This Minibabble is a shortened version of the episode “The Science of Connection: Global Women in Herpetology.”
Herpetology is a science with a dubious distinction. It is one of the least diverse professions, especially in terms of gender. It is not uncommon for women herpetologists to find themselves the lone woman at meetings, in research groups, and at conferences. The profession also tends to be practiced by men who grew up as boys with access to nature, leading to racial and geographic imbalance.
Our guests on this episode noticed their own uniqueness. In fact, it was often pointed out to them how unusual they were. But they also noticed the special bonds they formed with their female colleagues around the world. So one day, they set out to do something about it. The result is a book, Women in Herpetology, 50 Stories from Around the World.
Visit the full episode page for more information and credits.
Transcript:
[00:00:20] Suki: This is your host, Suki Wessling, and this is a Minibabble.
[00:00:29] Jess: Being a scientist can be so inaccessible. By telling the personal stories, I feel like that it sort of communicates that you can do it. There are so many ways to be successful as women, as scientists, and here is just this like beautiful compilation of stories that show that it is possible.
[00:00:51] Suki: Herpetology is a science with a dubious distinction.
[00:00:54] It is one of the least diverse professions, especially in terms of gender. It is not uncommon for women herpetologists to find themselves the lone woman at meetings, in research groups, and at conferences. The profession also tends to be practiced by men who grew up as boys with access to nature, leading to racial and geographic imbalance.
[00:01:14] My guests on this episode noticed their own uniqueness. In fact, it was often pointed out to them how unusual they were. But they also noticed the special bonds they formed with their female colleagues around the world. So one day, they set out to do something about it. The result is a book, Women in Herpetology, 50 Stories from Around the World.
[00:01:33] It also resulted in a community of 50 women who have become long distance allies. Let’s meet three of them.
[00:01:54] Jess: Hi everyone, my name is Jess Hua. I am an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison and in this role I oversee a research program where we first seek to understand how environmental change influences aquatic ecosystems, specifically amphibians, and then Secondly, we are interested in understanding how non traditional resources like art, graphic novels, and citizen community science initiatives can broaden participation in, in science.
[00:02:27] And I have been here for two years now and really do love Wisconsin.
[00:02:33] Umi: Hi everyone. So I’m, my name is Umilaela and yeah, so I’m originally from Indonesia, but somehow I, now living in Germany, I’ve been 10 years living in Germany. I was studying before, like for my PhD, but then I got a postdoc and then now I’m basically a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change in Hamburg, Germany.
[00:03:00] Yeah, I’m interested in studying amphibian and diversity in Asia in general, but particularly Indonesia. I’ve been focusing my research to understand the the diversity and phylogeny of, like, this particular group of frog that is, like, from the that has, like, special adaptation, you know, like, so because they live in the Cascading stream habitat.
[00:03:22] So they develop like a, a unique adaptation in their tadpole. So their tadpole has like really big sucker in their belly to help them basically cling on a rock to not wash out. So then I’m trying to like understand how, you know, like everything about like, this tadpole and this group.
[00:03:40] Sheila: Hi, my name is Sheila or Sinlan Poo.
[00:03:43] I grew up in Taiwan. I’m a Behavioral Ecologist and Conservation Biologist. I have kind of lived, studied all over the place, so in South and Southeast Asia, and Central and South America, and then kind of in different places in the U. S. So I’m currently in Tennessee. I work for the Memphis Zoo where I’m the Curator of Research here, and then I have an adjunct position at Arkansas State University.
[00:04:12] In my role at the Zoo, I would say it’s kind of I wear a lot of different hats, but mainly is to do do research that that shows us how zoos can be effective as a scientifically forward organization for in situ conservation. So how, when we use the information we know at the zoo to help species that are not doing so well in the wild.
[00:04:34] And then as a part of that, I also do a lot of outward facing kind of science communication things to make people know that there’s research going on at the zoo and that the zoo is contributing to conservation.
[00:04:47] Suki: Here’s Umi talking about the origins of the Biographical Book Project, which she started with fellow herpetologist Itzue Caviedes Solis.
[00:04:55] Before she approached Itzue, she says that people often remarked on her unusual choice of career and suggested that she write her story.
