Professor Interviews
Interview with Prof. Peter Weiss
Intro: This week, Evelyn Zhao (Cluster 7), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Prof. Peter Weiss, who teaches Environmental Toxicology in Cluster 7. He discussed his interests in atmospheric mercury, talked about his favorite parts of his career, and shared many fun facts with the readers.
Macrocosm (M): Hi, could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Prof. Peter Weiss (PW): Sure. My name is Peter Weiss. I am the instructor for Cluster 7, and I'm a researcher and lecturer at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC).
M: What got you interested in environmental toxicology?
PW: I have always been interested in how the Earth works in terms of chemistry. When I was in college, I started working in a lab, testing products for pesticides. So, I got interested in toxic chemicals and how human activities are making them more available for exposure to heat and wildlife. Therefore, I wanted to study that more.
M: What got you interested in mercury?
PW: Well, I thought it was kind of an unusual substance [because] of the fact that it could be released into the air on one continent and sent across the world to another continent. Then, it could come out of the atmosphere and get into food webs where it makes methylmercury. It just seemed like it was really complicated and I wanted to try to learn more about it.
M: What's your favorite part of environmental toxicology?
PW: Well, I think it's a mix of the field and the lab work. I like designing the experiments and then going out into the environment to try to collect different samples and learn about how the toxins are moving and transforming in the environment. So, I’m kind of putting together that whole puzzle, and then communicating it to students and writing papers and giving talks. This is kind of the end point of it all and I enjoy that whole process.
M: How long have you been teaching at Cosmos?
PW: I’ve been teaching here since 2018. It’s been fun. This is my fifth time doing it.
M: Can you think of any special highlights from your teaching career?
PW: Well, I used to teach general chemistry to really large classes in an auditorium on campus at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC), and I was well known for doing demos for the whole class. So, I would bring in a giant plastic tarp to lay out on the carpet. Then, I put Mentos in Diet Coke or I mix baking soda and vinegar and do all these things that cause minor explosions. I would make a mess but I kept it all on the target, the students would yell and applaud, and it was really fun.
M: Do you have any advice for current and future COSMOS students?
PW: Well, I would say that this is kind of a nice opportunity. Students should balance being really serious about science, but also being a well rounded person. Getting exercise, being in good shape, having friends, hanging out, and having a good time, but also, being really serious about using science to tackle big questions. That's what is going to help the world.
M: Can you share some fun facts with your readers?
PW: Let's see, there are so many fun facts. Well, I've been to Antarctica. So, that was kind of fun when I was in graduate school. And, this is one of the reasons why I like studying. In what I do, you get to go out to really interesting places. So, I was on a ship for like two months, and we went to Antarctica. It was a really long and really difficult journey. But it was really fun to do science research there. Also, I got to go on a little boat and visit some penguins, so it was a very memorable and a really great experience.
Intro: This week, Evelyn Zhao (Cluster 7), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Prof. Peter Weiss, who teaches Environmental Toxicology in Cluster 7. He discussed his interests in atmospheric mercury, talked about his favorite parts of his career, and shared many fun facts with the readers.
Macrocosm (M): Hi, could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Prof. Peter Weiss (PW): Sure. My name is Peter Weiss. I am the instructor for Cluster 7, and I'm a researcher and lecturer at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC).
M: What got you interested in environmental toxicology?
PW: I have always been interested in how the Earth works in terms of chemistry. When I was in college, I started working in a lab, testing products for pesticides. So, I got interested in toxic chemicals and how human activities are making them more available for exposure to heat and wildlife. Therefore, I wanted to study that more.
M: What got you interested in mercury?
PW: Well, I thought it was kind of an unusual substance [because] of the fact that it could be released into the air on one continent and sent across the world to another continent. Then, it could come out of the atmosphere and get into food webs where it makes methylmercury. It just seemed like it was really complicated and I wanted to try to learn more about it.
M: What's your favorite part of environmental toxicology?
PW: Well, I think it's a mix of the field and the lab work. I like designing the experiments and then going out into the environment to try to collect different samples and learn about how the toxins are moving and transforming in the environment. So, I’m kind of putting together that whole puzzle, and then communicating it to students and writing papers and giving talks. This is kind of the end point of it all and I enjoy that whole process.
