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Welcome to Earth on the Rocks, a show where we get to know the person behind the science over drinks. Each episode will highlight a new scientist in the earth and atmospheric sciences to learn more about their journey, what interests them, and who they are outside of their science.
Host: Shelby Rader
Producer: Cari Metz
Artwork: Connor Leimgruber
Board Operator: Kate Crum, Betsy Leija
Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation grant EAR-2422824.
Hi, folks, and welcome back to Earth on the Rocks, the show where we get to know the person behind the science. I'm your host, Shelby Rader, and joining us today is Danny Peltier. Danny, welcome. Hi. Thank you.
Shelby:So Danny is a PhD candidate in the department who just defended recently, so we'll talk about that on the show, hopefully. So Danny, as we get to know you today, what would be your drink of choice or a drink of non choice if you have one?
Danny:I'd have to say I think my drink of choice is gonna be a super spicy ginger beer. More than a ginger ale, but get that nose tickly from drinking it, like Reed's Extra Strong or something like that.
Shelby:Yeah, I love a good ginger anything. There is a canned cocktail that Cardinal Spirits makes that has ginger in it, it's that, like, really strong ginger that you can feel sort of tickle.
Danny:I also like their they have a Maui one that also has a nice little tickle to you. That's so good.
Shelby:Yeah. Danny, if somebody asked you what do you do, how would you answer that, or how would you sort of classify yourself?
Danny:Well, I will say that how I classify myself will vary a bit on who I'm talking to, because I wear quite a few little hats. But I think I would say paleontologist or geologist and paleoanthropologist. So anything old, fossils and rocks, that's what I'm looking at.
Shelby:And so you recently defended, and so can you just tell listeners what does that mean and sort of what does that represent and what is that process like going through that as a student?
Danny:Yeah, so before I actually did the defense, I wrote my dissertation, and that usually composes of three individual research projects. Usually they're related a little bit, and you write practically the book about it. And sent that to my committee, they approved it and said, Okay, you're good to defend. And that just means I had to make about a one hour presentation, try to shove everything that I did into that presentation. And it's kind of like the last, okay, here's the last trial you have to do before you can become a doctor.
Danny:And so show up very stressed prior, kind of just that one hour before is really the worst time, I think, where you're just kind of sitting there Oh, I have no idea how it's going to go. And logically, you know it's going be fine because you did all the work already. But it's pretty stressful. And then going into the defense, do the presentation, I, to be completely honest, blacked it out a little bit. I was like, Okay, got an hour.
Danny:Let's hope for the best. And once that's completed, they open it up to audience questions. Usually, defenses are open to the public. And so anyone sitting in the audience, either in person or online, can ask questions about the research they have to answer. And then once all of those have wrapped up, everyone leaves except for the committee and you.
Danny:And for the first chunk, you step out for a bit and they kind of talk amongst themselves, figure out what they want to talk to you about. And when you come back in, it's about three hours or so of questions. And I was lucky in the fact that my committee was already approving of my work, and so it wasn't like a grill session where they're just trying to poke holes and see what's kind of going on. Instead it was just a really fun actually conversation about, okay, what's the research? Here's some ideas of how we can change or modify to get things published and kind of just talking about future steps of the work.
Danny:And it was actually quite fun but very exhausting. At the end, you walk out and they deliberate again just to see, Okay, do we let her be a doctor or not? And then you come back and they say, Congrats, you're a doctor. Or they might not, but usually it seems like they don't let you get to that point unless they know you're going to pass. And so, yep, they opened the door and they said, Okay, congratulations, Doctor.
Danny:Peltier. And it's a bit surreal because I definitely think that the last couple years of the PhD are the hardest. And it's not necessarily the work aspect, it's just being able to persevere through it. It's so stressful period. And hearing that at the end is just a way off the shoulders.
Danny:And some people get immediate pass, good to go, no changes, send it in, but that's a bit rare from what I've heard. I had a couple of minor edits adding a few references here and there that I had to do before I submit the dissertation to the university, and then I get the diploma. But it seems that once the defense happens, to the eyes of academics, you are a doctor.
Shelby:Well, Doctor. Peltier.
Danny:It's Thank great to have
Shelby:you on here as a formal Doctor. Peltier. Yeah, so for folks that are listening, as a PhD student, you do all of this work oftentimes for many years. Yes. And the defense is meant to be this sort of culmination that's a celebration of the work that you've done.
