Meet Your New ECE Chair: Pacifica Sommers

This month’s blog post features an interview with Pacifica Sommers, the new ECE Chair for this year!

Introduction – tell us about yourself!

I am a microbial ecologist based at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. My formal job title is Research Associate (and also Lecturer for the fall 2021). My doctoral training at the University of Arizona was entirely in community ecology, both empirical and theoretical, and I only learned microbiology and bioinformatics as a postdoc. I started here as a postdoc five years ago and have continued working on projects in the same lab group, funding part of my own salary through grants I write. Besides the great community in the EBIO department, I love being in Boulder because of the access to mountains with rock climbing, mountain biking, and backcountry skiing. 

Why did you decide to become an ecologist?

I am fascinated by the complexity of ecological systems made up of interacting populations, which are in turn made of up of interacting individuals, all influenced by their biotic and abiotic environment. Human attempts to construct or reconstruct specific or stable ecosystems suggest we have a lot left to learn about these processes and dynamics – yet we are losing biological diversity at an alarming pace, impacting the most vulnerable and marginalized people first. Humanity has problems to solve and needs tools to solve them. 

What does a typical work day look like for you?

The photos I show in my talks are definitely skewed! While only a few months a year are spent in remote polar research stations and camps, hiking up to glaciers to collect daily samples, and a few weeks are spent at the lab bench extracting DNA or culturing bacteriophages or quantifying enzyme activity, most of my days are spent writing code (usually in R) to process and analyze data. That and writing up the results into papers.

Have there been any key turning points in your career? Good or bad surprises?

I actually thought when I applied to grad school that I would use it to apply to the AAAS Policy Fellowship and embed myself in a congressional office as a science adviser, the better to influence environmental policy (which is what I was working on before grad school). During the course of my grad studies, I realized I did not want to go back to a fully indoor policy position, that I love field expeditions too much, so I pursued a research-based postdoc instead. I had a long-standing dream to visit Antarctica, and when I learned about microscopic ecosystems on the surface of glaciers that would allow me to conduct invasion experiments on entire isolated ecosystems in their natural habitat, I was hooked. I was terrified to have to learn all the details of bioinformatics to conduct the research and it was a lesson in humility to start that as a new postdoc. My supervisor and especially my colleagues who were at that time grad students in the lab were the absolute best for supporting me and teaching me those skills!

What projects (research or not) are you most excited about now?

I just returned from my first field trip to the high Arctic, in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, where I am studying the ecological succession as soil forms where a retreating glacier exposes sediment. I am really excited about using metatranscriptomic tools (coupled with geophysical sensors and stable isotope probing) to understand how the seasonality of activity affects succession! 

What is the most fulfilling part of your job?

This is a hard one, to choose a “most.” The thrill I get from visiting a new exotic field location is different from the pride I feel seeing mentees accomplish great studies and share their work, which is different still from the satisfaction of producing a figure that answers my burning research question, and also distinct from the glow of engaging K-12 students in the scientific process. 

What is one challenge you’ve dealt with, and what success are you most proud of?

A challenge I dealt with was sudden onset of hearing loss and months of vertigo four years ago. Although I have recovered my balance and function fine with a hearing aid (and okay without it really), the experience reinforced my empathy for people with invisible disabilities and for colleagues and mentees dealing with health issues. I immensely appreciated the support of my colleagues and supervisor during that period. 

The accomplishment I may be most proud of was my role in piloting and launching an outdoor science school for K-12 students at a mountain-top astronomy observatory outside Tucson, AZ. During multi-day overnight field trips, participants conduct research projects on public lands, advised by graduate students, and present their results in a research symposium. Now in its tenth year, Sky School has grown from the 100 students we piloted the program with the first year to serving over 1,000 students in 2019 before the pandemic. As an Arizona NASA Space Grant Graduate Outreach Fellow, I obtained funding from the Sierra Club to offer pilot programs to students in Title I schools at no cost to them, and helped to institutionalize the program, drafting the first graduate instructor handbook. 

What has most surprised you about being an early career ecologist?

I am constantly amazed at how different the experiences of early career ecologists end up being, even when our paths or positions are essentially the same on paper. The experiences of someone going into policy, management, or industry is obviously going to differ dramatically from those of academic postdocs, but even within academia, the difference in strategy and experience of what people focus on, whether publishing, job hunting, grant writing, or other tasks, is surprising. 

What advice would you give to other early career ecologists?

Invest in time management skills and tools! Track your time closely to give yourself data on where it is spent so you can better align it with your career goals and position deliverables. One of my current favorite tools is Intelligent Change’s Productivity Planner because it forces me to focus on a few achievable goals a day. 

Any other thoughts you would like to touch on?

I have gained a lot of resources and support from the ECE Section’s leadership and community. I am excited to contribute to those resources and support other early career ecologists! I encourage YOU to get involved as well – even if you don’t know yet what you would contribute, I invite you to reach out to me to plug in to the community. By attending one of the regular meetings of the ECE Section Officers, you can gain an idea of current needs and ways you could contribute (and meet a cool set of other ecologists!). You could then step up to serve as an appointed officer, whether as a Member At Large or in a more specific role.