[00:05:03] Umi: When I start my career in herpetology, it was like not so common in Indonesia, you know, so then kind of I always you know, like, uh, telling my friend, you know, whenever I come back from the field, you know, or about like my journey in herpetology, you know, like I, how I ended up, you know, just studying this little creature I can, you know, like, you know, that’s just my life.
[00:05:25] Travel all over Indonesia, the place that I have never been to, or like imagine I would go there by myself, you know, and then it just like, uh, happened to, you know, only because I’m studying this little tiny things that like people, especially in Indonesia, find it, you know, like that like, ooh, frogs, yeah, isn’t that like disgusting?
[00:05:45] I had that idea kind of like even more, yeah, like, uh, kind of like, I think I need to write, but maybe I don’t want to write it myself. You know, maybe having like more people would be nice. So then I’ve been friends with Itsue, you know, like for some years at that time. And then, so we traveled together For the World Congress.
[00:06:04] And then so in one of the day, you know, like, so we hike and then somehow, I don’t know, it’s just like the, the, the moon is just like, make me just like, oh, maybe this is the time to, you know, like pitch to Itsue, maybe she’s willing to team up with me. And then so in one of this conversation, I just like, Hey, Itsue, I have this idea.
[00:06:24] What do you think? You know, if we write a book, you know, like about a woman in herpetology, how, you know, like we ended up in where we are now, you know? What do you think? And then so like, and then like, oh, that’s a really great idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah. Let’s do it.
[00:06:40] Suki: Umi and Itsue knocked the idea around for a while, but realizing they hadn’t made progress, they reached out to their friend, Sheila Poo.
[00:06:46] Sheila: So Umi and I have known each other for, oh, it’s been what, 14 years now? And so we first met, uh, my first semester as a graduate student when I had just moved to Singapore from the U. S. We had, you know, a conference and we, we met and we actually roomed together after kind of only meeting for a day or so.
[00:07:06] We were young students at this workshop and we’ve, you know, stayed in touch on and off throughout the years. There’s not that many, you know, people, let alone women, doing, um, herpetology in, in Southeast Asia. So it’s a very small group. when Umi, you know, called me or said that, you know, I have a project idea can we, uh, talk?
[00:07:26] I thought, great, we have a research project. This is going to be wonderful. You know, we’re going to work on some amphibian project. I can do fieldwork with her. I’ve always wanted to, you know, travel to these parts of Indonesia. And she was, had just, was either had finished or was wrapping up her PhD. I think, Oh, this is great.
[00:07:42] This is going to be a great excuse to, you know, do branch out in my work. And then she, uh, talked about this. So it came kind of out of left field. Neither of us had worked on the book before. I’ve never been on a project that was. Not focused on research itself, it is science, you know, communication or adjacent, but not, you know, it’s not like our traditional science project.
[00:08:05] So I was like, oh, well that’s not what I was thinking of. But, but that seemed, uh, interesting. I had met Itzue Caviedes Solis, who is assistant professor at Swarthmore. So she was a postdoc at Lingnan in Hong Kong Lingnan University in Hong Kong at the time. So I met her for one lunch, um, didn’t really know her very well, but it sounded like a great project.
[00:08:28] And Umi is one of, if not the most positive person I’ve ever met. So when she talks about a project that you just, Heard there is this enthusiasm of no, we shouldn’t do this. This’ll be great. We can do this. And this’ll be a great project simply because she’s so enthusiastic about it. So, so it was, yeah, I think I am maybe more, uh, conservative or cautious person of the group. So I thought it was great, but I had no kind of concept of how we were going to even, you know, pull this off. And at the beginning, it was just a very simple idea of, we don’t see that many women represented in people that are successful in, in our field. That comes with issues of, you know, when we have Went into problems.
[00:09:16] So speaking for myself, when I put in problems, I had actually just around that time, went through a few cases where I wanted to seek advice from other people and realize that my mentors wouldn’t be able to give me that advice because it was these hidden barriers that they would have never come across.
[00:09:33] So they really couldn’t help, you know, say what should I do in these circumstances not that they’re not great mentors, it’s just difference of circumstance. So, it really just started with a very simple idea of seeing more representation of people that looked like us or looked different from what you would assume a person that studies or works with reptiles and amphibians would be.
