition enjoyed your career but you know what does your life look like on a day-to-day basis as a research biologist yeah so that depends a lot on the time of year and but I can sort of give you the broad scope of what a calendar year it looks like um and this is actually one of the reasons why I love doing what I do is because because of this sort of progression so basically you know if we start in I always start in the summer because that's typically the initiation of a project and that summer is typically least two months of field research alright and that's that's what I call game time can you strap on your boots and you get you a headlamp and all your camping equipment and you know and you head out into the green nowhere yeah and you know for me as you know field biology is a major component of what I do and you know so I spend anywhere from six weeks to to several months you know traveling around you know trying to find lizards catch lizards is typically very long days you know so typically wake up right around sunup and you know have you know have a meal you know get everything you know prepped for the day head out into the field and we're collecting and taking data in the field until you know until noon and you know take a break for you know take a break for another meal let the heat of the day past go back out in the afternoon and we're in data collection mode until pretty much sunset take a break for another meal wait till dark comes on and then we go out for a night herb that's when you go out and get animals that are sleeping you know so it's basically a six you know 6 a.m. to the 2 a.m. situation for you know 6 to 6 weeks to a couple months it's like just long enough to get absolutely tired of it you know by the end of into the field season there's like in the shower I want to bed I want to watch TV like I I want civilization and so like right when you're sick and tired of it you know take all that data take all the animals and you go into the lab and then you know there's another couple of months of lab experimentation right where you're in the lab working with the animals doing acclimation think about experimental designs and the limitations of those experimental designs you know but you're collecting data and typically for me this is like physiology data doing respirometer ii looking at aspects of oxygen consumption or doing these these critical thermal trials where we like heat or cool animals and we flip them onto their backs to see like when they lose their lighting response or treadmill at Harvard and I never did yeah you you you gonna have to come out to to UCLA to to give it a gander and then you know so that's you know that's about half a year between the field research and in the laboratory experimentation and then there's all the computer work that comes along so all the statistical analyses and those are typically you know all day every day at the computer or staring at the computer running code and trying to figure out you know how do I run this statistic I run this statistic right why do I have this error what does this error mean I need to Google things now someone help me I hate my life oh I found results now I love my life visit you know going through going through that process shift seasonally from one thing going all day every day you're so sick of it and then you get to shift to this other thing and you do that all day every day until you get sick of it and then you shift again exactly all right yeah and until it comes you know till it comes back full circle to uh to feel researching I definitely want to respect your time but I know that I think probably the thing that my students are most interested in hearing from you is advice for undergrads and you know what advice would you give yourself as an undergrad what advice do you have for undergrads or maybe considering maybe research biology maybe I think a lot of my students are actually pre-med but just general you know advice maybe even you know anything from your experience as a person of color in biology that might be relevant to certainly students live fine oh whatever you want yeah so in terms of research experience for myself if I were to run into myself as like a freshman in college I think the biggest part the biggest bit of advice I would have for myself personally is learn how to code Oh like sign yeah computer science is quickly becoming one of the foundations of biology across and that's whether you're doing biomedical stuff whether you're doing like basic research obviously computational biology you know it learned how to code because and do it early because you make your life a lot easier if you and it also opens up a lot of opportunities for you so that would be the advice I would give to myself and also give to your students you know regardless of you know regardless of you know whether or not you want to be a doctor or you know a science educator or or whether you want to do basic research learn how to code because you will be quite surprised really quickly how useful it will it will it will become and the other bit of advice I would have for your students is is to get into the lab you know it's one thing to learn about science right in the classroom it's another thing to to learn how to do and again whether or not you know you're thinking medicine and you know is your thing you want to be a doctor or a surgeon you know learn there's something to be said about really learning the foundational principles of your field and evolutionary biology you know obviously I'm biased because I'm an engineer biologist but you know evolutionary biology is one of those foundational principles and whether you're dealing whether you're dealing with disease outbreaks you know or you know whether you're trying to understand you know whether or not you can put you know a replacement organ from another animal into your patient by all these like foundational principles that are based on evolution and you know this famous scientist the enocean of Jansky once said nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution and you know and I think medicine medicine definitely definitely qualifies so if you think that you want to do something biology related biology tangential or biology get you but in the lab you know and figure it out and the last thing you mentioned being a scientist of color um which is certainly not a light topic uh but I would try to convince uh you know I'll say you know fair you know being a person of color too has its challenges across the board and science is no you know I think scientists you know in the scientific community has a tendency to like to think of itself as extremely progressive and amazingly welcoming across the board and it doesn't matter this and you know it doesn't matter that but the fact is it matters you know and it you know and you just look at you know look at the faculty across pretty much any biology department across the country I'm sure your universities the same way it's you know it's Whiteman and because it's historically been white men and you know because of the bias the sort of you know this you know a racial ethnic you know lidge's gender bias you know a sexuality bias you know there are there's always going to be some there's always gonna be some ignorant that you're gonna have to deal with right and you know just and be prepared right and be prepared in the sense of one know that it's coming and to do not let it dis what you there you know because if you let it dissuades you you do yourself a disservice and you do our field a disservice because if there's anything that I've learned as a scientist is that diversity is always a good thing right and that's like from a biological standpoint you know or from you know a socio-cultural standpoint is you have to diversify your toolkit and the more diverse your toolkit is you know the better you the better you are at exploring potential opportunities you know and everyone will see that and you know later for them they don't have to see it alright but it's important for you to see it um and you know to see that one like you have a valuable contribution to make and even besides that it's something that you do like well let someone else decide whether or not you get to do that thing like make that decision for for yourself you know then then the first week I got to Harvard someone basically you you know our faculty member told me basically the only reason I was there was because I was I was a black man you know and that now I had to work in order to purchase you know in order to you know prove that actually deserved to be there you know which obviously do me off you know I was like you know this country kid you know going in in the Harvard I've been there all of a week and now all of a sudden like I'm Harvard charity case obviously that you know that was not true you know and you know I busted my butt you know to to be successful I you know I've I've been relatively successful you know I got myself a job and now I have an opportunity to give other people opportunities you know but if I had let that up in your face in your face so see ya um you know just be prepared yeah prepare yourself and be be resilient yeah chase you know chase those things that you that you believe are are worthy of the chase awesome that's great this has been I'm just I'm looking at the clock because I think somehow maybe zoom shuts us off at 40 minutes but I don't know that for sure it looks like we're still recording but you know I don't I know you're really busy but I think that all of this has been gold and I think my students are really gonna enjoy hearing this it's been wonderful talking to you you're awesome and yeah thank you and um if any of your students have any other questions or they want any information about how graduate school if they think it might be interested in understanding you know in pursuing graduate studies in you know in her apology or file into geography or climate change you know I'm obviously looking for graduate students but also only if they're interested in pursuing anything else you know reach out and I'm happy to have a conversation oh yeah that was I was gonna ask you what is the best way Twitter Email what's the bet what's the best way for them to reach they wanted to uh yes so email is probably the best way um right now is a shame got Campbell stating at gmail.com and oh yeah I look forward to hearing from anyone all right thank you so much Jane really appreciate it yeah it's good to see you in here do have a great afternoon thanks bye