NAVIGATING THE WATERS OF LIFE WITH
ABBY DEBOFSKY
OCCUPATION: PhD Candidate at University of Saskatchewan
CURRENT LOCATION: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEGREE: B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
GRADUATION YEAR: 2011
ACTIVITIES AT MICHIGAN: Michigan Pops Orchestra, Michigan Marching Band, Concert Band, Basketball Band (Men’s and Women’s), TBS
MICHIGAN POPS ORCHESTRA INSTRUMENT: Clarinet
Listen to Abby’s favorite Pops piece while you read about her Pops Life!
KELLY COMPTON, our Pops Life Correspondent, talks with Abby about her love for both Pops and the Michigan Marching Band, and how her journey through grad school has been going…in far away Saskatoon…
KC: Abby, what was your musical background before coming to Michigan?
AD: I’ve played clarinet since fifth grade! I was part of a youth orchestra in high school in the Chicagoland area, Midwest Young Artists (MYA). I was also in concert band and orchestra in high school, I played in pit orchestras, and I was in marching band!
KC: Since you had experience in both band and orchestra, which did you prefer?
AD: That’s a tough one. I loved playing in an orchestra; there’s such a beautiful sound when everyone comes together. But I have to say, band music tends to be more fun when it comes to clarinet. In orchestra, clarinet punctuates the strings and there are some nice solos, but in band the clarinet parts are often transcribed from violin parts.
KC: Were you in any bands or other musical groups outside of Pops at Michigan?
AD: I was in marching band for both Men’s and Women’s Basketball and was in some of the concert bands on campus for non-majors. I was definitely involved in quite a wide range of things!
KC: Is there a particular Pops concert or piece that stands out as a favorite for you?
AD: There was one concert where we played some of Pines of Rome, and I thought we sounded SO good that one concert. Everything came together really well, and it was such a good feeling.
KC: Since you were in the orchestra a while back, how would you describe the culture and the level of talent at that time?
AD: There were some really great people in the orchestra at that time, and the leadership was amazing. There was also some serious talent in there; we had an oboe player who I think studied Oboe Performance in undergrad. When we had Yaniv – he was something special. He was such a phenomenal conductor!
KC: What was your favorite about being part of Pops?
AD: The people. It was so much fun; you wake up on Sunday, get ready to go to Pops, and you see these people who you don’t see any other day of the week. You chat for a bit, catch up, and best of all you’re all interested in the same music. It was just a really nice atmosphere to be a part of. There were times that I thought, “I might be too busy for this,” but I would then talk to other Pops people and they convinced me to stick with it. I’m SO glad that I did, it was amazing.
KC: What was the culture of the clarinet section while you were there?
AD: There was one year when we had a ton of clarinets! Generally, I’d describe it like your stereotypical quieter woodwind section. A lot of wind players were in the Marching Band too, so we bonded over that. We weren’t super close, but a few of us hung out outside of Pops, and as a section it was all-around good people. I’m still friends with most of them on Facebook!
KC: What have you been up to since you graduated from Michigan?
AD: I worked as a lab tech after I graduated from Michigan in the School of Natural Resources, and then I got my Master’s degree in Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. After that, I worked for the EPA for about a year and a half in their Great Lakes National Program in the Chicago office. Since then, I’ve been in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan working on my PhD.
KC: When you were in undergrad did you know that you wanted to pursue graduate studies and get a PhD?
AD: I knew I wanted to pursue graduate studies, but I didn’t necessarily know that I wanted to shoot for a PhD. But things change with experience in the real world.
KC: Did you have an “Aha” moment after graduation when you decided you wanted to get a PhD, and if so, what was the reason why?
AD: When I was working at the EPA, I worked in the Great Lakes National Program Office for a bit. There was a lot of opportunity there to sit and talk with other scientists, and from that experience I realized that I didn’t want to be a paper pusher and be told what to do for my whole career. I wanted to be more involved in the leadership aspects of the research, and I was told that a Master’s wouldn’t cut it for that in today’s work environment. So I decided that a PhD was something that I wanted to be doing.
KC: How did you choose your current program in Saskatchewan?
