Tufts Lunch & Learn Speaker Profile: Randi Rotjan

Meet Randi Rotjan, Associate Research Scientist at the New England Aquarium. Randi attended Tufts as a graduate student. Randi came back to Tufts to talk about her expertise in tropical coral reef research area and give students some words of advice about her field. At the Lunch and Learn last week, Rotjan talked to us about the importance of understanding the deepest UNESCO World Heritage Site on the planet, the Phoenix Islands. She stressed that explorations to this region provide insight into the impact and resilience of increasingly severe El Nino weather events.

Q&A

How did you get to where you are now?

A little bit of serendipity brought me here. I was a Neurobiology science major as an undergraduate and I took two years off to do plant genetics. Then I worked at the general biology department at Tufts. It could have gone into a number of different directions but I ended up working on fish & coral interactions and from there, things directly took me to this path.

What do you think is the outlook of the field?

There are about 5,000 coral reef scientists across the planet and it is a growing field, in terms of number of people getting involved. However, the funding is really tough and the field is somewhat saturated. Although, I do think that it is worth going into if this is your #1 passion and if you can’t see yourself doing anything else. It will be a tough road ahead, but what you will do is absolutely fantastic indeed.

Do you think it is a good idea to work before you go to grad school?

Every person is different, so I can’t give a blanket piece of advice for everyone. But I do think that everybody should follow their own passions and find one thing that really drives them. Get as much experience as you can from the professionals who are already in the field.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a tropical coral reef research scientist?

Being in the field. Seeing the corals is just fantastic. That quiet moment at 2 in the morning, when you are the first one to analyze the data set and you have the answer that no one else in the world knows but you. That is a special moment. It does not happen all the time, but when it happens, it is a moment to be savored.

Are there any internship opportunities in the field?

There are tons of internship programs, but most of them are unpaid. However, there are other valuable reasons to do an internship if you want to gain experience in science. I think the world is open to you.