Q&A with DR. ROBERT Siegel
What do you love most about your work?
I have been extremely fortunate to have a career that is awesome in a multitude of ways. As a professor at Stanford University, I get paid to talk about and share my enthusiasm for a multitude of subjects that fascinate me. Every day I interact with amazing students and colleagues. I have the opportunity/requirement to learn continuously. In my case, the adage that the teacher usually learns more than the students is definitely true. I get to spend time in nature—both locally and across the globe. I get to pursue my obsession with photography.
What subjects or people have you most enjoyed covering in your work?
In terms of people, it seems like this question is asking me to provide a list of those attributes I most admire. I guess the people I enjoy most are people who are interesting, fun, passionate, kind, thoughtful, articulate, knowledgeable, creative, eager to learn, eager to teach, and caring, particularly about issues that matter to me. And these are some of the attributes that I aspire to as well. I have found a great many admirable people among my students and colleagues, but also in encounters I have had around the globe. It has been an honor to be with these individuals.
In terms of subjects, I have had a great deal of flexibility in what I get to teach. Over the years, I have taught courses focused on many of my favorite topics. These topics cover courses about human virology (including Humans and Viruses, Viruses in the News, The Vaccine Revolution, Life in the Coronascene), courses about nature photography (Photographing Nature), a course about bird taxonomy (46 Orders of Birds), a course with a colleague from the Red Cross (Climate Crisis Management), courses on biogeography (including Island Biogeography of Madagascar, Desert Biogeography of Joshua Tree National Park, Wetlands Biogeography of The Pantanal, and many others), as well as courses on molecular biology and evolution.
What draws you to support wildlife and conservation?
I grew up in South Florida near the beach. We were outside every day and nature was a huge part of our lives, though not necessarily as a deliberate effort to get out into nature per se. Also, my father was very into wildlife photography and he certainly passed that love to me. Though it is hard to believe, it was also during my childhood that broad awareness of the fragility of the natural world came into the public eye. The first Earth Day was held when I was in high school. And the UNESCO World Heritage sites were established when I was in college. My graduate work was focused on newly developed assays for environmental mutagens and their potential link to cancer. Although I am not aware of a seminar benchmark, the many connections with my work and advocations have nurtured my interests in wildlife and environmental conservation.
Who or what inspired you to join Wildlife Madagascar?
I first became aware of Wildlife Madagascar a week before my most recent trip to Madagascar. I was leading a Stanford alumni tour at Jasper Ridge, Stanford’s Biological Preserve during Homecoming Weekend. When I mentioned I was going to Madagascar, Jeff Hall, one of the alums in my group told me that his son-in-law worked in Madagascar. A week later, I was having breakfast in Antananarivo with Tim Eppley, the Chief Conservation Officer at Wildlife Madagascar. Several weeks after that, I was able to join Tim and Debra at the field site in La Mananara. Everything about that experience was impressive and inspiring from the first chameleon walk, to the newly built accommodations, to the work on reforestation, to my final morning canoe outing with Tim. And I know it sounds cheesy, but the most important motivation was the people I met including Tim, Debra, and the many students, researchers, and staff who are all united by the common goal of protecting these important but imperiled ecosystems.
What are a couple of your most memorable travel experiences?
Over many years of traveling, there have been so many amazing people, creatures, adventures, and landscapes that I can hardly begin to answer this question. I have been incredibly fortunate to travel extensively both as part of my work and for personal enrichment. I have been to seven continents, eight if you include Madagascar, which has been called “The Eighth Continent” by Peter Tyson and others. I have been able to return to work on projects, and even teach classes, in many of these places. While there is a special joy in seeing things for the first time, it has been deeply rewarding to form relationships with people and places across the globe. For all its many shortcomings, social media has helped me to maintain these relationships over decades. These relationships underscore the absurdity of our arbitrary political barriers and the importance of our mutual impact on an interconnected, imperiled planet.