Shelby:When you're the student in that position it does not feel like a celebration because it is really stressful and and as much as your committee or your advisors say you know this is meant to be an opportunity for you to showcase publicly all the hard work that you've done it still feels like this final hurdle so it is I think really stressful no matter you know how you sort of go about it or try to frame it and you know going through that and being able to to like talk about what you've done after the fact feels really good but in the moment like you said, I think a lot of people sort of black out during that process and then come through on the other side and hope for the best.
Danny:Yeah. And there's like a lot of conflicting emotions, too, that I wasn't expecting because you are excited to show everyone because you have been here for so long working on things, and so you want them to see, like, I swear I wasn't just sitting around doing willy nilly. Like, did a lot of work during this time, and you're proud of it, and you're excited, but at the same time, you are putting yourself out there to the public and they can or cannot agree with you. And so that's something you have to that kind of itches in the back of your mind because you could be super confident in your work, you never know how others are going to perceive it.
Shelby:Yeah, and I can remember when I went through that process it's also a little bittersweet, you know, like you're really proud of the work that you've done and you're also exhausted so you're just ready to like be on the other side of it. But then you also realize this is sort of not exactly the end but the beginning of the end of your time at this place that you've now spent many years of your life that oftentimes is quite formative. So to realize like oh this is I'm starting to get to the point where I'm thinking about what's next and maybe I won't be living here in a few months I always felt like that was it's sort of a shame that all of that comes so quickly at the end instead of there being a little more time to really get to celebrate and soak it in while you're still in the community that you've been in for the last several years.
Danny:I agree with that. And I also because I've been here a little bit too long, if I don't say myself, but a lot of the people that I had, like, built the community with had already graduated and left. And so part of it, too, was like, Okay, I'm still here. A lot of the people that I made these connections that I was with for five years or so have all since gone. And so it's like, okay, I'm wanting to celebrate with all my friends.
Danny:I celebrated with them when they did it, and it's like, oh, everyone's gone and left already. And so that's something too of like, okay. It really hits that you make such great connections here with the faculty and the other students and stuff, and people disperse across the globe. On one side, it's great because anywhere I go, I could probably find someone that I used to talk to and be like, Oh, hey, let's catch up. But the other side it's like, Okay, all my friends are dispersed around the world.
Shelby:Yeah, I will say, you know, for me now having been past the PhD defense for longer than I would like to admit, it feels like in the moment, Oh, man, everybody is all over the place, and then the further away you get from that, you're like, it's still such a small world, though. Like the number of people that I've run into from my time as a graduate student now many years later in different parts of the world, it's so crazy how frequently you'll continue to run into them because it is sort of a small world. So hopefully you all will get to all reconnect at different points.
Danny:Oh yeah, it's the best part about conferences, I think. Like yes, you're going to go see the groundbreaking science and present your work, but at the same time, you're gonna see all your friends that you haven't seen since last year.
Shelby:Yeah, it's really great.
Danny:Going out to dinners and drinks and hanging out with everyone and catching up. Like, the last conference I was at, I ran into a friend that I did field camp with. And it was two of us, we hadn't seen each other since 2016 all together, and it was just like, Oh my gosh, we're all finally back together! This is so great!
Shelby:Yeah, you never know when there'll be sort of a reunion. Yeah. It's kind of nice. So what sort of work had you been working on for your dissertation? Can you tell us a little bit about sort of the research questions that you were interested in?
Danny:Yeah, so my research is based in Eastern Africa, and the kind of centralized point is understanding human evolution through time. And there are a lot of hypotheses on kind of what led us to become humans. If we think about the last common ancestor we shared with other great apes, it was something that looked possibly like a chimpanzee or an ape of some sort. We were living in trees, eating fruits and such, and we slowly transitioned to standing a little bit more upright, starting to walk on its two legs, traveling to vast distances, covering all of Africa and to Eurasia, and starting to make stone tools and eat other foods. And so kind of the driving pressures of that has been a really important question in the field.
Danny:And a lot of times people are focused on climate because humans have evolved over the last eight million years or so, and during that time there were some environmental changes kind of happening globally where we get grasslands expanding throughout, and we're getting more dry conditions in Eastern Africa, So it's kind of called the Savannah hypothesis, is one of the foundational hypotheses of just as the landscape opens up, we're getting more dry conditions, less wooded forests that are humid. That was kind of the driving pressure. And so a lot of people focused on the climate aspect. But before I'd gotten into hominin evolutionary research, I did my undergrad in New Mexico, and a lot of it was focused on rift geology, so when two tectonic plates are spreading apart. And the same process was happening in Eastern Africa over the last forty million years or so, where you're having these plates separating apart, and so you're going from a relatively flat landscape to a lot of topographic complex.
