What do you do at the Museum?

My research assesses distributional and evolutionary patterns of deep-sea animals, especially of octopuses.

How did you get interested in this field?

The end of my first year in graduate school I was kind of undecided about exactly what to do until I took a field course and started working on this little octopus. Suddenly everything went really well. As an undergraduate I had done independent research on small mammals, which gave me skills I could use to study the octopus, and I realized I had a lot of things to offer the field.

Working on this intertidal population of octopus, I got more interested in the group In a parallel project, I examined morphological diversity of benthic (bottom-dwelling) octopuses and found that deep-sea octopuses have a predictable shape while the shape of shallow-water octopuses is variable. That began my interest in how these depth groups were related.

There are a lot of different types of octopuses. Some octopuses in the deep sea have fins and essentially live their whole lives in the water column; others don't have fins but live suspended where the water is always dark, essentially just floating. Some live in the sunlit waters of the open ocean, swimming their entire lives There are hundreds of species of bottom-dwelling octopuses, which is what most people think of as an "octopus," although hardly anyone recognizes how many species there are.

Seeing specimens of deep-water octopuses made me want to see them alive, but there aren't many ways to do that. You can be on a trawl cruise, where you throw a net over the back of the ship and drag it along the bottom and pull it up, but the animals that come out are often the worse for wear. Or you can get in a submersible, and look out the window, or use a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to see the animals on the TV monitor. I've been lucky enough to use all three of these methods.

How do you catch an octopus?

Most simply, you reach out and grab it.

What's it like when you're out at sea on a project?

On research ships, there's usually one goal that all the scientists share, whether it's to have successful dives with a submersible and bring as much back as possible, or to have the trawl go down and come up as many times and as full of stuff as you can.

Everybody focuses on that goal and getting the work done. There's no TV, there's no phone, there's no fax to speak of. Sometimes there's e-mail, but not that much. It's a bunch of people that get together and learn to work together. It's wonderful. I've been at sea for as little as ten days and as long as three weeks at a time.

Because once the ship is more than 100 miles off the coast, not even marine helicopters can reach it, the ship has to be completely self-sufficient. Sometimes that isolation contributes to the group working together really well. Other times things don't go so well and there are tensions. This makes it really hard because space on the ship is so limited that people are always in each others way. Depending on the size of the boat, there could be as few as 12 people or as many as 32 in the science party, with a comparable number of crew.

What do you love about what you do?

I love the sense of discovery, whether it's hydrothermal vents or figuring out if these two octopuses that look pretty much the same are really different species. The driving force is to see what's out there in the world, especially things that nobody's seen before.

Have you experienced any gender barriers over the course of your career?

When I came to the Museum in 1990 I was the fourth woman curator in the then 97-year history of the Museum. Since then I think the Museum has done well not only at equalizing things a bit, but in hiring the best scientists by bringing on board really good female anthropologists, a zoologist, our first female geology curator and a curator in botany.

It makes it easier not to be the only woman in a department meeting or in meetings of the entire curatorial staff. There was one luncheon the entire curatorial staff was invited to and I was wearing a powder blue jacket and all the guys were wearing their grays and their blacks and it was so obvious that I was the only woman.

Individually it doesn't mean I'm discriminated against, but it does matter. As time moves on, as individuals keep setting what hopefully are good examples, doing well, in time there will be more women.

It may be harder for women because of a lack of role models, that is of someone who looks like them being acknowledged as an outstanding scientist or routinely being an essential part of a distinguished panel. Over time you get the subtle impression that only men are allowed to be these things. It may be easier for women to say, "Well, forget it. I'm not going to do this. It's a boy's game"

When you look at the statistics, there are still very few women who someone at my level can look up to as role models. That will change, but it will take a long time.

Do you see yourself as a role model for young women?

I might be, just because of my position. I've made it. I've gotten where I guess graduate students see themselves being in five or ten years. So maybe it's good that they can say, "Wow--look what Janet achieved. Girls can do it, too." I don't feel I've done anything really outstanding except to persevere.

Did you have any role models when you were growing up?

Women scientists? No, there weren't any women. When I got out of college I worked for a year as a lab tech. Then I got a better job as a research assistant at the University of Iowa Hospitals. That was the first time I knew a single woman who was a doctor, MD or PhD, who made it into the system on her own merits. She was very supportive. She encouraged me to go to graduate school.

What are your goals for your work?

One of the most important things is not only to see my own work progress but also to be part of an intellectually stimulating, strong, diverse community that shapes the entire discipline--that's what The Field Museum is at its best in everything it does. With the wealth of our collections, the specimen-based research in one area complements another.

They should understand that academic excellence requires a lot of dedication, unless you're extremely gifted. There is also a strong element of creativity in science that typically goes unrecognized. You have to be able to look at the world and envision ways that you can improve our knowledge of what you see. And, especially in biological sciences, it's not necessarily easy to get a job at the end.

I think it's important when you're going to school to periodically ask yourself, "Am I enjoying what I'm doing? Is this worthwhile? Or could I be something else, anything else, and be just as happy?" If the answer is "Yes, this is the best thing I could do," then continue.

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