About the department:

I’m an assistant professor of Integrative Biology at Michigan State University. It’s a great community with an especially large cohort of junior faculty (10 pre-tenure faculty in my department alone!), so we all help each other navigate our new lives as professors. The only downside is that, between us, we have 8 kids in the same daycare, so when anyone gets sick, the whole department goes down like dominoes.

About the research:

Research in my lab is focused on understanding the role of geography in structuring patterns of population genetic variation and learning about the processes that shaped those patterns. To further this goal, we develop and implement novel population genetic models and statistical methods for describing population structure and admixture, as well as studying local adaptation and natural selection. Our work is highly interdisciplinary; it incorporates population genetics theory, computation, statistics and inference, and a knowledge of the natural history of the empirical systems – which range from bacteria to humans – in which we apply these methods.

What has been the biggest challenge as a new PI so far?

The transition from “what I do” to “what the Bradburd Lab does,” and learning how to push forward on so many things simultaneously. This part has gotten a little easier (and a lot more fun) as my lab has grown, but some days I still really miss the good old days when I was just working on one project at a time! It’s also been a challenge to distinguish between work that’s urgent and work that’s important, and to realize that a lot of time there isn’t a ton of overlap between the two. Now, I protect time and energy every day to work on the important stuff, to make sure I’m not dying the Death of a Thousand Emails (aka being nibbled to death by ducks).

What has been the biggest surprise so far about being a new PI?

I was surprised by how lonely it felt when I first started. You’re used to being in labs where you have a lot of peers thinking about similar ideas, but often, when you’re hired as an assistant professor somewhere, it’s because that institution doesn’t already have someone who does what you do, so when you show up, you’re the only one doing it. It helped a lot to lean on other SSE-ers; special shout-outs to Emily Josephs and David Lowry for our super awesome journal club, and to Yaniv Brandvain for our check-ins!

How have you prepared to be a PI?

I was very fortunate to have a network of really wonderful mentors, both formal and informal. I learned so much from the examples set by my PhD advisors (Graham Coop and Brad Shaffer), postdoc advisors (Michael Nachman and Bree Rosenblum), and informal mentors (Anurag Agrawal and Sharon Strauss). In difficult situations, I often find myself channeling them, sometimes even down to using the same phrases they did with me!

How do you/will you approach mentoring new lab members?

I write a document of reciprocal expectations with all new lab members, so they know what I expect from them, and I know what they expect from me. It’s a living document, and we come back to it every semester to add or edit items. Different people prefer different mentorship styles, so this helps make sure that I can be the best mentor I can with each individual. Big picture, my goal with each lab member is to help them identify their career goals and plot a course to achieving professional satisfaction. It’s super fun and inspiring to work with such a great crew!

Are you recruiting? If so, how do you/ will you choose new lab members?

I’m not actively recruiting right now, but I’m always excited to talk to folks who are interested in the work we do. If you get jazzed thinking about spatial popgen, drop me a line!

When and why did you become a SSE member?

I became a member of SSE in grad school, and then, when I became an assistant professor, the first thing I paid for off my startup was a lifetime membership in the society. I love the SSE meetings (Evolution is definitely my favorite meeting to attend!), the intellectual community of the society, and of course also the journals the society supports.

What does becoming a SSE member mean to you or your career?

I remember there was a long time in grad school where I wasn’t sure whether or not I “counted” as a professional biologist yet (standard impostor syndrome stuff), and a big part of me feeling comfortable thinking about myself as the real deal was becoming a card-carrying member of SSE. Also, we should totally get cards to carry around!

Do you have a funny story to share from an Evolution Meeting?

I don’t know if I have any funny stories, but I definitely have a lot of nice memories. It’s always so fun to see old friends and make new ones, and, of course, hear about cool new science!

When was your first Evolution Meeting, and how did it affect your career?

My first Evolution meeting was in 2009 in Minneapolis. The poster session was on a bridge, and I just remember walking through all the posters and feeling like a kid in a candy-shop. That meeting was definitely confirmation for me that I wanted to be an evolutionary biologist.

Do you remember your first publication in Evolution or Evolution Letters (acceptance or rejection)?

Of course! It was my first first-author publication, so I could never forget it. Actually, it was such a great experience that it set up totally unrealistic expectations for the rest of my career. The submission process was pretty smooth, the AE (Jon Wilkins) and the reviewers were all great and gave thoughtful feedback that made the paper better, and it was accepted with minor revisions, which has never happened for me since. I still have a hardcopy edition of that journal on the shelf in my office and it’s a prized possession.

If you could meet one other SSE member for the first time, who would it be and why?