Danny:You're having a lot of different elevations throughout. You have volcanoes popping up on shoulders that create volcanic highlands. You're getting deep valleys that are showing up. And my interest was, how is that impacting human evolutionary? Does that impact human evolution?
Danny:And so I focused on the tectonic portion of it, so how those tectonic processes, those plates splitting apart, and how they lead to volcanic hazards, they lead to earthquakes, and they just make the landscape very complex. And when you have a really complex landscape, you're able to get a lot of different biomes and habitats in a really small area. So you tend to get quite a lot of biodiversity. And so that was kind of the centralized question of my dissertation is how are those tectonic processes impacting human evolution through time? And my first two chapters, I focused on one site in East Africa called Olduvai Gorge.
Danny:One of the earlier podcast guests you had was my advisor, Doctor. Jackson Njau. We would go out to Olduvai Gorge, I did some geology work. I did some sequence stratigraphy to better constrain time, just looking at different sedimentary packages. And then I also compiled the largest database of all vertebrate fossils and species ever found at Olduvai over almost one hundred years now, going through all the literature, just saying, Okay, what kind of fish do we have?
Danny:Amphibians? What kind of pigs, suids? All the different critters. And I looked at how the ecosystem based on those animals changed through time. And something really cool that I found was that there was a really large eruption that happened at one point.
Danny:It was
Shelby:A volcanic eruption.
Danny:A volcanic eruption. It would have lasted two thousand to three thousand years or so, and a lot of pyroclastic flows and surges. So you can think of Mount St. Helens or Pompeii, where you have that ash and explosions going on. And there was actually a faunal turnover, which means that the animal community that we had before the eruption was different after the eruption.
Danny:So we lost a lot of animals, whether they were killed off in the eruption or they left. Because for an eruption that lasts that long, if you see the first pots, you're going get out of there as fast as you can, and you might not want to return. But that kind of led to a change in the ecosystem, and that was something that hadn't been talked about before. Everyone's like, oh, there was some aridity that happened. That changed the faunal community and my stuff so that the aridity didn't quite matter.
Danny:They were dealing with it. But that eruption, that changed some things. And then later on in the time, it was the landscape change and a shift from an area that had a large lake to an area that had more rivers codding across it also shaped the faunal communities that we saw. We saw that at first all of our animals were clustered around this lake margin and they were all pretty similar. And then as the landscape changed to get a lot of rivers, we got a bunch of different habitats.
Danny:They started using more of the open area and we have little clusters of habitat in this smaller area. So found really compelling stuff about that. And then the last one was a bit of a 180, but still in the same ballpark, where I did multi agent based modeling, which is a fancy word for a computer model where you have a landscape that could change and you have a lot of agents that are on top that could interact with each other and with the landscape. And I looked at how volcanism could impact speciation at some point. And so on a volcanic island when you have an eruption, that tends to lead to more diversity and speciation and changes within a species.
Danny:So you're getting a lot of open niches for them to all bounce through. And I was like, can that happen in Eastern Africa where we have volcanoes as well? Or is it something that's only on an island? And so I used this modeling software to a theoretical species on a theoretical landscape loosely based on Eastern Africa with a volcano and look to see if the main volcanic types, which are effusive, which is like a Hawaii slow flowing lava or explosive like Pompeii or Mount St. Helens, if that could cause animals diversify and have different traits and kind of become different species.
Danny:And on the model, it worked. So next steps is there's some things I would like to change about the model, but continuing that and looking and seeing if what we see in the model can be proven with the fossil record.
Shelby:And so sort of the overarching idea of your project and of other work at Olduvah Gorge and probably elsewhere too seems to be we have evidence that we have evolved as a species and so what is it that's triggering that evolution? So is it a singular event? Is it a collection of events? Is it environmental? Is it climatic?
Shelby:But what is it that is forcing some species to develop traits that ultimately lead into what we know today as humans? Is that accurate? And Pretty so you were more focused on some of these tectonic activities, which is a really interesting approach, because like you said, this is not my field whatsoever, but from what I am familiar with, a lot of folks are really interested in the climatic changes. So was it because it got really hot or really dry or really wet or we have different plants that are evolving? But you were interested in sort of these geologic processes and how those could maybe impact or trigger this evolution and diversification, which I think is such a cool approach to take in these areas and seems really relevant especially in that part of Eastern Africa because there is so much active volcanism in that time period.