M: How long have you been teaching at Cosmos?
PW: I’ve been teaching here since 2018. It’s been fun. This is my fifth time doing it.
M: Can you think of any special highlights from your teaching career?
PW: Well, I used to teach general chemistry to really large classes in an auditorium on campus at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC), and I was well known for doing demos for the whole class. So, I would bring in a giant plastic tarp to lay out on the carpet. Then, I put Mentos in Diet Coke or I mix baking soda and vinegar and do all these things that cause minor explosions. I would make a mess but I kept it all on the target, the students would yell and applaud, and it was really fun.
M: Do you have any advice for current and future COSMOS students?
PW: Well, I would say that this is kind of a nice opportunity. Students should balance being really serious about science, but also being a well rounded person. Getting exercise, being in good shape, having friends, hanging out, and having a good time, but also, being really serious about using science to tackle big questions. That's what is going to help the world.
M: Can you share some fun facts with your readers?
PW: Let's see, there are so many fun facts. Well, I've been to Antarctica. So, that was kind of fun when I was in graduate school. And, this is one of the reasons why I like studying. In what I do, you get to go out to really interesting places. So, I was on a ship for like two months, and we went to Antarctica. It was a really long and really difficult journey. But it was really fun to do science research there. Also, I got to go on a little boat and visit some penguins, so it was a very memorable and a really great experience.
Interview with Dr. Burcak Artun
Intro: This week, Theonne Mendiola (Cluster 8), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Dr. Burcak Artun, who teaches microbiology for Cluster 8. In this interview, Dr. Artun discussed her experiences as an educator and her interest in microbiology. Additionally, Dr. Artun shared her insights for COSMOS students pursuing their passions.
Macrocosm (M): Can you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
Dr. Burcak Artun(BA): My name is Burcak Artun. I teach microbiology lab at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC)... I got my PhD in chemistry, and I also teach chemistry at different colleges…I only teach, I don't do research.
M: Do you like teaching?
BA: I love teaching and especially if I have enthusiastic students, which COSMOS students are all very enthusiastic. It makes it a lot of fun.
M: Yeah, I mean, I hope so. Recently, I think it's just because of lunch. They can get a little tired. I'm glad you like teaching!
BA: I do!
M: What got you interested in microbiology?
BA: In high school, I took a biology class, and that's when I got interested in microbiology, molecular biology, at first. And then, when I started doing research, I started working with bacteria. My biology teacher got me interested generally in molecular biology. And then, I was doing research with bacteria…The more I taught at UCSC, the more I taught microbiology lab, the more I got interested in it.
M: What is your favorite part about microbiology?
BA: My favorite part about microbiology is looking at the bacteria under the microscope. I like that whether they're alive or you stain them—you put coloring on them, look at them and see their shape. Each bacteria has a characteristic shape. Whether they can move, or how big they are.
M: I remember you saying your favorite thing to teach at COSMOS was the antibiotic…
BA: The antibiotic resistance! So, we’re going to do that next week, the fourth week of COSMOS,] with the bioluminescent bacteria. That's a nice assay. I like that it’s very definitive and you can tell how bacteria behave differently with the same antibiotic. Different bacteria have different ways of being either resistant to [the antibiotic] or not. It's very useful information.
M: How long have you been teaching in COSMOS?
BA: This is my first year teaching COSMOS. I've been teaching [in UC Santa Cruz] since 2017, so 5 years, but for COSMOS I'm teaching for the first time.
M: Why did you decide to teach at COSMOS? Or how did you get teaching at COSMOS?
BA: One of the [COSMOS] professors told me about it and asked me if I wanted to do it and I always wanted to work with high school students. So I said, “Yes, I will do it.”
M: With your teaching experience, do you have any highlights or any stories?