Probably Deborah and Brian Charlesworth. They’ve just made so many contributions to the field, and they think and write so clearly. I think I’d learn a lot and have fun doing it.

Besides research, how do you promote science?

Right now, the majority of my science outreach efforts are directed at my 3-year-old daughter. We do a lot of natural history observation together on our walks; recently she’s been really excited about worms, slugs, and fungi, which feels like a biologist-parenting win.

Do you teach evolution? What is the hardest concept to teach?

I teach evolution for grad students. I think one of the hardest concepts to convey is that no extant species is “more evolved” than any other extant species. I call it the X-men Fallacy, (“next step in human evolution”), and it’s surprisingly hard to get students on board.

Do you teach evolution? What concept blows students’ minds?

The coalescent. To be fair to students, it blows everybody’s minds.

How do you think evolutionary research benefits society?

Well there are all the obvious things about medicine and conservation and feeding the world and learning about our own evolutionary history, but I also think that fundamental, non-applied research is important in its own right. We’re all pushing back the boundaries of human ignorance a little bit at a time, and I think that’s pretty neat.

Do you have a time management tip to share?

I’ve found the Boulders/Rocks/Sand framework very helpful for organizing my effort. Boulders are big things, like manuscripts, grants, hard coding/math, new class preps; rocks are mid-size things, like reviewing manuscripts or teaching a class you’ve taught before, and sand is the million other things that clamor for your attention. The idea is that, if your time is a jar, you can put in boulders (I guess it’s a big jar?), then fill the space between them with rocks, and then pour sand into whatever space is left. But if you start with sand, you can’t get rocks and boulders in. I try to protect time every day (usually in the morning, at peak caffeination) to push Boulders, and then fit Rocks and Sand around them. It’s so easy to fill up a day with things that feel like work, but that don’t actually move your research program forward, so protecting time for the big stuff is crucial.

What book should every evolutionary biologist read?

I think we should all be reading more Ursula Le Guin.

What one piece of advice would you give to a starting graduate student?

Come up with lots of ideas for thesis projects and write them down! When you’re brainstorming, don’t get hung up on what’s possible, just think about a project that you think is cool. Then go through them and try to generalize – what connects these projects? Is it a particular system, or a phenotype, or a big open question in the field? Once you know, you can start to generate more targeted thesis ideas around that theme, and allow yourself to be more critical about what’s feasible. And remember, you don’t have to go it alone! Bounce your ideas off of your peers, your advisor, visiting speakers, other faculty, etc. As you narrow in on your thesis idea, I think it’s helpful to get more concrete: What is the title of your dissertation? What are the axis labels of Figure 1 of your dissertation? If your whole dissertation were summarized as a single data point in a meta-analysis, what would the title of that meta-analysis be? You can do it!

What one piece of advice would you give to a postdoc?

A postdoc can be a fun time in your career (lots of freedom, and not too many responsibilities), but it can also be hard. You’ve probably moved from wherever you did your PhD, so you might not have your friend community around you, and for some reason it seems like departments can never get their act together with postdocs. Like, you rarely make it onto mailing lists, and you maybe don’t show up in any directories. Plus, you’re putting yourself out there professionally all the time applying to jobs and (probably) experiencing a lot of rejection. So, my advice is: if you’re enjoying it, great! And if you’re having a hard time, it’s ok to have a hard time! Just try to be a good friend to yourself, and stay hydrated.

How was your first faculty meeting?

Total snoozefest.

Did you ever have something go wrong in a talk?

On one of the first invited seminars I gave, my computer was on a podium that had a slight slope. Slowly, and unbeknownst to me, my computer slipped down the podium over the course of my talk, until it eventually launched over the edge and crashed onto the floor. Someone in the back of the audience had fallen asleep, and when the computer fell he woke up and yelled a little bit.

Do you remember making any mistakes as a trainee; how did you recover?

Never. No just kidding I made so many mistakes. I still make mistakes all the time. When I feel bad about them, I just try to remind myself that if you know exactly what you’re doing and you’re doing it perfectly, then you’re not pushing yourself hard enough to learn new things.

What is something most people don’t know about you?

Little known fact: I’ve eaten monkey. Context: Although almost all of my research is computational now, I originally got into biology through a bunch of fieldwork opportunities in exotic places. One time, on an expedition to a remote part of Suriname that a friend had invited me to join, our resupply plane failed to show up and we ran out of food. We all ate bushmeat until we could get back to the capital. Peccary was delicious, piranha was ok, although very bony, but monkey was very unpleasant. 0/5 stars would not recommend.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

In my free time I love cooking and baking, amateur carpentry, reading scifi, seeing friends, and going on walks with my partner, our three-year-old kid, and our big scruffly dog Banjo.