Danny:Yeah, and it also, like, climate does make sense. And something we also have to consider is with these tectonic and landscape changes, it's also going to influence the local climate. Get things like rain shadows where the clouds kind of just stop at a mountain and one side will get a lot of rainfall and be really lush in forest, and the other side's going be completely dry. And so the local climate and I think it's important to note that at the end of the day, we're never going to be able to pinpoint like, okay, it was this exactly right here. That's what made us a human type thing.
Danny:And it's most likely going to be a combination of so many factors because evolution and life in general is, there's so many factors going on that it's hard to pinpoint exactly this is the one and how the factors can all combine and it's an interplay of everything. But the tectonic side hadn't really been looked at. And as someone who had a mainly geology background, I was like, we're not looking enough at this. We've got to check this out. And I'm really glad I did, and it's very fun.
Shelby:Yeah. And I want to come back to sort of this idea of your geology background, but I also want to ask, it seems like, you know, the work obviously has implications for potentially what may have helped lead to human evolution as we know it today, but I would imagine there are also implications for humans now and where we go moving forward. So is that an aspect of sort of what you were interested into, is how some of these previous changes maybe should be evaluated when we think of what the human species looks like in the next several tens or hundreds of thousands of years? Is that an aspect of the work at all?
Danny:That isn't. It's an interesting question, though. And I think it would be a little tough just because as humans, we've figured out a lot of ways to kind of surpass issues that may be environmentally driven. We have air conditioning. We have infrastructure.
Danny:We have all these things. And also, we're in a point where I can hop on a plane right now and go halfway across the world in a day or two. And that was something unprecedented prior. And so I think it would be a little hard, but I tend to once something turns into Homo sapiens, our species, I'm like, Okay, someone else can look at I would apply this more to other animals and seeing if it's something unique to us or how these prosties could impact other faunal groups because it's not just us that's evolving in East Africa during this time. It's everything that's currently there.
Danny:And so that's something that's interesting. And going back to the volcano stuff, it's something really cool that I had found in literature review, looking and trying to find things to support what I'm talking about, was every time you have a major volcanic event in Eastern Africa, like these large scale volcanism, right after, we get some divergences in the primate lineage. So you get some splitting. So one species becomes two, becomes three. And for big milestones and divergences in primate evolution was right after we had large scale volcanic event.
Danny:And I thought that was just so cool. Yeah. Lines up and it's observational, of course, but it's something that makes you think and want to look into a little bit more.
Shelby:Yeah, that's amazing. So you mentioned that you sort of came into this with a primarily geologic background. So how did you end up getting into paleoanthropology? What triggered that interest from mostly geological to where you are now?
Danny:Well, kind of starts at my undergrad. I had always wanted to be paleontologist, and my mom was like, That's not a real job. Yeah. And so the first year and a half of undergrad, I was a chemistry major. I was going to do pre med.
Danny:And this is in New Mexico? In New Mexico. New Mexico State. Go Aggies. But after my first year, I, on a whim, applied to GSA, Geological Society of America, geoscientist in the park position at White Sands, which is right by where I went to school, for a field paleontology intern.
Danny:And I was very very lucky, had no experience whatsoever, only three people had applied and the other two applicants were not able to come out. So I got the call at the May being like no one else can come, can you do it still? And I was like sign me up And I was like, wow. This is great. I'm gonna keep doing this.
Danny:But it wasn't until the following spring that I was sitting in a class, and I was like, I really do not want to do this. And I got up, went to the office, and was like, Hey, I would like to drop all my classes, get all new ones, and change my major, please. And I switched to geology, and at that time, I didn't know of any paleontologists at my college. And so I was just looking through, and I saw that there were paleoanthropologists in the school, and I took some of those classes, and I was like, Okay, this is the closest I could get to paleontology. Sounds great.
Danny:And that was kind of my first exposure to it. And the field camp that I had went to during my undergrad was recommended by one of the paleoanthropologists there, which was the Turkana Basin Institute Human Origins Field School. So it was one semester in the Turkana Basin of Kenya, where we had little modules, two weeks of geology, two weeks of paleontology, two weeks of paleoanthropology, and then two weeks of archaeology. And there might be something else that I can't remember off the top of my head. But that kind of solidified, like, I love conducting research in Eastern Africa.
Danny:The food's great and the rocks are great. And it's really funny because I'll post pictures from out there. My friends in New Mexico are like, You went halfway across the world to go to a place that looks just like this? Because the landscapes are super similar because the same processes made them. And so that kind of solidified that aspect.