BA: Not really. I mean, each quarter that I teach is a little different in terms of the bacteria we get. So we do like an unknown lab where students bring something to class and then we, you know, make a solution of it or like swipe it and put it on plates. Kind of like what we did with the ink, right? And then we isolate the bacteria that was causing eye infections. My student who was working with that unknown actually in the middle of the quarter developed an eye infection, so she got herself contaminated. But we didn’t know what it was. We didn't know that until we analyzed it. It wasn't anything bad. She was just like, ”Oh yeah, you know, it turns out my bacteria can cause eye infections.” Maybe it was a coincidence, but we're like, oh, maybe that's why I had that itch. We do work under the hood. We take all the precautions to avoid contamination of any sorts.
M: What is your favorite thing about teaching? Why do you teach?
BA: I really like when students sometimes come to me with a question. And then, when I answer that question, they go, “aah.” Like an aha moment. I really love that reaction in students. I like seeing that. And, I like seeing their faces light up when they understand something. So, I really like to teach and make a difference in somebody's life. I can see from the beginning of the quarter to the end, there's so much development that goes on.
M: Do you have any advice for current or future COSMOS students?
BA: My advice would be to never lose your enthusiasm and interest in these subjects. I really admire all of you for being here and working with us. Just keep it scientific. Keep the science going. Our country needs you as scientists.
M: Would you like to share a fun fact about microbiology, or yourself?
BA: I have a very naughty dog called Ninja. She's an Australian Shepherd. She's four years old and she keeps me very busy…She's like her name—she's like a ninja. She won’t stop…I am a dog person I'm finding out, yeah.
Intro: This week, Theonne Mendiola (Cluster 8), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Dr. Burcak Artun, who teaches microbiology for Cluster 8. In this interview, Dr. Artun discussed her experiences as an educator and her interest in microbiology. Additionally, Dr. Artun shared her insights for COSMOS students pursuing their passions.
Macrocosm (M): Can you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
Dr. Burcak Artun(BA): My name is Burcak Artun. I teach microbiology lab at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC)... I got my PhD in chemistry, and I also teach chemistry at different colleges…I only teach, I don't do research.
M: Do you like teaching?
BA: I love teaching and especially if I have enthusiastic students, which COSMOS students are all very enthusiastic. It makes it a lot of fun.
M: Yeah, I mean, I hope so. Recently, I think it's just because of lunch. They can get a little tired. I'm glad you like teaching!
BA: I do!
M: What got you interested in microbiology?
BA: In high school, I took a biology class, and that's when I got interested in microbiology, molecular biology, at first. And then, when I started doing research, I started working with bacteria. My biology teacher got me interested generally in molecular biology. And then, I was doing research with bacteria…The more I taught at UCSC, the more I taught microbiology lab, the more I got interested in it.
M: What is your favorite part about microbiology?
BA: My favorite part about microbiology is looking at the bacteria under the microscope. I like that whether they're alive or you stain them—you put coloring on them, look at them and see their shape. Each bacteria has a characteristic shape. Whether they can move, or how big they are.
M: I remember you saying your favorite thing to teach at COSMOS was the antibiotic…
BA: The antibiotic resistance! So, we’re going to do that next week, the fourth week of COSMOS,] with the bioluminescent bacteria. That's a nice assay. I like that it’s very definitive and you can tell how bacteria behave differently with the same antibiotic. Different bacteria have different ways of being either resistant to [the antibiotic] or not. It's very useful information.
M: How long have you been teaching in COSMOS?
BA: This is my first year teaching COSMOS. I've been teaching [in UC Santa Cruz] since 2017, so 5 years, but for COSMOS I'm teaching for the first time.
M: Why did you decide to teach at COSMOS? Or how did you get teaching at COSMOS?
BA: One of the [COSMOS] professors told me about it and asked me if I wanted to do it and I always wanted to work with high school students. So I said, “Yes, I will do it.”
M: With your teaching experience, do you have any highlights or any stories?
BA: Not really. I mean, each quarter that I teach is a little different in terms of the bacteria we get. So we do like an unknown lab where students bring something to class and then we, you know, make a solution of it or like swipe it and put it on plates. Kind of like what we did with the ink, right? And then we isolate the bacteria that was causing eye infections. My student who was working with that unknown actually in the middle of the quarter developed an eye infection, so she got herself contaminated. But we didn’t know what it was. We didn't know that until we analyzed it. It wasn't anything bad. She was just like, ”Oh yeah, you know, it turns out my bacteria can cause eye infections.” Maybe it was a coincidence, but we're like, oh, maybe that's why I had that itch. We do work under the hood. We take all the precautions to avoid contamination of any sorts.