[00:09:56] Suki: One of the herpetologists that the team reached out to was Professor Jessica Hua at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
[00:10:03] Jess: I was so surprised. I still remember because it was Itsui who emailed me and I was like, you want me to write a story? Like, I felt so like, why me? Because to me, my journey sort of feels a little bit different than, than most people in that I, I feel like a lot of people in this field love herps.
[00:10:22] They, they love amphibians. They love frogs. And for me, I, I feel like I got so lucky getting into this field. I the reason I got into this field is almost 100 percent happenstance. So when I went to college, the reason I went to college was purely for athletics. I wanted to play basketball and I, this was the institution that was going to allow me to do so.
[00:10:50] and so like I spent my entire first three years just doing the College athletics, and that was my focus. I also come from a refugee family, so there’s also the extra pressure of what are you going to do with your opportunity? What are you going to do with your life? And so I did pursue biology because that was something that I thought my parents would be happy about.
[00:11:14] And so, that’s sort of when the, the two areas came together. I, um, one of my teammates was like, if you want to be a doctor in biology, you should probably do research experience. And of course, everything was so far behind for me because I was just so focused on, on playing sports, that by the time I applied to a research position, there were only two positions left.
[00:11:38] I could have either worked with a plant, Or with an amphibian. And at that point I remember very distinctly the reason I chose working with amphibians. It wasn’t because I had any interest, it was because I thought well at least it’ll be less boring, at least they move. So, my entire career in herpetology was based on, on that perception.
[00:12:04] In hindsight, uh, looking back, a lot of, of, of those decisions shaped how I run my lab now. I, I care a lot in that that, that research experience, we, we looked at how road salts. influence amphibians. So that has shaped sort of the way I think about how global change, environmental issues, from pollutants to climate change, how it affects these really critical organisms in our environment.
[00:12:30] But also the fact that I knew nothing about amphibians. I knew nothing about research. That Um, really is something that shaped the second aspect of my research program, which is how do we get people to care about these topics? How do we get people to even understand that this is something that is important to protecting amphibians?
[00:12:51] Why should you protect amphibians? I think what Sheila said about, or what Umi said about, these are so gross. Like. That is absolutely something that, that goes through my, my, my family. And they’re so cool. I wouldn’t have thought so when I started, but now, now I definitely do. Um, so yeah, I, when Isui first reached out to me, I was like, I, are you sure?
[00:13:14] I do. I know there are many people who care a ton and, and have been passionate their entire lives about this, but. All in all, I’ve been so grateful mostly because I have seen that there have been so many ways to success in, in herpetology and, and just so many incredible women that it’s just like this community that, that all of a sudden feels like it has been built overnight.
[00:13:42] I know it has not been many, many years of work, but our first I’ll never forget our first Zoom meeting altogether. I’ve never felt so connected. It was so cool.
[00:13:53] Suki: The goal of publishing the book Women in Herpetology: 50 Stories from Around the World was to create a book that This is a book that was biographical rather than scientific to document the lives of women working their field in order to create a sense of belonging that none of them had had in their early careers.
[00:14:09] They wanted younger women to read the book and see models of how a scientist could be.
[00:14:14] Umi: People know, like folks out there know about scientists, they always know, you know, like us through what we write, you know, in the scientific publication, you know, but then like no one really know like how these people get there or what is like the, the story behind whatever they read, you know.
[00:14:32] So then, I guess, in this case, for me, it it just it’s probably, like, easier or more appealing to know, like, because someone not gonna be there without a reason. Everything has a reason, everything has a process, and then it will be, you know, like, much more it’s, it’s just, like, nicer or, like, easier to connect if you know, like, the story.
[00:14:56] Yeah, and then so every, every person has different stories how they get there. And then, you know, in this case, sometimes, or like, I looking back to my experience and then I can also know like relate to what Jess just said, because, you know, like, oh, either plant or amphibian. I mean, that was what happened to me as well because like even how I studied amphibian, it was also like accident.
[00:15:22] And then that’s why I always like tell people that I that I actually like trap, you know, like to study amphibians. And then later I, I just trapped myself, you know, that’s why I stayed. Because it was also like coincident. It was just like an expedition. And then like, it was my friend was supposed to go and then she told me about this expedition.