Danny:But I still, my degree was in geology, and it was a very field heavy program, lots of field trips, really focused on traditional geology. And when I was applying to graduate schools, I knew I didn't want to do a PhD in anthropology just because my interests were more on any type of vertebrate animal and rocks. Within anthropology, very cool field, but I'm not the biggest fan of archaeology and stone tools or cultural anthropology and stuff like that. I think it's fascinating, but it's not something I'd want to focus on. And I applied to a couple schools.
Danny:Most of them were not looking at human evolution stuff at all, but when I applied to IU, was the only program I applied to that did do that work because it was the only one I was able to find that had human evolution research in a geology department. And I was like, well, this sounds great. Sign me up. And the project that I thought I was gonna do when I first stepped in was nowhere near what I ended up doing. But, yeah, I was kind of just, okay, I wanna stay in a geology department.
Danny:I would like to do work in Eastern Africa, but the time period I was interested in or the animal group I was looking at wasn't a major priority for me. As long as I could look at a fossil and also some geology, I was happy. And that brought me to IU, and the rest is history.
Shelby:Yeah. So you mentioned that sort of one of the, I guess, triggers for your interest was this GSA geoscientists in the park opportunity. And I think that that's a really great program. I never have participated in it, but I'm aware of it. Can you talk a little bit about sort of what that experience was like and that opportunity?
Danny:Yeah. I will say leading into it, because I was first year out of undergrad, I took one geology class, like an intro evolution of Earth type thing. And so going in, I didn't know what I was going to come across. But it was really, really cool. And I know that there's differences between different parks or whatever, but the program, I think it's expanded now to a lot of different fields.
Danny:But they bring interns in a vast array of geology or other kind of earth based sciences or archaeology to intern at these parks for a summer. And sometimes you just do a normal internship. Other times there's housing. And so for me, was a housing there. So for about a summer, I lived at the national park, which was phenomenal.
Danny:Just being able to walk out and see a sunrise over the most gorgeous landscape you've ever seen. And I lived at the park and it was a field paleontology position, so a lot of my work was actually going out into the park and doing surveys. I was looking at trackways that were made by animals, and it was humans at the time that hadn't been dropped yet. It's now known to be one of the oldest human footprints in North America ever. Wow.
Danny:But when I was in the office, I was looking at satellite imagery and Google Earth trying to identify places that might have these footprints preserved, and then going out to those sites and seeing, okay, do we find these footprints? Where are they? What kind of animals made them? And another part of my work was there was a second intern that did archaeology. So we would kind of go back and forth of like, Okay, we're going go to do her field stuff, make sure that archaeological sites that were already recorded were still there and still in good condition, if any other artifacts had come up, and then identifying potential places where there could be more archaeological material.
Danny:And so we'd go back and forth between my paleo based fieldwork and then her archaeology. And yeah, it was about a year. It was a tough time, though. Was one of the wettest summers that that area had ever seen, and you can't go out because if you step on some wet sand while you're looking for footprints, you're gonna make your own, and that's not gonna be very good.
Shelby:Yeah. So when I lived in Arizona, I would go to New Mexico for long weekends and Watt Sands is beautiful and it's for me coming from Kentucky and then you know having been in Arizona, Watt Sands feels like you're on another planet when you're there. It feels like such an anomaly for everything that's around it and I camp there and that's like in my top three camping experiences because when you wake up and you see the sunrise there it's just incredibly beautiful. So to be able to intern there for an extended period of time, I feel like would be a lot of fun, albeit with the wettest season that they've had, maybe that would be a little challenging.
Danny:It's still gorgeous. That was the kind of solidifying part too of I love fieldwork. That's I think my favorite aspect of doing any type of research is being able to go out and camping out in the field and just being one to one in the environment and seeing the rocks and being the first person in x amount of hundreds or millions or thousands of years to see a fossil or a stone tool or anything like that. And the rush you get from it is phenomenal. And, yeah, people if you haven't been to White Sands, it does sound underwhelming just to be like, oh, wow.
Danny:A bunch of white sand. But it's phenomenal. It's the world's largest gypsum dune field. And it's great for sledding, and the sand never gets hot, which is the great part. Gypsum's a terrible conductor of heat, and so you can go out, it could be 100 degrees out, and the sand is nice and cool.
Danny:If you dig down a couple inches, it's going to be damp because the water table is so high. So it's not just like breathtakingly beautiful, but it's also just such an interesting wonder of like, I don't know, not hot sand is something that seems so counterintuitive to Yeah. But it's great. Totally agree.