M: What is your favorite thing about teaching? Why do you teach?
BA: I really like when students sometimes come to me with a question. And then, when I answer that question, they go, “aah.” Like an aha moment. I really love that reaction in students. I like seeing that. And, I like seeing their faces light up when they understand something. So, I really like to teach and make a difference in somebody's life. I can see from the beginning of the quarter to the end, there's so much development that goes on.
M: Do you have any advice for current or future COSMOS students?
BA: My advice would be to never lose your enthusiasm and interest in these subjects. I really admire all of you for being here and working with us. Just keep it scientific. Keep the science going. Our country needs you as scientists.
M: Would you like to share a fun fact about microbiology, or yourself?
BA: I have a very naughty dog called Ninja. She's an Australian Shepherd. She's four years old and she keeps me very busy…She's like her name—she's like a ninja. She won’t stop…I am a dog person I'm finding out, yeah.
Interview with Mirek Stolee and Dani Wright
This week, Soyeon Kim, (Cluster 5), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Mirek Stolee and Dani Wright, who discussed their passion for video game development and their teaching experience.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Macrocosm (M): Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Mirek Stolee (MS): I’m Mirek Stolee and I’m a lecturer in both game design departments here at UCSC, Computer Science: Computer Game Design and Art & Design: Games + Playable Media. I teach many classes, including game design.
Dani Wright (DW): I’m Dani Wright and I just graduated with my second game design degree from UCSC, which are Arts and Design: Games + Playable Media and Digital Arts & New Media. One is a Bachelor of Arts and the other is a Master of Fine Arts.
M: How long have you been teaching at COSMOS and how was your experience?
MS: Well, this is our second year teaching at COSMOS. We taught it together last year, and now this year. This year’s been very different because we taught online last year and now it's in person.
DW: We used to have a voice call where we would go and send students to breakout rooms. We were very awkward.
M: What got you interested in game design?
DW: I was in a computer science program in high school and my friend was really into game design. And then I thought, “What if I did a game for one of these projects?” Then I told myself, “Oh my god, I'm never going back. This is so much better than hanging out with CS people.”
MS: I got into game design game studies, the academic side of things. I wrote my undergrad thesis on a video game, which was like an analysis of the game. Then I went to graduate school here at UCSC and I've been teaching here for two years now. I'm starting my PhD in the fall.
M: What's your favorite part of game design?
DW: I like showing the things that I make to people and watching them interact with it. It’s fun, especially when I get the reaction that I wanted. It's a very good feeling.
MS: I like teaching game design. I like making very silly little demo games to teach concepts. As far as favorite things to do when I'm designing games, I'm recently getting into the sound.
M: What is your favorite video game?
MS: Outer Wilds is really good. The game I wrote my thesis on in my undergrad is called “Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors” which is a visual novel escape room. Escape rooms are something I'm really into.
DW: I like Animal Crossing New Horizons a lot; I have hundreds of hours on that game. Yeah, it's so cute. I also like Breath of the Wild and visual novels like Butterfly Soup, or some 18+ vampire visual novels that I read.
M: Would you like to share any fun facts with our readers?
MS: I’m unreasonably obsessed with ice cream, although I am lactose intolerant. I don't tell this to a lot of people, but I'm convinced that I could compete at least at the regional level. I think I'm really good at it. I can eat those Dreyer’s in one sitting; they’re so good. But I think that's kind of just a fantasy. I think if I'm actually in a competition, I might be humbled very quickly. If you're reading this and you work at the Porter Dining Hall, please fix the ice cream machine.
DW: My fun fact is that I read “Twilight” for the first time in 2019 and I haven't stopped fixating on it. I was going to make a completely different game for my MFA, and then I made a lot of vampire games because I could not stop thinking about how Alice and Bella are girlfriends.
M: What is your goal as an instructor of Cluster 5?
