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My father, whose training is in physics, often wonders aloud to me how I could possibly study such slimy creatures. I wish I could express how rewarding it is to work with echinoderms, and how most aren't particularly slimy at all! But alas, my poor father is still trying to get my mother to dispose of the numerous bags of seashells I collected as a child during our summer vacations in Maryland. I don't think he is prepared to hear about the wonderful world of echinoderms just yet. When I am asked how I got started in this field, I have to think back to the oyster and clam shells I hunted for at the beach when I was little: the bigger, the better. Ultimately, I searched for tiny little gastropods in shell hash. I often looked at the other kids (still picking up those big clam shells) and silently laughed at them for what they were overlooking. I am grateful that I was never forced to experience what it was like to have to leave my collection behind like so many other children. My parents let me take them all home, where they sit to this day.
During the school year, I would continue with my scientific endeavors. I passed through a number of phases, not (unfortunately) recalled in a glorious list of publications, but in the titles of my elementary school science fair projects: "Fungi in My Backyard" was a favorite of the judges. Of course, I defined my backyard a bit broadly and had my mother drive me around to other backyards in which I had eyed some huge fungus growing on a tree as I passed on the school bus. In contrast, "Fossils of Dutchess County, New York" featured a number of fine brachiopods, collected solely from my front yard (quite the incomplete fossil record).
It is no surprise to me or my family that I have pursued an interest in systematic biology. The only question for me was what kind of creature would catch my eye for good. That moment came while I was on a summer marine biology field course in the Bahamas offered by the George Washington University. We had an unusual half day free from work. Our options were either to go to the beach or into a cave which, though marine, had a terrestrial entrance about half a mile inland. The cave, home to numerous bats, was cold, dark and had a guano based food chain ("you'll never get it out of your clothes"). I weighed my options and headed straight for the beach to snorkel and add a few specimens to my shell collection. Soon after, two of the instructors of the course came hurriedly down the path with a small vial and cries of "look what we found!" It was a tiny white brittle star. I looked at this specimen back in the lab along with the other students before it began to autonomize and was preserved. No one had any clue what it was, and it was particularly unusual since extensive studies of the cave had never before revealed the presence of ophiuroids. I became quite interested in the prospect of working on identifying the ophiuroid as an independent study project for the upcoming semester.
When I returned to Washington DC, the professor took me over to meet Dr. David Pawson at the USNM. Dr. Pawson invited me to work at the museum and use the collections to try and identify the specimen. To this day, no one ever has. I have been back to the cave once to search for additional specimens, but with no luck. The next year at university, I completed a phylogenetic study of the scolopendrina subgenus of the tropical genus Ophiocoma (see "my science") for my senior honors thesis.
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