Shelby:So, you know, I think the way that you described some of your work, especially while you've been at IU, is really intriguing because you do sort of combine this sort of hard rock geologic experience with this sort of paleoanthropological experience. And you mentioned that you really love doing the fieldwork. While you've been here, how many times have you gone to Olduvai?
Danny:I have gone to Olduvai three times, then I've gotten four times in Tanzania in general, because one of the times I went, I always kinda stay at the museum to work on materials there. I did span COVID times. Yeah. So there was a couple years where just no way to get out there, which is how I got that modeling chapter in my dissertation. But, yeah, I've been out three times during field seasons and also helping out with the field camp that IU hosts out there.
Danny:And then one time just hanging out in the museum in the city area.
Shelby:Do you have like a favorite experience during your time there or something that sort of stands out from your field experiences in the region?
Danny:Oh, I have a fun story. Okay. I was with one of the other students and he was doing drone based research. So we had to go to an area that he could fly the drone and we're also looking for an area that I can kind of climb down. So Olduvai Gorge is a flat landscape, and then a river had cut through.
Danny:So you have, I think, the deepest part of the gorge is like the height of the Empire State Building. So you're kind of on this upper level, and you have that gorge like a mini Grand Canyon popping through. And so we're driving trying to find the best place for me to go down and him to do the flights. And we pull over to one area and we're by this tree And as we turned off the car, I guess a lot of hyrax got scared. They're like kind of these small they look kind of like rodents or guinea pig type things, but they're not a rodent whatsoever.
Danny:But these small animals were in these trees and 20 or three of them all just fell out. And they're not like cats. They do not land on their feet.
Shelby:They're not great. Just a bunch
Danny:of these little potato looking critters falling out of this tree, landing on their backs and stuff and just like getting up and scurrying down the gorge. And it was one of the wildest things I had ever seen, just 20 rodent type critters falling down and scurrying away. Yeah, I think that wildlife interactions are phenomenal. I stop dead in my tracks every time I see a dic, which are these small little antelope type animals. But there was one time I was sitting at an outcrop with one of my friends out there, Rogers, and I'm writing notes.
Danny:Then he's like, hey, don't move too much. And I look up, and there's just a bunch of baboons walking across and just frozen for a second of, like, those guys have some big teeth. I don't want to call them. But, yeah, I think that those are the best experiences. And then second would be whenever someone anyone on the team finds something cool because the excitement is just palpable and everyone's like, you're at a dig site and everyone's just running around like, Oh my god, you see what he found?
Danny:You see what they found? Oh my gosh! And getting that kind of, everyone's so excited about any kind of discovery.
Shelby:Yeah, I think, you know, field work doesn't always have to be remote, but in the times where it is in more remote locations, I agree, the wildlife experiences, it's just something that you don't typically get to have whenever you're sort of living your day to day life in a town or a city. And so the ones that you described would really stand out too because they're so different than anything that people in The US would see or experience. So it'd be a lot of fun.
Danny:Yeah, Hearing hyenas in the night while you're trying to go to bed. Yeah. It's just and all the stars. Being able to go out there and experience it is one of the best things. And I hope I am praying to go back soon.
Shelby:Has there been anything that sort of stood out to you during your PhD experience or things that maybe would surprise listeners about what goes into your time as a PhD student and now as a formal doctor. Are there aspects of it that maybe were not as clear before you began this journey?
Danny:I think that the transition that happens in a PhD program might be the most shocking. When you go into it, you've been a student. Even like I did research as an undergrad on magma evolution and stuff, and it's different still because you're told, okay, you're going to do this. Look at this. Here are the methods.
Danny:And the first couple years of grad school, it's a bit like that too for some people, but you have classes, you're a student, you're going and you kind of have things outlined a bit. And then there is a transition where all of a sudden, okay, you're now just a scientist. And that was a little hard to kind of wrap my head around of, I'm so used to checking in. Is this the correct way to do it? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing?
Danny:And no one is going to give you a straight answer because part of the job is you have to figure it out. And I think that when you think of a Ph. D, it's, Okay, I'm going to go and learn a bunch of stuff, and I'm going become an expert in something. But the biggest thing is you're learning how to think, pretty much. And that's something that was hard because it's nothing you you may or may not know how to think in that type of sense, but having confidence in your thoughts and your assumptions and your process was something that I struggled with a bit because I was just so unsure and double checking, like, this Ryan?
Danny:Is this what are we supposed to be doing here? And of building that confidence. And I know everyone has different experiences. Some people go into the PhD and have projects kind of lined up based in their lab. Other people, like for me, it was kind of like, okay, I can get you to Olduvai Gorge, figure out a project type thing.