AD: I asked around a lot to find out where the good programs were. It ended up being a toss-up between here and Baylor. Both schools have top Environmental Toxicology programs! I visited Baylor and discovered that Waco, Texas was… quite different from the Midwest. I didn’t think that I could be in Waco for 4-5 years.
KC: Do you think you’ll head back to Michigan or Chicago when you’re done with grad school?
AD: That’s the plan! I’ll be in Miami for a bit first though because my fiancé is working down there. But neither of us are from Florida, so the goal is to make our way back to the Midwest.
KC: Did he also go to Michigan?
AD: He did, and we actually went to high school together! We were high school sweethearts. He’s a musician as well; he was in the Michigan Marching Band but not in Pops with me.
KC: I’d love to hear more about what you’re researching – tell me about it!
AD: My program is Environmental Toxicology, but I focus on Aquatic Toxicology. One of the big unknowns in the toxicology field right now is how our gut microbiota is able to influence the way we interact with different toxicants in the environment. Right now I’m looking at how oil spills are affecting gut bacteria in fish, and if that plays a part in reducing fish health as a result of those exposures. There are many different ways that chemicals can interact with the body, and a lot of them have been studied. But we really don’t know what’s happening to your gut microbiota when you’re eating something that’s contaminated.
KC: What does your day to day look like?
AD: Either in the lab, or working on the computer. I spend a lot of time working with big bacterial datasets.
KC: Where does the data come from?
AD: You take a fish, cut the gut out, and you can then extract the DNA from the gut and sequence it to see what bacteria is there. So these datasets are basically genomic information about what bacteria is present in these fish. We look at it to see if a fish that was in an oil spill has a different community of bacteria than a fish that was not in an oil spill.
KC: That sounds like a really multidisciplinary field!
AD: Toxicology is very applied, so anyone studying biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and even physics could go into this field. U of M doesn’t have a very targeted environmental toxicology program, but it’s a great way to be able to apply any of those life science subjects to something more specific. We’re always putting these chemicals into the environment, and we don’t fully understand how these chemicals affect the environment. We need to study this to truly understand what’s happening and how to fix it and clean it up; and these problems aren’t going to go away! We’re not going to stop using oil anytime soon. So that’s where toxicologists come in: to try to understand the science behind it - chemistry, the physics, the hydrogeology, everything about it.
KC: How is your work-life balance as a PhD student?
AD: I have a pretty good work-life balance, but I think that’s partially because of my supervisor; he really stresses and emphasizes that we shouldn’t be robots and be in the lab 100% of the time. He pushes us to be done in 3-4 years, whereas some supervisors say, “This is free labor!” and run their graduate students into the ground. If you feel strongly about having a work-life balance, find a supervisor who provides that.
KC: Since you’re conducting your research as part of a larger lab, do you feel like you have a lot of ownership and autonomy in your work?
AD: My work is completely my own. My supervisor gives us complete control of the research; if we want to do something that’s really dumb, he might say, “Don’t do that, that’s really dumb.” But otherwise he trains us to be scientists. You’re going fail, but you have to learn how to fail and get back up. Having someone holding your hand the whole way isn’t going to teach you those skills.
KC: Do you have any idea what you want to do after your grad program ends?
Click above for one of Abby’s research articles!
AD: I’ll be defending my thesis next summer, and then ideally I’d like to work in industry or in government. But I’ll have to see what the government situation is in a year. Otherwise, I could work for a chemical company or for an oil company – those are more stable jobs.
KC: No plans for academia?
AD: No, that’s too much stress for me! That’s just not me.
KC: Do you have any advice for current students who might want to pursue a similar career path?
AD: In terms of pursuing grad school, don’t just do it because you feel like you have to. Grad school is really going to suck if you go in thinking it’s just something you have to do. Especially if it’s a PhD program, which can take 5 or 6 years; make sure it’s something you really want, and that it will provide the outcome that you want.
As for job searching, make sure your resume looks good. I’ve seen some SUPER bad resumes. You may think your resume looks good, but have a lot of people look over it; it can always be better.
ABBY’S FAVORITES
Interested in LEARNING more about toxicology or the commitment it takes to earn your Ph.D.? Contact Abby now at abbydebof@gmail.com for some friendly canadian correspondence!
11/1/19