This is an interview with my internship mentor, Dovi Kacev.
What is your job title?
Postdoctoral researcher which is a stage between doing a pHD and getting a full time academic job.
What are your main duties/responsibilities?
My job is focused on developing a new genetic technique for identifying really small baby fish which is used later to get a better understanding of what fish are currently in a given region, we use that in management and conservation ultimately.
What skills are necessary for your position ?
There is a lot of writing involved, math and logic but specific skills I'm using such as using a pipe pet, so doing the data analysis I do that all the programs are so how to learn how to do a little bit of computer coding as well on your own like, how do I teach myself but you know a lot of the others come with practice so you know the more you write the better you get it right as I was writing grants or writing papers ultimately the more you do it the better you get out of it and the same thing goes for the computer programming in the lab skills the more opportunities to practice the easier it becomes.
Do you consider a career in this field satisfying?
Extreme conservation biology is something that is only worth pursuing if it's really what you want to do that's not the career you want to do just because it makes a lot of money because it doesn't so the only way I think that anyone could have enough patience to work in this field is because they care enough and really really want to do this job.
Is there anything you wished your realized of the field of work when you were my age?
I wish I knew how much I would be using my math skills and my writing skills. I think that if I had known that I would have put a lot more effort and attention into those two things.
What is a typical workday like?
I come into the office and depending on the day I will start reading, I want to new scientific papers to get a better understanding of what new research has been done and then depending on the day either going in and writing grants and working on data or after going into the lab and running a processing genetic samples.
How was Southwest Fisheries organized/structured?
The science center is a research center within the national marine fisheries service which is part of NOAA which is the national oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration which is in the Department of Commerce which is part of the federal government so we are the Southwest Fisheries Science Center we have four divisions within the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of Fisheries Resources Division which deals with animals that are harvested for food and human use of what used to be called the protected Resources Division which is now a marine mammal and turtle row and Antarctic research Division and a new division called the ecosystem Resources Division which deals with 10 a larger scale than focusing on one species they're focusing on the interaction of many species and their environment.
How important is it with getting along with other people in your career?
Oh it’s huge working collaboratively if you're doing 6 scale oceanographic research and really any career in any research but definitely when you're doing this large-scale research collaboration is huge and if you don't have the ability to work well with other people will just not be able to get the kind of work done that's necessary for implementing real management and conservation policy so it's really important to learn skills and of different kinds of ways to work with people so whether you're introverted or extroverted there are ways that you can apply your skills to collaborate but collaboration is always important change.
What traits/personality traits/skills do you think are important?
Two things that are really important I think you need to be patient and really close attention to detail because science requires that sort of rigor and it also requires people be creative thinkers because you're going to run into problems that people have never had to deal with before and find ways to get around us so whether you're in the field and something breaks and you have to improvise a solution or you have a very tricky day the set and you need to analyze and creativity and passion I think I got passion in there too I really important to figuring out solutions to those problems.
What question do you think I should have asked that I didn’t?
Interesting, let me think for a second what question I think I do I wish I had asked when I was in high school in order to find a better be in a better place and honestly I think that's about volunteer opportunities because I think the sooner you start getting experience and working with people and learning about the way research actually works the the better off you are later your crew to the more experience you'll have so I think that you know reaching out to the researchers conservation biologists of conservation is what you're interested in but just Professionals in that career from there as early as you can whether it's in high school or during your undergraduate volunteering during Summers and things like that is a huge help to setting yourself up for Fruitful career ultimately/
Do you think doing an internship like this will help me in the future when applying to companies?
Experience is always a good thing I want to the tricky things with getting a job and in science is that people only want to hire people that already have experience and it's hard to get experience if you haven't been able to get a job in the first place so doing things like volunteering especially from early career young age perspective will get you the experience that will make you desirable to the Future employers but also it'll help you when you have to start working because beyond that getting the job once you have a job it will help you have the experience to you know be more creative to overcome issues that might arise order to know what to do with your data how to collect the data so that you don't have as much time trying to figure out how to do those things when you start your job.
Reflection from Internship so far:
A few really interesting things I've seen so far at my internship building is on the first day I got a tour of around and I got to go into different labs that they use in predicting fish stock as well as getting to actually do a live lab. I also got to go to freezers were they keep dead dolphins and dead fish that they found new discoveries in. The coolest thing I've seen so far is a large tank about three stories big that they test submarine equipment in.