Even restricting the question to memorable travel experiences in Madagascar alone would be challenging. It is a bit easier to focus on some of my most memorable overall trips.
When I was in the sixth grade, my public elementary school in South Florida organized a field trip to the Yucatan. As my very first time out of the country, this trip was very impactful. I kept a written diary which I still have, along with some of the most vivid memories of my childhood.
As a college student, my school offered a study abroad program in Tours, France. I spent six months in Europe and this was my first opportunity to live outside the US. In an era long before computers, internet, and cell phones, our communications with home was through long hand-written aerograms, and we would often wait weeks between responses.
One of my first international projects as a faculty member in the medical school was in Papua New Guinea. We were working in a very remote area of the Sepik. The project was important both medically and in terms of working with undergraduates and medical students. But for me, this was also a personal test of how I would do under rather difficult living conditions. The trip was amazing, though not without challenge or risk. In fact, several of the people on the trip developed malaria after returning to California. On the other hand, PNG is a place of extraordinary ecological and cultural diversity. I have made two subsequent trips there for different projects.
As a kid, I spent many hours watching “Wild Kingdom” with Marlin Perkins. It was a place I never thought I would experience firsthand. When my youngest son was eight, we planned a family trip to Tanzania. It was far more spectacular than what I remember watching. After my family left, I stayed for another month to work on an education project. This turned out to be the first of many, many trips to Africa, and even an appointment in the Center for African Studies at Stanford.
Another trip that was particularly notable, was my first trip to the Galápagos. One afternoon on the Island of Floreana, I had the thought that I was looking at the world with the eyes of an explorer—with great curiosity and attentiveness to the new information from my senses. From that moment on, I have tried to embrace that revelation, not only when I travel, but in my daily life back at home. Eventually this gave rise to one of my most popular courses: Photographing Nature–Using a Camera to Explore the Natural World. I have had the good fortune to lead many family trips back to the Galápagos, where that sense of wonder is continuously renewed.
This list would not be complete without mentioning Madagascar. From where I live, Madagascar is the furthest habitable place on the globe–the antipode. It is a place of great natural beauty, including the Avenue of the Baobabs, the jagged Tsingy of Bemaraha, and the evocative rock formations of Isalo. It is a place of biological wonder, including close encounters with a wide range of lemurs, the fosa and vontsira, and an extraordinary contingent of chameleons, geckos, and birds. It is the only country with two endemic orders of birds. I have had wonderful encounters with the Malagasy people, and with other people who visit and work there. Perhaps my most memorable Malagasy cultural experience was the opportunity, with my students, to be a part of a Famadihana celebration.
I should note that despite the joys and benefits (and challenges) of travel, I do have several important concerns. 1) I certainly wish that exploratory and scientific travel were not restricted to a lucky few. In particular, I wish there were far more opportunities for Malagasy researchers and students to visit the US and other economically developed countries. I believe these experiences would deliver significant rewards in the quest to preserve the ecosystems of Madagascar. 2) My second concern involves the ecological impact of travel, particularly in the consumption of fossil fuels. In the ideal scenario, travel will bring a wide range of benefits, to both the traveler and the local populations, that will more than compensate for the negative impacts. For example, tourism may allow people to derive income alternatives that can take the place of more ecologically destructive sources of income and motivate, and it can educate those involved in the need for environmental awareness and stewardship.
Why did you become a member of Wildlife Madagascar? What about this organization is meaningful to you?
During the past year, I have had the opportunity to give several talks about Island Biogeography of Madagascar. The take-home message is two fold. 1) Madagascar is extraordinary in terms of the number of animals, plants, and other organisms that are found nowhere else in the world–endemics. 2) These unique creatures and ecosystems are also among the more threatened in the world. This combination creates a very compelling need to act quickly and effectively to preserve these marvelous “resources” for the benefit of the Malagasy people and the world as a whole.