Scientific Interests & Origins
"Every kid has a bug phase. I just never grew out of mine."; E. O. Wilson
I am a scientist today because I sniffed flowers and chased butterflies as a child.
I was born with an affinity for natural history that was encouraged by my family and teachers during childhood and provided an outlet for my creative energies and a salve for my anxieties during adolescence. I was motivated to become a professional biologist by the desire to explore the inner workings of the natural world and to communicate my sense of joy in their discovery.
"Every kid has a bug phase. I just never grew out of mine."; E. O. Wilson
I am a scientist today because I sniffed flowers and chased butterflies as a child.
I was born with an affinity for natural history that was encouraged by my family and teachers during childhood and provided an outlet for my creative energies and a salve for my anxieties during adolescence. I was motivated to become a professional biologist by the desire to explore the inner workings of the natural world and to communicate my sense of joy in their discovery.
I count myself among the fortunate souls who are living the dreams they forged for themselves as children. My dream had a tangible beginning, captured in this photo from 1970. The dapper man holding a newly emerged Cecropia Moth is Mr. Campbell Norsgaard, a film-maker and naturalist who brought Rachel Carson's gospel to suburban New Jersey in the 1960s and 70s. This was the moment (at age 5) when I became interested in moths, an interest that has continued unabated since then. It is a personal example of how the "Broader Impacts" activities advocated by NSF can ignite and enhance scientific awareness.
My fledgling interests in natural history were not confined to insects: I collected shells, fossils and stamps, pressed plants with my mom, learned constellations with my dad, and shot my first roll of polaroid film on the classification of cloud types! Our human brains have been honed by millennia of selective pressure to recognize and interpret patterns in our environment. My developing brain was interested in the patterns that allow us to classify and understand biological diversity, and field guides (Golden, Peterson, Audubon) were my constant companions as I sought to interpret such patterns.
A chance meeting with Max Richter, a 94 year old German moth breeder living in the Sullivan Co. NY Catskills, introduced me to W.J. Holland's "The Moth Book" . This delightful tome was written at the turn of the 19th century, and its pages of species descriptions and color(!) plates were punctuated by whimsical tales of the author netting hawkmoths at evening primrose flowers by lamplight in Japan and "sugaring" for underwing moths (Catocala spp.) with molasses and stale beer painted onto tree trunks. Even in the fragmented landscapes of suburban New Jersey, I was able to follow Holland's lead and study moths in these ways, and it compelled me, for the first time, to think about moths as more than something to collect, to care about their secretive life histories and habits, including their sensory biology. There is enchantment in the glow of a reflected lantern in the eyes of an owlet moth!
[Left: a sample of underwing moths from eastern North America, Plate 5 from "Legion of Night, the Underwing Moths", by Theodore D. Sargent, 1976, Univ. of Massachusetts Press]
When I got to Yale and began my transition from butterfly collector to biologist, coevolution and mimicry were the most exciting ideas that I encountered, and ecological chemistry appeared to hold the keys to understanding them. Although I struggled to master theoretical chemistry in my large pre-med courses, I enjoyed analytical lab work, especially the use of gas chromatography (GC) to separate chemical blends into their component peaks. I was also intrigued that I could REMEMBER the reaction products and extract fractions analyzed in this way, if I could SMELL them! During an otherwise difficult sophomore year, I realized that I could utilize analytical chemistry to better understand how butterflies and other insects interact with their larval hosts and adult food plants.
[Left: an illustration of the vertical stratification of butterfly "mimicry rings" in Neotropical rainforests, from "Butterflies of the World", by Valerio Sbordoni & Saverio Forestiero, 1985, Times Books]
It took me five additional years (and false starts in population genetics and molecular biology) to embrace this path, but I eventually realized that CHEMICAL ECOLOGY, grounded in sensory physiology and behavior, was the way I wanted to study biological diversity. That path has led me and my students to Neotropical rainforests, to the deserts and semitropical grasslands of the American southwest, Argentina and South Africa, to the boreal forests of Alaska and austral forests of Patagonia, and finally to the deciduous northeastern forests of Ithaca, NY, shown below in springtime splendor, where the field of chemical ecology, in many respects, was born.