What is your job title?
Postdoctoral researcher which is a stage between doing a pHD and getting a full time academic job.
What are your main duties/responsibilities?
My job is focused on developing a new genetic technique for identifying really small baby fish which is used later to get a better understanding of what fish are currently in a given region, we use that in management and conservation ultimately.
What skills are necessary for your position ?
There is a lot of writing involved, math and logic but specific skills I'm using such as using a pipe pet, so doing the data analysis I do that all the programs are so how to learn how to do a little bit of computer coding as well on your own like, how do I teach myself but you know a lot of the others come with practice so you know the more you write the better you get it right as I was writing grants or writing papers ultimately the more you do it the better you get out of it and the same thing goes for the computer programming in the lab skills the more opportunities to practice the easier it becomes.
Do you consider a career in this field satisfying?
Extreme conservation biology is something that is only worth pursuing if it's really what you want to do that's not the career you want to do just because it makes a lot of money because it doesn't so the only way I think that anyone could have enough patience to work in this field is because they care enough and really really want to do this job.
Is there anything you wished your realized of the field of work when you were my age?
I wish I knew how much I would be using my math skills and my writing skills. I think that if I had known that I would have put a lot more effort and attention into those two things.
What is a typical workday like?
I come into the office and depending on the day I will start reading, I want to new scientific papers to get a better understanding of what new research has been done and then depending on the day either going in and writing grants and working on data or after going into the lab and running a processing genetic samples.
How was Southwest Fisheries organized/structured?
The science center is a research center within the national marine fisheries service which is part of NOAA which is the national oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration which is in the Department of Commerce which is part of the federal government so we are the Southwest Fisheries Science Center we have four divisions within the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of Fisheries Resources Division which deals with animals that are harvested for food and human use of what used to be called the protected Resources Division which is now a marine mammal and turtle row and Antarctic research Division and a new division called the ecosystem Resources Division which deals with 10 a larger scale than focusing on one species they're focusing on the interaction of many species and their environment.
How important is it with getting along with other people in your career?
Oh it’s huge working collaboratively if you're doing 6 scale oceanographic research and really any career in any research but definitely when you're doing this large-scale research collaboration is huge and if you don't have the ability to work well with other people will just not be able to get the kind of work done that's necessary for implementing real management and conservation policy so it's really important to learn skills and of different kinds of ways to work with people so whether you're introverted or extroverted there are ways that you can apply your skills to collaborate but collaboration is always important change.
What traits/personality traits/skills do you think are important?
Two things that are really important I think you need to be patient and really close attention to detail because science requires that sort of rigor and it also requires people be creative thinkers because you're going to run into problems that people have never had to deal with before and find ways to get around us so whether you're in the field and something breaks and you have to improvise a solution or you have a very tricky day the set and you need to analyze and creativity and passion I think I got passion in there too I really important to figuring out solutions to those problems.
What question do you think I should have asked that I didn’t?
Interesting, let me think for a second what question I think I do I wish I had asked when I was in high school in order to find a better be in a better place and honestly I think that's about volunteer opportunities because I think the sooner you start getting experience and working with people and learning about the way research actually works the the better off you are later your crew to the more experience you'll have so I think that you know reaching out to the researchers conservation biologists of conservation is what you're interested in but just Professionals in that career from there as early as you can whether it's in high school or during your undergraduate volunteering during Summers and things like that is a huge help to setting yourself up for Fruitful career ultimately/
Do you think doing an internship like this will help me in the future when applying to companies?
Experience is always a good thing I want to the tricky things with getting a job and in science is that people only want to hire people that already have experience and it's hard to get experience if you haven't been able to get a job in the first place so doing things like volunteering especially from early career young age perspective will get you the experience that will make you desirable to the Future employers but also it'll help you when you have to start working because beyond that getting the job once you have a job it will help you have the experience to you know be more creative to overcome issues that might arise order to know what to do with your data how to collect the data so that you don't have as much time trying to figure out how to do those things when you start your job.
Reflection from Internship so far:
A few really interesting things I've seen so far at my internship building is on the first day I got a tour of around and I got to go into different labs that they use in predicting fish stock as well as getting to actually do a live lab. I also got to go to freezers were they keep dead dolphins and dead fish that they found new discoveries in. The coolest thing I've seen so far is a large tank about three stories big that they test submarine equipment in.