DW: I want to destroy the rest of the class, and I also want them to feel excited about making games.
MS: Yeah, I definitely want them to feel like they can make games and they can make good games. I think that for a lot of new game designers, there’s a lack of confidence: not feeling like they're making real games or they are real designers. We’ve shown that y'all are making real games; we've made like almost 100 since we got here.
M: Do you have any advice for current and future COSMOS students?
DW & MS: It's important to know that you guys are very capable, incredibly talented, and smart. Way better at everything than I could ever be. You should not let things get you down and get in your way. You guys are unstoppable; concede nothing.
This week, Soyeon Kim, (Cluster 5), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Mirek Stolee and Dani Wright, who discussed their passion for video game development and their teaching experience.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Macrocosm (M): Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Mirek Stolee (MS): I’m Mirek Stolee and I’m a lecturer in both game design departments here at UCSC, Computer Science: Computer Game Design and Art & Design: Games + Playable Media. I teach many classes, including game design.
Dani Wright (DW): I’m Dani Wright and I just graduated with my second game design degree from UCSC, which are Arts and Design: Games + Playable Media and Digital Arts & New Media. One is a Bachelor of Arts and the other is a Master of Fine Arts.
M: How long have you been teaching at COSMOS and how was your experience?
MS: Well, this is our second year teaching at COSMOS. We taught it together last year, and now this year. This year’s been very different because we taught online last year and now it's in person.
DW: We used to have a voice call where we would go and send students to breakout rooms. We were very awkward.
M: What got you interested in game design?
DW: I was in a computer science program in high school and my friend was really into game design. And then I thought, “What if I did a game for one of these projects?” Then I told myself, “Oh my god, I'm never going back. This is so much better than hanging out with CS people.”
MS: I got into game design game studies, the academic side of things. I wrote my undergrad thesis on a video game, which was like an analysis of the game. Then I went to graduate school here at UCSC and I've been teaching here for two years now. I'm starting my PhD in the fall.
M: What's your favorite part of game design?
DW: I like showing the things that I make to people and watching them interact with it. It’s fun, especially when I get the reaction that I wanted. It's a very good feeling.
MS: I like teaching game design. I like making very silly little demo games to teach concepts. As far as favorite things to do when I'm designing games, I'm recently getting into the sound.
M: What is your favorite video game?
MS: Outer Wilds is really good. The game I wrote my thesis on in my undergrad is called “Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors” which is a visual novel escape room. Escape rooms are something I'm really into.
DW: I like Animal Crossing New Horizons a lot; I have hundreds of hours on that game. Yeah, it's so cute. I also like Breath of the Wild and visual novels like Butterfly Soup, or some 18+ vampire visual novels that I read.
M: Would you like to share any fun facts with our readers?
MS: I’m unreasonably obsessed with ice cream, although I am lactose intolerant. I don't tell this to a lot of people, but I'm convinced that I could compete at least at the regional level. I think I'm really good at it. I can eat those Dreyer’s in one sitting; they’re so good. But I think that's kind of just a fantasy. I think if I'm actually in a competition, I might be humbled very quickly. If you're reading this and you work at the Porter Dining Hall, please fix the ice cream machine.
DW: My fun fact is that I read “Twilight” for the first time in 2019 and I haven't stopped fixating on it. I was going to make a completely different game for my MFA, and then I made a lot of vampire games because I could not stop thinking about how Alice and Bella are girlfriends.
M: What is your goal as an instructor of Cluster 5?
DW: I want to destroy the rest of the class, and I also want them to feel excited about making games.
MS: Yeah, I definitely want them to feel like they can make games and they can make good games. I think that for a lot of new game designers, there’s a lack of confidence: not feeling like they're making real games or they are real designers. We’ve shown that y'all are making real games; we've made like almost 100 since we got here.
M: Do you have any advice for current and future COSMOS students?
DW & MS: It's important to know that you guys are very capable, incredibly talented, and smart. Way better at everything than I could ever be. You should not let things get you down and get in your way. You guys are unstoppable; concede nothing.
