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PalAss Home > Careers & Postgrad Research > Three routes to a Ph.D. - The marine to land transition!
Three routes to a Ph.D. - The marine to land transition!


What 'sparked off' your initial interest in palaeontology? As a child I was fortunate enough to live a couple of minutes from some major marine fossil sites in Summerville/Charleston, South Carolina, USA. I went through the usual stamp-collecting stage where I used to collect mostly marine fossils like sharks teeth, fish vertebrae, and whale bones. Charleston and the surrounding areas are noted as one of the most prolific fossil marine mammal sites in the world. After dabbling in fossil collecting as a kid and helping Albert Sanders, a curator at the Charleston museum (and he's still there after a century) with digging up some fossil archaeocete whales in my neighbourhood, I didn't study palaeontology in a scientific way until I went to university in 1992. Aside from the enjoyment of collecting fossils as a kid, I was also totally obsessed with fish (the excitement of which was tempered when I discovered girls, skateboarding, and cars). It was a dream of mine to work with both fish and fossils which has now come true.

Was yours the most obvious route? The answer is a simple No and Yes. No, because before I came to study palaeontology in earnest, I spent ten years as a submarine logistician making sure that the attack submarines I was assigned to were properly equipped to complete their mission, which in case you were wondering, is to make the enemy 'extinct'. After leaving the Navy at the age of 28, I enrolled at the College of Charleston to study accounting (yes I'm a masochist). After about a year I was bored with that and changed my major to pursue marine biology, but soon got bored with that too. My wife, who is English, suggested that I try doing a year abroad. She cunningly said, 'England perhaps'. So I applied and was accepted by UCL where I liked the change so much, I stayed and did a complete honours degree in biology - one of only a handful of U.S. students insane enough to start over at a foreign university. From this point I have to revert to the 'Yes' answer. After graduating at UCL in 1997 I decided I wanted to pursue seriously the research game, where the requirement for a Ph.D. was an advantage. I was fortunate enough with the kind support of Adrian Lister (UCL) to secure a three-year NERC studentship. At present I am nearing the end of my thesis write-up which will be submitted by December 2001.

What was your area of research and why? Research area: Acanthodian ('spiny shark') systematics. Why? Because I enjoy inflicting large amounts of pain on myself. Mike Coates, my Ph.D. supervisor, approached me as an undergraduate with the idea of testing cladistically the idea of acanthodian inter- and intra-relationships. The problems with this group intrigued me because here you have a large array of primitive gnathostomes which nobody knew how to manage systematically - not an uncommon story for those who study related Devonian taxa. So the acanthodian motto has been: Are we not sharks? we are devo, are we not bony fish? devo, and so the story goes. The literature is rife with a sort of confused 'hand waving' which settles by default for the idea that acanthodians are most likely paraphyletic, so I and my colleague, Gavin Hanke (Univ. of Alberta) will be publishing in this area, hopefully adding some 'meat' to the acanthodian systematic skeleton.

If you were to start over I would have gone into extant benthic fish studies. Unlike acanthodians which follow a fairly conservative body plan, today's deep-sea fishes are without a doubt a morphologist's dream or nightmare depending on your view of useful characters. Otherwise, I would most likely have entered the world of corporate mergers/breakups, where although the likelihood of a Nature paper is zilch, the monetary rewards could fund a group of hungry palaeontologists. Failing that I wouldn't mind being Dave Martill's stage manager at conferences.

What is it like to get through a Ph.D. without a relevant job waiting for you at the end? Like doing your own molar extractions without the benefit of a cocain-based drug. It has been demoralising at times, especially after you look at all of the years you have devoted to your science and don't see an immediate reward for your effort. But I must admit that I came into palaeontology with both eyes wide open. One of the wonderful things about our discipline is that one doesn't have to be affiliated with an academic institution (in a research capacity) to be productive and publishing. I was fortunate enough to have the experience and drive to do other things until the golden opportunity (a real palaeo job) rears its head. One way I combatted the jobless palaeo-blues was to publish in a major journal early. I did this in 1999 with Dave Martill as my co-author. I just couldn't wait 4+ years before seeing the fruits of my labours. If a student of mine asked me if they should publish while as a Ph.D. student, I would say yes if the drive and extra commitment are there. I have had two good bites at the palaeo-cherry if you will, but both opportunites fell through due to a lack of funding on one and some research council redtape on the other. But my experiences in trying to land a palaeo job pale in comparison to some others I'm sure.

How long are you prepared to hang around for an opening? With a growing family to take care of (just added the second branch to my cladogram in the form of my son, Theo, in June), it will be harder for me to jump from permanent bureaucrat to peripatetic researcher. But like many of you lurking out there, I too am waiting for someone to retire, die, or be found in a compromising position with a specimen or two, which will signal another rare opportunity for employment in our beloved science.

Sam Davies
St George's Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, Tooting, London



Created by Jason Hilton on the 2007-02-08. (Version 2.0)