This month in our PhD Profiles series we’re fortunate to be joined by Ornob, an evolutionary biology and population genetics PhD student at New York University (NYU)!
Ornob is originally from Bangladesh and had experienced studying (and lecturing!) at several universities before starting his PhD. You can read more about Ornob’s grad school experience and scientific interests on his blog at genomeinquirer.org. Ornob has also recently committed to becoming active on twitter via @genomeinquirer.
As always, if you’re a PhD student (or graduate) yourself and would be interested in sharing your PhD experience, please get in touch!
Please introduce yourself and summarise your PhD in a sentence
Hey I’m Ornob, a second-year PhD student in Michael Purugganan’s lab at NYU studying population genetics and evolutionary biology. My project investigates the evolutionary and demographic history of domesticated Asian rice. Here I describe my field of population genetics/genomics for a general audience.
What is the wider context of your research?
Human history over the last ~13,000 years is intricately tied to the independent origins and spread of agriculture across the world. Prior to the origins of agriculture, humans on all continents had been marauding hunter-gatherers with little specialization. Agriculture often provided significant advantages to societies that developed or adopted it, through allowing the emergence of large, dense, and sedentary populations. Such societies were able to produce food surpluses that supported specialized craftsmen, which facilitated the development of technologies such as metallurgy and writing. In addition, these large populations required complex political organization for administration and food distribution, which eventually led to the formation of large labor forces and armies.
The advantages of agriculture facilitated its spread, either through expansion and migration of the people who first developed it, or through diffusion of domesticated crops and animals to neighboring peoples. Understanding the history of the origins of domesticated species and their subsequent spread is therefore fundamental to understanding the history of human populations through prehistoric times.
Asian rice, which today serves as a staple for more than half of the world’s population, was first domesticated in China ~9,000 years ago, and spread through East, Southeast, and South Asia at varying rates over the following millennia. I study the history of this spread by analyzing the genomes of rice varieties that are indigenous to each region. The dispersal patterns and past demography of rice, as inferred from genome analyses, can complement human population genetics in resolving decades-old archaeological and anthropological mysteries. In addition, understanding how crops adapted to different climates in the past by analyzing the genomic data in light of phenotypic and paleoclimate information could provide us with tools to tackle imminent climate change-mediated threats to rice agriculture.
PhD Applications
What is your background and what led you to a PhD?
I grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I developed an interest in science – especially biology – at an early age through encyclopaedias my parents would get me. During high school, I started getting into popular science books. Reading Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene fostered a deep interest in evolution, but at that point, research, let alone research in evolutionary biology, was a remote concept. I somehow interpreted my interest in biology as a desire to study medicine, and applied and got into Florida State University’s Biological Sciences program as a pre-med.
After realizing during Sophomore year that the noble ethos of medicine offered little in the way of intellectual exploration or creativity (for me), I briefly considered several paths like creative writing, literature, and music. But through taking a flipped classroom developmental biology course that made us design hypothetical experiments to tackle specific questions, I realized that I wanted to do research in biology.
I joined the developmental biology professor’s lab to get some research experience, and had a difficult time getting experiments to work. I graduated still uncertain about whether I really wanted to do wet lab research. With a growing interest in infectious diseases, I then enrolled in a Microbiology & Immunology Master’s program at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, which would allow me to explore public health while also getting to do more lab research. I came out of the program with wonderful experiences in the lab. But I was still not committed to pursuing a career in biomedical research, and wanted to explore other things.
I moved back to Bangladesh, and began working at a university as a Lecturer, and a research associate mostly helping to coordinate epidemiological cohort studies. Teaching was transformative: I became very fond of explaining biological functions within an evolutionary framework, and got into the good habit of keeping up with scientific literature to make sure my lectures were up-to-date and exciting. My favourite experience as a research associate was training students to conduct interviews for, and writing a book chapter on the social impact of the 1947 Partition of British India in modern-day Bangladesh.
Through all this, I finally knew that I wanted to pursue research in evolutionary biology. The field appeals to the same interests in history and storytelling that made me love The Selfish Gene and my brief stint as a social scientist, as well as the instincts for problem-solving that got me into science in the first place.
I painstakingly mention all the twists and turns because I want to make it clear that you don’t have to know your exact path or research interests as an undergrad, or even as a Master’s student or beyond. I think there’s a lot of room to maneuver, and it is best to keep following your immediate instincts until you attain some degree of clarity and certainty.
How did you decide on a project?
We arrived at the broad goals of my project through a happy confluence of the project my supervisor wanted someone working on, and what I was interested in studying. While the lab works on various questions related to the evolution of domesticated Asian rice, I was mostly interested in the historical reconstruction of its spread.
It turned out that the post-doc who had been heading that arm of the lab was about to leave for a faculty position, leaving me with this absolute blockbuster study to build from. More specific details of my project will be worked out through the course of this year.
How was your application process?
I applied to twelve schools, got invited to interviews by three, and was accepted in all three. I picked many of my schools through looking at high-ranked programs in evolutionary biology and related fields, and reading papers from professors whose research overviews I liked.
“My secret weapon was really this podcast called This Week in Evolution, which had introduced me to many potential labs through the studies it featured.”
I also wrote to the podcast hosts asking about labs that worked on host-pathogen coevolution, human population genetics etc., and this added a few more labs to my list.