Interview with Dr. Jimmy Shanks
Intro: This week, Olivia Zhao (Cluster 9), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Dr. Jimmy Shanks, who discussed his passion for molecular biology and work with investigating the mouse visual system and gave advice for both COSMOS students and those who are pursuing his field.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Macrocosm (M): Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
Dr. Jimmy Shanks (JS): My name is Dr. Jimmy Shanks. I'm a lecturer at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). I teach tons of classes around campus, [including] lab skills and infectious diseases. I spent a lot of time trying to isolate and characterize bacteriophages with my students.
M: What got you interested in molecular biology?
JS: That's a really good question. So back when I decided to go to college, I was in my 30s, and I didn't know what I wanted to go to college for. Somebody suggested that I think about what I'm interested in and what I would do on my own time for free. I love the show Forensic Files and I really was fascinated with the idea that you could figure out who committed a crime with a single drop of blood. So when I embarked upon my college education, I was very interested in that and just followed that path and ended up getting introduced to genetics and chemistry and then ultimately molecular biology.
M: What is your favorite part about molecular biology?
JS: Wow, that's an amazing question. So I am definitely a history buff and I'm fascinated with the history of molecular biology. I liked questions that exist in the world of neuroscience and genetics, but I really am drawn to the techniques and the tools that we've acquired to answer questions: anything from Taq polymerase to utilizing that in PCR to being able to understand what a single molecule looks like through X-ray crystallography. There are so many different things that molecular biology has allowed us to understand. And a lot of that, to me, is extremely interesting.
M: Can you briefly talk about the favorite research project that you took part in?
JS: So when I was a graduate student, I was investigating the mouse visual system. It's a complex kind of organization, as you can imagine, and there's a lot of circuitry from the cortex in the mouse that integrates with the visual system in subcortical structures. I happened upon a mouse that, because of an interesting mutation, didn't have a cortex, and so I spent about a year and a half characterizing how the loss of these cortical inputs into the mouse visual system was affecting the wiring of the sub in the subcortical structures and how that affected the mouse’s abilities. And, it turns out that even a mouse without a cortex has a nominal amount of sight and can actually perform sight-related tasks.
M: What was one of the biggest challenges you faced and how did you overcome it?
JS: Graduate school is difficult. Science is difficult. Research is difficult. You're trying to learn things that nobody knows the answers to. You can get frustrated; you can come across roadblocks. You can have no results or negative results for weeks — even months — on end. And the idea is to continue to show up. If you stop showing up, you'll never answer your question. Getting out of bed every day and showing up and doing the same thing, maybe tweaking it slightly, in order to try and get it to work is critical to advancing our understanding, and you just have to continue to be present.
M: How long have you been teaching COSMOS? Can you think of any special highlights in your career?
JS: This is the third year I was signed up to do COSMOS. The first year was canceled because of the pandemic. Last year, we were online, and we did a bunch of virtual exercises. This year is the first time it's in person and it's been amazing to have a population of students that are from varied backgrounds that have a varied amount of knowledge regarding what we're doing and having the opportunity to see very wide-open eyes when I talk about a subject. It has been a thrill and I hope to continue to do that.
M: Do you have any advice for current and future COSMOS students?
JS: Work hard. Ask for more. I think that there's this unfortunate part of education where students do the minimum and ask for the minimum. Life, turns out, is competitive. And to get into specific colleges, to get specific funding, to get scholarships and grants, get into graduate school, get into medical school, and do all these things that a lot of students want to do is not a given that that will be an opportunity for you. So the idea is, to ask for more, and work hard. Do your very best to get as much out of everything that you're doing.
M: Would you like to share any fun facts with our readers?
JS: I'm not sure about fun facts. But I certainly provide my students with a reading list that I think is really interesting. And it's only partial. I don't want to overwhelm them, but [provide] books that will give you a sense of the history of science, relatable stories about science, and maybe new discoveries in science. I think if you want to be in science or medicine, it's really important that you understand the history. I think there are tons of different books out there that will inform students at this level about what's happened. For instance, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee is a great story about the history of cancer. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean has an amazing history of how we know what we know about the periodic table and the elements that we take advantage of every day.
