Marie Simovich
Researcher and professor at the University of San Diego
This picture was taken when we were out at the vernal pools and I thought that this picture perfectly describes what she does and who she is. My mentor is very outgoing and has a great personality. She enjoys the outdoors and what she does. This is her in her researcher setting. This was my favorite day as well! She is sampling the vernal pools for any crustaceans, insects or species that are in the water. Dr. Simovich is very outgoing and also very straight forward. I learned so much from her and am really glad I learned everything she taught me.
What university did you go too?
I went to CalPoly Pamona for my bachelors and masters degree and I went to UC Riverside for my PhD.
When did you first find an interest in the sciences?
I think I was always interested in animals and when I went to school I had.. I didn't know if I wanted to be a history major or a biology major, and I had a really wonderful wonderful teacher that just used to do drawings on the board of animals and make them totally come to life and he just was really.. just excited everybody about biology and about how organisms are adapted to their environments and how to save them and stuff. So I wound up being a biology major and he wound up being my major professor when I did my masters degree.
When did you first find an interest in the vernal pools?
When I was at UC Riverside I was going to do a PhD that was similar to my masters on fire ecology of reptiles. But then the people there were working on spade foot toads and they just sort of sparked my interest and so I wound up looking at a hybrid zone of spade foot toads out in arizona and they were living in vernal pools out there and they were eating fairy shrimp. And when I got this job, working with fairy shrimp that you could hydrate was a whole lot easier then working with spade foot toads that might not even show up for a couple years. So I wound up moving from spade foot toads to fairy shrimp but they were still in vernal pools.
What other projects have you worked on other than those having to do with the vernal pools?
Fire ecology.
How did you get started working at USD?
I was at some scientific meeting, presenting my information from my dissertation and my PhD major professor was there and he was talking to some friends of his who worked here and they said, we're looking for a population biologist, have you got any students graduating who would fit? And he said yes, I have one and she's right here! But I interviewed with a bunch of other people who interviewed for the job.
How do you manage your time between teaching and working on your research?
It's really hard. It's really hard, especially when your teaching a new class and you try to revise a class that you want to make changes in and it gets hard. I don't know what to say. Its hard.
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