Danny:Yeah. And building the confidence to say, okay, I am doing this or I don't want to do something. The project that I had proposed initially after my first field season, I was like, I do not want to do this at all. And building the confidence to tell the advisors that you just sold for the last year, like, I'm going to do this. It's going be so great.
Danny:Having like, okay, I'm not going to do that. I'm sorry. Here's the other idea I have. It's good, right? And kind of having that faith in yourself that you know, you've been through enough that you know what's right.
Danny:And that's something that was unexpected, but it's very valuable, I'd say.
Shelby:Yeah, I think that that, like you mentioned, that transition from sort of the mindset of a student to the mindset of now an expert in a field that's sort of leading the direction of research that you're interested in is something that is surprising for a lot of people. And I can remember when I was a student, and even now, even for people in my family sometimes it's hard to be like, Oh, you're a PhD student? So what classes are you taking? And at a certain point you're not taking classes anymore, right? You're like, Well, I'm not in class right now.
Shelby:I'm doing research. And they're like, Well, what does that mean? Like, is this a job? I thought you were a student. And so there's sort of this gray area during that transition period between sort of where you are in the context of the hierarchy of academia.
Shelby:And yeah, even now, you know, like teaching is an aspect of my job, but research is also a big aspect of my job. And that's not something that is always that apparent to the general public. I think that's a really great thing to point out is that transition is sort of surprising but is also really fulfilling when you get to the point where you are confident in saying, you know, I think this is a good research direction, this is how I want to approach it, and then satisfying when you get to the other side and you're like, I did that, you know? Like that was me who sort of directed that and led that, and yeah, it's something to be really proud of.
Danny:And like, I was the first person in my family to like even go to college type thing, and so that was, I think, one other thing that was surprising was I went to a predominantly first gen institution. Most of the people that I was around also, their families had never gone to college. And then as I got into graduate school and so many people around me, their parents had masters or doctorates already, and they would know and they would be able to call their parents like, Oh, hey, what's the best way to do this? How do you make a CV? Like, be able to have those types of conversations.
Danny:And my mom is very supportive, but she doesn't know what's going on. She's like, see, do human evolution, right? So we're related to monkeys. And I was like, well, we are primates. We diverge.
Danny:We're slightly different. And she's like, so we just came from that. And I'm like, Okay, well, no. And at the simplest like, if you want to go really crazy, like, at the end of the day, we all came from a fish. Know?
Danny:It's start throws a bunch of cells, and then we get some fish, and then we get some things that walk on land, and then so on and so forth. And she was like, Okay, I could handle being related to a monkey, but I draw the line at a fish.
Shelby:Yeah, it is sometimes it's really difficult to sort of explain what you do. But I think, yeah it's like fun to have people on here to be able to give them that that opportunity. If there are folks that are listening to this that are interested in like maybe getting in the field or thinking about graduate school do you have any advice for them or words of wisdom?
Danny:My advice is, I would say that when you're applying to graduate schools, it feels a lot like, okay, I need to prove myself, and it's all about where I get in, what I can do. And something that's important to remember is it's going to be a tough time. It's a long haul. I think that there's a large proportion of the population who has the intellectual capabilities to do a PhD but it is more than just being smart or being a good student or something like that. It is really just a marathon and resilience.
Danny:And it's important that you're in an environment that you are comfortable with and that you like. So it's not just, okay, I want to go to the best program I could possibly find. Talk with the advisor that you're interested in prior to it and get a feel for them. And it's okay if the person who's the top person in your field maybe doesn't mesh well with how you work. It's completely normal.
Danny:Everyone's different. People are all just people at the end of the day. And you're going to be successful with people that you can have a good working relationship with. So don't be afraid to talk with these people and use your gut and go where feels right, apply to where feels right. And if you're in a situation that maybe is not what you expected, it's okay to leave and it's okay to go somewhere else.
Danny:I think that I was always so afraid of, okay, I have to get this done at this time and so focused on this time scale of, okay, I finished my undergrad and I went straight to a PhD and I have to stick through it, I have to do all these things and I have to get done in five years and that adds so much unnecessary stress. And it doesn't matter how long it takes, where you go, because the best work is going to come when you feel good, when you feel comfortable. You could be in the best lab in the world but if you're not having the best time your work's not going to be great And it's okay to take a year or two and realize, okay, this may not be the best place for me and go somewhere else. And I've had a lot of friends who've done that, and they've come out so much better on the other side. And I think that it's a big fear for a lot of people of failing, let's say.