The actual process of applying went quite smoothly, largely because I had planned ahead. Applying through so many different online portals can be a nightmare without some organization. I made an Excel spreadsheet with columns for programs, portal links, password, professors I liked, application fees etc.
I wrote a general draft of the personal statement months in advance and received feedback from peers and mentors. I registered for the GREs so that I would have time to sit for it again if the first attempt was catastrophic for some reason. Finally, I gave my recommendation letter writers months of advance notice. All of these were almost trivial to implement, but helped me never feel overwhelmed.
While I had initially planned on doing Skype interviews, my vice chancellor convinced me to actually physically travel for the interviews after I received two interview invitations. The problem was that they were a month apart.
I flew to catch NYU’s date (they later paid for a good chunk of the airfare to New York), and University of Rochester agreed to fly me in from New York for a personal day of interviews close to NYU’s date. While in New York, I got my final interview, with the University of Utah, which I did through Skype.
The physical interviews were spread out over weekends, and involved social activities like dinners (which I was later told are very important), and one-on-one sessions with professors who I had expressed an interest in talking to. It is, in many ways a two-way interview, as the students must also make sure they get all the information they will need when making a decision on which school to attend.
What do you think made your application stand out?
I honestly have no concrete sense of what part of my application stood out. A weakness I had perceived was the fact that I was applying to programs that were strong in evolutionary biology and genomics, which I had limited experience in. The fact that I still got accepted to a few programs suggests again that there is some room to maneuver, and you are not restricted to applying to the same narrow subfields you have experience in.
What advice do you have for people applying for a PhD?
“Take your time in deciding whether you actually want a PhD; I would have been miserable if I had gotten into some molecular or developmental biology PhD program straight from undergrad. And take the time to know what you like.“
To that end, read extensively. Not just papers, but also good science communication features, popular science books etc. It will help you hone in on specific research interests.
Don’t overinvest in specific labs or professors; instead, pick programs with multiple options you could try out. I recognize that this may not be an option in many places outside the US, which do not let you rotate in different labs. In that case, I am ill-equipped to advise, but would recommend having long, detailed conversations with professors you’re considering working under.
Apply to at least ten schools, based on the programs and abundance of professors you could potentially work with.
If you’re going into biology, there’s a chance you’re not very good with coding or using command-line tools. If you have some free time, learn the basics of coding; R and Python are useful picks for most purposes, but getting comfortable working in a Unix environment (perhaps through WSL/Ubuntu for Windows users) is absolutely key for even the slightest foray into genomics. My program invested in teaching all of this through the first year, but it would help to have a head start.
Life as a PhD Student
How have you found your PhD? Has it differed from your expectations?
It honestly rarely feels like work. My classes and rotations over the first year were all fun, and I got to learn so much.
For two and a half years before coming to NYU, I had been very intent on studying either one of host-pathogen coevolution, intragenomic conflict, or human population genetics for my PhD. In that respect, studying plant population genetics is a big surprise, but it is a nice one. Learning about the field of domestication along with its ties to human history transformed my interests within evolutionary biology.
Is COVID-19 having much of an effect on your PhD?
I have been very lucky in that my lab already had newly re-sequenced genomes that I could immediately start working on. My professor and post-docs in the lab have also been really supportive through frequently talking to me and answering my questions via Zoom. The post-doc I mentioned earlier who is about to leave exhaustively explained his earlier work in the lab over days of Zoom meetings.
If anything, I have gained time from not having to commute!
What has been a particular highlight of your PhD?
This may seem trivial, but my professor once sent me a Youtube video of this delightful lecture by a social anthropologist on the significance of rice in ancient China, as relevant background for understanding my research. I think this perfectly sums up why I am so happy with my project. There is this whole broader historical context to many aspects of rice domestication, that has been shaped by several different fields.
Have you found your PhD stressful? If so, how have you handled the stress?
At the university in Bangladesh, I was teaching four courses per semester and designing and supervising final year student thesis projects, while working as a research associate, on top of administrative duties and advising. As a result, I’ve found my PhD workload to be breezy, at least so far. That can change, as I’ve only recently started working on my own project. I don’t mean to tempt fate.
Do you have any advice or tips you’d like to share?
Take advantage of opportunities to try out various projects and labs. Go slightly outside what you think your core interests are. I ended up picking the lab I thought I would be least interested in.
Continue to read extensively. It helps me now to come up with ideas, and also keeps me excited about research.
PhD Completion and Beyond
Do you know yet what you would like to do after you finish your PhD?
As evolutionary biology research largely falls under the purview of basic science, academia would probably be ideal. I may change my mind on this, but right now, I do not see myself thriving in an applied, translational, or industry research setting. That is just not the kind of science that has ever excited me.
The only area outside of academia I can see myself in is science journalism or communication. I am a huge fan of science communication outlets like Quanta and Nautilus, and of popular science books. Evolution constitutes a good chunk of what Carl Zimmer writes about, and he makes a living out of it! Even if I don’t end up in science communication exclusively, I would like to do this on the side, perhaps.
In hindsight would you choose to do a PhD again?
Yes, absolutely.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about Ornob’s PhD journey so far. A reminder that you can follow Ornob on his own website and on Twitter. Has reading this inspired you to do a PhD? Or given a useful piece of advice you can implement? Let us know! It’s always lovely to hear how these stories help people.
If you’d like to share your own journey with us all please do get in touch. I want to make these as diverse as possible.
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