Michael Lesgart, Class of 2020
I took EE Biol 120, Evolution with Dr. Bucciarelli in Fall 2019. I thoroughly enjoyed comparing and critically analyzing various ecology and evolution papers as part of the curriculum, as well as attending biology symposiums that further solidified the course material. Below is my interview with Dr. Bucciarelli, where we discuss his transition to evolutionary biology and why his research is focused on amphibian conservation.
Michael Lesgart (ML): Tell me a little bit about your journey to becoming a researcher, from undergraduate to graduate school.
Dr. Bucciarelli (GB): I grew up in a small, rural part of Pennsylvania. I didn't identify with any of the opportunities that would potentially be available to me there, so I actually left high school early in senior year and started college in a very small liberal arts school in Ohio called Antioch College. It was an incredible experience, since it was based on a curriculum that focused on place-based and experiential learning. Basically, for every semester you study in the classroom, the next semester you have to do an internship relative to your major or as a part of a senior project. You had to do five of those, and in one of the last ones I did, I ended up at a public access station in Massachusetts. I worked at that public access station as a director for programming and editing. From there, I fell into a job as a computer-aided drafter where I eventually transferred to California. In California, I worked at that same company for about a year before I was recruited by Apple Inc. I ended my career with Apple after five years, working at the end as an executive level manager for their retail stores, overseeing about 150 direct reports for about 40 million dollars in business.
About halfway through that experience, I realized that it was not what I was interested in committing myself to for the rest of my life. There was a huge cultural shift during my time there that I didn't align with, and I decided to think about what I was really passionate about when I was in grade school, before I had the passion beat out of me in high school with physical sciences. It was biology, and I had decided at that point that I was going to make the leap and do a complete career transition. About two years before I left Apple, I started taking post-baccalaureate classes to build up my science credentials. I got involved with a research group locally in Los Angeles and started doing my own research. I then became a research assistant on some field expeditions to Central America and I started applying for Ph.D. programs. I knew I wanted to do something related to amphibians and continue local research, preferably in California, but ideally in the Santa Monica Mountains. So that's what I did; I stuck my mind to it and moved in the direction to keep me as close to that path as possible. I did my Ph.D. locally at UCLA from 2010 to 2015, and I completed my post-doctoral fellowship with the National Parks Service and the UC system from 2015 to 2018, working with the parks to build a conservation management plan for LA amphibians. And then I became an assistant adjunct professor in the department as of 2018.
ML: What is your main research focus and how did you decide to focus on that topic?
GB: I think one of the most important things to figure out in life is what you're passionate about. It doesn’t have to be just one thing and for me, when I was leaving Apple, I knew what I didn't like. That was easy. The real struggle was finding out what I loved, what I’m going to love doing every day, what I’m excited about, and what makes me feel like I'm exploring something new and learning all the time. And that was amphibians. I really wanted to be and work outdoors as much as possible, and I wanted to work with amphibians because I just find them completely fascinating as an organismal group. They have all these cool traits like poison, unique behaviors like spending half their life on land and half in water, and I wanted to figure out why and how that works. When I was trying to make the transition, I really identified that as my passion. It really began as a kid because I grew up in Pennsylvania near the Allegheny National Forest, and I spent my summers as a kid playing in the creeks and ponds, looking for newts and frogs. And I had a great time doing it and I thought about ways that I could do it again as an adult and have that much fun. So that was really the impetus of me going back to biology, but what I didn't understand at the time was how I could turn that into a career. And I became aware of the fact that amphibians are extremely endangered, and are a group of organisms that are going extinct extremely rapidly. It is a pressing need to understand as much about them as we can right now. So being able to do research on amphibians was an eye-opening, awakening moment because I didn't know I could do that as a career. That realization happened and when I narrowed down what I was interested in, I came back to the traits that make amphibians unique, and that's poisons. I decided that I really wanted to study that and understand how they get this poison, how did it evolve, where does it come, and how much variation there is across different populations. So that's where I've been, trying to figure out the evolution and ecology of their poisons for the last ten years.
ML: What is the most rewarding part of your research and being a professor?
GB: The most rewarding aspect of my research is that I really get to understand one aspect of this world that is completely not understood at all. It's very unclear and because of that, I get to explore natural populations of animals in the wild, which is incredible. I go all the way up the coast of California and work on all these are incredible sites. I get to go through the Sierra Foothills and work right here in LA. And there's an entire community of people that are interested in that work and that's really what's most rewarding because at the end of the day, those data can make a difference in protecting and preserving those populations. So helping to maintain biodiversity is huge, as well as being outdoors.
The most rewarding part about being a professor is that, just like the research, I get to share that with students. I think a lot of professors may not necessarily like teaching because it is a lot of work to do it right. It takes a lot of time to prepare lectures and to connect with students. You have to be vulnerable and be your true. authentic self in front of the students. They're going to know if you're just putting on a show. So for me it's super rewarding to connect honestly and genuinely with students and share my knowledge with them. And for them to tell me what they're excited about too; it's a two-way street in my mind. We form this community where we get to build each other up and make each other better.
ML: What advice do you have for aspiring scientists or professors?
GB: My biggest advice is to go out and do. Become involved and reach out to people. It’s so important for students to put themselves out there and connect with people. Social media is a great tool, but just talking to people is also a great tool. So, reach out to your professors during your classes, see what they're doing and ask them if you can be involved. Propose ideas to them. I love talking to students because it's a way for me to tap into an unlimited amount of creativity and thoughts that come from a totally different place than I am. So those diverse perspectives are invaluable and students need to capitalize on that by sharing their ideas with professors and working with them to be connected as a community.