[00:15:42] And then I reached out to the professor and then he just like, give me this option. If you want to join the expedition, you need to study either Amphibians or snakes or lizard, you know, and that’s it. And then I told him like, Oh, I like plants and it’s like, no place for plant people. Yeah. So then, you know, just like from that one story of myself, then I realized that like, you know, the story behind everything that.
[00:16:13] Uh, what you see now. It’s like, I guess it’s more important because it’s giving you explanation. So I guess that is like one of the reason or, you know, like the connection. And then that’s why, you know, like as Jess also mentioned that like, see suddenly like feeling the connection when we all like first gathered, you know, like with other people.
[00:16:34] Yeah, it
[00:16:34] Sheila: is a sense of community that, that, that. Was kind of unexpected that developed from this, but I did, did want to talk about a couple of things. One is Jess, that’s great that you, you know, thought why we picked you because on our end, just so you know, we were thinking that people must think we’re spam.
[00:16:54] We’re emailing people, asking for them to spend time writing this thing for this. Amorphous book that may or may not appear in three years of these, you know, oftentimes people you haven’t heard of like this is just we people are gonna think that this is some sort of scam. Um, so that was kind of what we thought on our end.
[00:17:17] Umi: And we had someone, we had, we had one of the author, you know, Like a candidate that we email, you know, and then she replied to us. Are you a spammer? Remember that? Yes, literally. And then it’s like, no, we are real. You know, and then though she ended up like not joining, you know, and then, but then she, you know, Put us in touch with like the other person, but yeah, but yeah, and then,
[00:17:41] Sheila: uh, going back to kind of making it more of a personal biography or narrative rather than, uh, kind of a science heavy book.
[00:17:50] I think that part, that was also a discussion. Everything actually was a discussion amongst, you know, Umi and Zoe and I and I think the discussion of making it more, uh. of this, you know, first person narrative, is that we wanted the audience, so we thought about, you know, who we would want to read this book, and we wanted it to be people you know, obviously everybody, but geared towards the reading level that’s high school or college.
[00:18:16] Somebody earlier on in their career, where they can see this representation, and it might be Make them, you know, think differently just about the world around them or, you know or people that they kind of hadn’t really thought of in one way or another before. Um, so I think that was also partially why we made a very conscious choice that the language would be, you know easy to understand and, and, uh, aimed towards kind of a young adult, um, level.
[00:18:53] Sheila: I was in undergrad, um, and I was in a biology class. I should say that I picked biology because I was a international student studying in a second language. And I thought, well, biology is easier to study because History is so subjective, and you know, literature is based off of your upbringing, and biology, I just need like a dictionary I can translate, and I’ll be able to learn all of this.
[00:19:16] So I, I, I, you know, switched fields and decided I would take some biology classes, and the graduate student came into our classroom and wanted some extra undergraduate labor, um, free labor, and said, here’s a picture of a frog, does anybody want to volunteer in my lab for free? And I thought, well, that sounds fun.
[00:19:35] I mean, I didn’t even know that that would be, you know, a valuable thing to do. I just thought I had some extra time and, you know, why not? And that, you know, led to now what has been a career. So it is really by happenstance.
[00:20:00] For a professor, let’s say, a research professor in biology the picture is often drawn of a person that you know. I loved this biology as a kid, was out in the woods and, you know, as a five year old, let’s say, caught a frog and decided that this is what they were going to do forever. I grew up in Taipei City which is this vast metropolis and it’s not, no, it’s not something that I ever thought of.
[00:20:25] It’s not even something I thought of when I first went to college. And then you realize that there are other people, you know, I read Jess’s story and I realized that there are other people that you kind of forget. Fondue and it’s a perfectly legitimate way to build a career, but you don’t often hear of those.
[00:20:48] Suki: This episode featured three herpetologists included in the book, Women in Herpetology, 50 Stories from Around the World. Thanks to Jessica Hua, Umilala Arifin, and Sheila Sinlan Poo for sharing their work and their passion with us. Poison Dart Frog is by Julian Winter on freemusicarchive. org.