Danny:And it's not failing. It's realizing your worth and what you need to prioritize and going from there. So I would just say, like, don't be afraid to set your boundaries, set what you want, and go from there. And then I would personally recommend I wish I would have done this doing a master's first. Straight from undergrad to PhD was pretty tough, and I think getting a master's first does help.
Danny:Or even doing a job in between, something else to kind of get you out of that mindset of, I am a student. This is the one thing I know. And learning those skills of project management and planning and how to kind of be more than a student, I think is very important. But everyone, again, just do what feels right to you and don't stay in something just because it felt right to you a year or a few years prior.
Shelby:Yeah, I think that's great advice. I always tell people, if you can get two out of three things, then you're probably going to be in a good spot. Someone you enjoy working with, a project you're really excited by, and a place that you like to live. Because ultimately, whether it's a master's or a PhD, you're gonna be in an area for anywhere from two to six, seven, eight years. And so if you can get two of those three, you're probably doing pretty good.
Shelby:If you can get three out of three, then that's That's perfect. Yeah, that's a grand slam. Well, Danny, we always end the show with our Yes, Please segment, where we each get a minute to talk about something that we're excited by in the moment. And you have the option of going first or going second. Do you have a preference?
Danny:I'll go second.
Shelby:Okay. If you don't care to time me.
Danny:Okay.
Shelby:This will be my yes please segment.
Danny:Starting now.
Shelby:Yes please. Let's bring back the the sort of broad appeal of music videos. I know that music videos still exist, and I don't mean to be old man yelling at clouds. But back in my day, music videos were a huge aspect of music. I can remember being younger and watching MTV.
Shelby:There was an entire show dedicated to the making of music videos called Making the Video, where at the end of the episodes, you get to see the full process of making a music video. At the end of episode, it was the world premiere of the music video. So people literally tuned in to watch the music videos, and it was an aspect of the art. And there was a lot of thought that went into music videos, a lot of money that went into music videos, and it was just a really nice way to collectively view music. And I feel like that's missing now.
Shelby:I know some artists still drop music videos consistently, but I feel like it's not the same as it used to be. We need to bring that back.
Danny:I 100% agree. Every morning before school, I would just turn on MTV or VH1, and the morning was just full of music videos, and it was, like, the best thing to watch. The first YouTube video I ever watched, I remember it took, like, thirty minutes to an hour to load on dial up one Fallout Boy music video.
Shelby:Yeah, like music videos were such a big thing, and that used to be what stations like that would play, and that's not the case anymore. I'm advocating we need to
Danny:bring that back. 100% agree.
Shelby:All right, Dani, if you're ready, this will be your Yes Please segment. All right. Go ahead.
Danny:Yes Please, Meal prep in a new way. I cannot eat any food more than two or three times in a row, but it is impossible to make food for one serving. I think it is possible, but I cannot do it physically. But they make these silicone ice cube trays that hold like half a cup, one cup, two cups that you could just take whatever food you have, you put them in there, you stick in the freezer, throw the little blocks in a bag, and you have just made a TV dinner for that you could get anytime you want. I've seen people mix and match things, like they'll have side dishes and stuff, so they could say, want this chili and I want this rice and I'm gonna put it together.
Danny:I've been big on pot pies. I'll make a bunch of pot pie filling out of one rotisserie chicken, and then I have eight pot pies, can just throw the block in there.
Shelby:Fifteen seconds.
Danny:Put some biscuits on top. It's great. I recommend it to anyone. If you want ways to do meal prep without staying in the same food for a week straight, get these ice cube trays. Phenomenal.
Shelby:Amazing. Also agree wholeheartedly. I think cooking for one or two is really difficult, and I'm the same. I can only do leftovers for, like, a few meals, and then I'm so tired of those leftovers, I never want to see them again. Eventually, change my mind, but it takes a while.
Shelby:And so this idea of sort of like meal prepping TV dinners that you can mix and match, I love it. I think that's a great way to approach it.
Danny:Yeah. Just don't put the noodles in. You can freeze the noodle sauce, but don't do the noodles. They do come out a funky texture. Okay.
Shelby:Word to the wise. Well, thank you, Danny, for coming on. It has been such a pleasure having you.
Danny:Thank you for having me.
Shelby:And for folks that are listening, hopefully you tune in next week when we have a new guest. We will see you then. Earth on the rocks is produced by Cari Metz with artwork provided by Connor Leimgruber, with technical recording managed by Kate Crum and Betsy Leija. Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation grant, EAR Dash2422824.