Michael Lesgart (ML): Tell me a little bit about your journey to becoming a researcher, from undergraduate to graduate school.
Dr. Bucciarelli (GB): I grew up in a small, rural part of Pennsylvania. I didn't identify with any of the opportunities that would potentially be available to me there, so I actually left high school early in senior year and started college in a very small liberal arts school in Ohio called Antioch College. It was an incredible experience, since it was based on a curriculum that focused on place-based and experiential learning. Basically, for every semester you study in the classroom, the next semester you have to do an internship relative to your major or as a part of a senior project. You had to do five of those, and in one of the last ones I did, I ended up at a public access station in Massachusetts. I worked at that public access station as a director for programming and editing. From there, I fell into a job as a computer-aided drafter where I eventually transferred to California. In California, I worked at that same company for about a year before I was recruited by Apple Inc. I ended my career with Apple after five years, working at the end as an executive level manager for their retail stores, overseeing about 150 direct reports for about 40 million dollars in business.
About halfway through that experience, I realized that it was not what I was interested in committing myself to for the rest of my life. There was a huge cultural shift during my time there that I didn't align with, and I decided to think about what I was really passionate about when I was in grade school, before I had the passion beat out of me in high school with physical sciences. It was biology, and I had decided at that point that I was going to make the leap and do a complete career transition. About two years before I left Apple, I started taking post-baccalaureate classes to build up my science credentials. I got involved with a research group locally in Los Angeles and started doing my own research. I then became a research assistant on some field expeditions to Central America and I started applying for Ph.D. programs. I knew I wanted to do something related to amphibians and continue local research, preferably in California, but ideally in the Santa Monica Mountains. So that's what I did; I stuck my mind to it and moved in the direction to keep me as close to that path as possible. I did my Ph.D. locally at UCLA from 2010 to 2015, and I completed my post-doctoral fellowship with the National Parks Service and the UC system from 2015 to 2018, working with the parks to build a conservation management plan for LA amphibians. And then I became an assistant adjunct professor in the department as of 2018.
ML: What is your main research focus and how did you decide to focus on that topic?
GB: I think one of the most important things to figure out in life is what you're passionate about. It doesn’t have to be just one thing and for me, when I was leaving Apple, I knew what I didn't like. That was easy. The real struggle was finding out what I loved, what I’m going to love doing every day, what I’m excited about, and what makes me feel like I'm exploring something new and learning all the time. And that was amphibians. I really wanted to be and work outdoors as much as possible, and I wanted to work with amphibians because I just find them completely fascinating as an organismal group. They have all these cool traits like poison, unique behaviors like spending half their life on land and half in water, and I wanted to figure out why and how that works. When I was trying to make the transition, I really identified that as my passion. It really began as a kid because I grew up in Pennsylvania near the Allegheny National Forest, and I spent my summers as a kid playing in the creeks and ponds, looking for newts and frogs. And I had a great time doing it and I thought about ways that I could do it again as an adult and have that much fun. So that was really the impetus of me going back to biology, but what I didn't understand at the time was how I could turn that into a career. And I became aware of the fact that amphibians are extremely endangered, and are a group of organisms that are going extinct extremely rapidly. It is a pressing need to understand as much about them as we can right now. So being able to do research on amphibians was an eye-opening, awakening moment because I didn't know I could do that as a career. That realization happened and when I narrowed down what I was interested in, I came back to the traits that make amphibians unique, and that's poisons. I decided that I really wanted to study that and understand how they get this poison, how did it evolve, where does it come, and how much variation there is across different populations. So that's where I've been, trying to figure out the evolution and ecology of their poisons for the last ten years.
ML: What is the most rewarding part of your research and being a professor?
GB: The most rewarding aspect of my research is that I really get to understand one aspect of this world that is completely not understood at all. It's very unclear and because of that, I get to explore natural populations of animals in the wild, which is incredible. I go all the way up the coast of California and work on all these are incredible sites. I get to go through the Sierra Foothills and work right here in LA. And there's an entire community of people that are interested in that work and that's really what's most rewarding because at the end of the day, those data can make a difference in protecting and preserving those populations. So helping to maintain biodiversity is huge, as well as being outdoors.
The most rewarding part about being a professor is that, just like the research, I get to share that with students. I think a lot of professors may not necessarily like teaching because it is a lot of work to do it right. It takes a lot of time to prepare lectures and to connect with students. You have to be vulnerable and be your true. authentic self in front of the students. They're going to know if you're just putting on a show. So for me it's super rewarding to connect honestly and genuinely with students and share my knowledge with them. And for them to tell me what they're excited about too; it's a two-way street in my mind. We form this community where we get to build each other up and make each other better.
ML: What advice do you have for aspiring scientists or professors?
GB: My biggest advice is to go out and do. Become involved and reach out to people. It’s so important for students to put themselves out there and connect with people. Social media is a great tool, but just talking to people is also a great tool. So, reach out to your professors during your classes, see what they're doing and ask them if you can be involved. Propose ideas to them. I love talking to students because it's a way for me to tap into an unlimited amount of creativity and thoughts that come from a totally different place than I am. So those diverse perspectives are invaluable and students need to capitalize on that by sharing their ideas with professors and working with them to be connected as a community.
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