Intro: This week, Olivia Zhao (Cluster 9), representing UCSC’s Macrocosm, interviewed Dr. Jimmy Shanks, who discussed his passion for molecular biology and work with investigating the mouse visual system and gave advice for both COSMOS students and those who are pursuing his field.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Macrocosm (M): Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
Dr. Jimmy Shanks (JS): My name is Dr. Jimmy Shanks. I'm a lecturer at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). I teach tons of classes around campus, [including] lab skills and infectious diseases. I spent a lot of time trying to isolate and characterize bacteriophages with my students.
M: What got you interested in molecular biology?
JS: That's a really good question. So back when I decided to go to college, I was in my 30s, and I didn't know what I wanted to go to college for. Somebody suggested that I think about what I'm interested in and what I would do on my own time for free. I love the show Forensic Files and I really was fascinated with the idea that you could figure out who committed a crime with a single drop of blood. So when I embarked upon my college education, I was very interested in that and just followed that path and ended up getting introduced to genetics and chemistry and then ultimately molecular biology.
M: What is your favorite part about molecular biology?
JS: Wow, that's an amazing question. So I am definitely a history buff and I'm fascinated with the history of molecular biology. I liked questions that exist in the world of neuroscience and genetics, but I really am drawn to the techniques and the tools that we've acquired to answer questions: anything from Taq polymerase to utilizing that in PCR to being able to understand what a single molecule looks like through X-ray crystallography. There are so many different things that molecular biology has allowed us to understand. And a lot of that, to me, is extremely interesting.
M: Can you briefly talk about the favorite research project that you took part in?
JS: So when I was a graduate student, I was investigating the mouse visual system. It's a complex kind of organization, as you can imagine, and there's a lot of circuitry from the cortex in the mouse that integrates with the visual system in subcortical structures. I happened upon a mouse that, because of an interesting mutation, didn't have a cortex, and so I spent about a year and a half characterizing how the loss of these cortical inputs into the mouse visual system was affecting the wiring of the sub in the subcortical structures and how that affected the mouse’s abilities. And, it turns out that even a mouse without a cortex has a nominal amount of sight and can actually perform sight-related tasks.
M: What was one of the biggest challenges you faced and how did you overcome it?
JS: Graduate school is difficult. Science is difficult. Research is difficult. You're trying to learn things that nobody knows the answers to. You can get frustrated; you can come across roadblocks. You can have no results or negative results for weeks — even months — on end. And the idea is to continue to show up. If you stop showing up, you'll never answer your question. Getting out of bed every day and showing up and doing the same thing, maybe tweaking it slightly, in order to try and get it to work is critical to advancing our understanding, and you just have to continue to be present.
M: How long have you been teaching COSMOS? Can you think of any special highlights in your career?
JS: This is the third year I was signed up to do COSMOS. The first year was canceled because of the pandemic. Last year, we were online, and we did a bunch of virtual exercises. This year is the first time it's in person and it's been amazing to have a population of students that are from varied backgrounds that have a varied amount of knowledge regarding what we're doing and having the opportunity to see very wide-open eyes when I talk about a subject. It has been a thrill and I hope to continue to do that.
M: Do you have any advice for current and future COSMOS students?
JS: Work hard. Ask for more. I think that there's this unfortunate part of education where students do the minimum and ask for the minimum. Life, turns out, is competitive. And to get into specific colleges, to get specific funding, to get scholarships and grants, get into graduate school, get into medical school, and do all these things that a lot of students want to do is not a given that that will be an opportunity for you. So the idea is, to ask for more, and work hard. Do your very best to get as much out of everything that you're doing.
M: Would you like to share any fun facts with our readers?
JS: I'm not sure about fun facts. But I certainly provide my students with a reading list that I think is really interesting. And it's only partial. I don't want to overwhelm them, but [provide] books that will give you a sense of the history of science, relatable stories about science, and maybe new discoveries in science. I think if you want to be in science or medicine, it's really important that you understand the history. I think there are tons of different books out there that will inform students at this level about what's happened. For instance, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee is a great story about the history of cancer. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean has an amazing history of how we know what we know about the periodic table and the elements that we take advantage of every day.