It's not necessarily something that I want to do for a living, but I do find it inspirational when people are really good at Sci-Com, and one such example is Hank Green. I also believe that a whole generation of ecologists and biologists have been inspired by people like David Attenborough, Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin and other naturalists or science communicators that were on TV when we were kids.
At the risk of sounding trite, in some sense, my biggest inspiration is the future me that I aspire to be – that’s what keeps my eye on the ball and keeps me going day after day, which is actually related to the second part of your question. I’m almost entirely intrinsically motivated by own goals, and outside factors like a paycheck have little to no effect on what I do every day.
What do you like to do when you are not quantifying the effects of environmental change on living organisms?
I think this can be, at times, an embarrassing question for grad students to answer because often, if we're to be completely honest, we don't have a lot of free time and when we do we like working. A lot of our time is spent focusing on work. But I suppose when I’m not working, I do very normal stuff like spending time with friends, visiting family, having a few drinks at the pub, going hiking, playing some video games or seeing weird old movies at the small cinema downtown. But mostly I like working.
This interview was answered by David De Le Mater III (interviewee) in their personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the interviewee's own and do not reflect the views of Duke University.
