ECR Spotlight – Alyssa Head Free

Alyssa Head

How did you become interested in biology?

I have really been interested in biology, and animals in particular, for as long as I can remember and I grew up catching anoles in my backyard in Houston, Texas. I never realized that my love of animals could become a career until I had the opportunity to meet and work with Dr Stesha Pasachnik for a week in Roatan, Honduras through my high school. I do not know if she would remember me, but she played a pivotal role in my future. Before that trip I was fully committed to a completely different career, but after, I concluded that I wanted to do what she was doing and started looking at different colleges where I could do just that. When I entered my undergraduate institution in the biology department, I fell more and more in love with every course I took.

Describe your scientific journey and your current research focus

My scientific journey started the summer after my sophomore year in college. I was a part of my college's Summer Science Research Program, a 10 week program where students partner with a faculty member and they carry out a research project. I worked with Dr Eric Gangloff and a PhD student researching Podarcis muralis in France. After this program, I continued working in Dr Gangloff's lab exploring how P. muralis has found success in establishing populations in an urban area like Cincinnati. I loved learning about functional morphology studies, but I noticed many of them used only male specimens. I thought by limiting these experiments to include only males there was a lot of valuable information and interesting questions that were being lost, so I decided to do it myself.

Through my undergraduate career, along with my primary research project, I helped my lab mates with experiments involving the high concentration of lead in lizards, thermoregulatory surveys and a variety of performance tests centering around P. muralis. Now that I have graduated, I am about to enter the first year of a Masters program at San Diego State University in Dr Kinsey Brock's lab. Here, I hope to continue an exploration of invasive species, the effects of urbanization, and the impact of sexual dimorphism on functional morphology.

How would you explain the main findings/message of your paper to a member of the public?

Male and female common wall lizards have differently shaped bodies. Males typically have bigger limbs, feet, shoulders, hips and heads compared with females. Typically, it is assumed that if an animal has longer limbs they will run faster. However, we found that when sprinting along straight paths only the speed of males increased as their body dimensions increase. Female speed, on the other hand, increased as their body dimensions decreased. There was also more consistency in female running speed compared with males.

What do you enjoy most about research, and why?

When I was a kid, I used to dream of becoming a nun because I thought it was the only way I could live my life reading and learning as much as I wanted. On top of this love of learning, I am a big fan of puzzles and having the ability to figure out how and why things work.

What is the most important piece of equipment for your research, what does it do and what question did it help you address?

For this experiment, our most important piece of equipment was our ‘Lizard Racetrack’. It is a homemade 2-meter racetrack outfitted with a pair of photocells every 25 cm. One of the pair of photocells sends an infrared signal to the other. When this beam is broken, the time is logged on a connected computer. We can switch out the bottom of the racetrack in order to change the substrate conditions on which our lizards run. This allows us to log the exact moment a lizard crosses each 25 cm interval.

Do you have a top tip for others just starting out at your career stage?

I think my advice for students who are in the process of completing their undergraduate degree and are interested in doing research would be to talk to your professors. Better yet, go on your school's website and read what research your professors are doing and then ask them about it. If you find someone who has a particularly interesting research question, see if they want or need any help in their lab. If no one at your school is interested in what you want to do, you can ask a counselor at your university or a professor in a related field if they know of anyone doing what you want to do. I understand how intimidating it can be to initiate a conversation like this, but the worst thing they can do is say no, and then you can go talk to someone else. Plus, most people doing some sort of research really enjoy talking about it. I would not be doing what I am if not for the support of my fantastic professors who provided so much insight into the possibilities for my future, were such strong supporters of undergraduate-led research opportunities and projects, and inspired me to continue following my passions.

What is your dream research specimen?

I would love to be able work on Burmese pythons as they are such a successful invasive species. They have had such a huge impact on Floridian ecosystems and have been known to eat pretty much any of the native species in the area. Given their massive impact on the environment, a better understanding of their behaviors, strengths and weaknesses would be incredibly beneficial to lessen their negative impacts, and I would love to somehow be a part of that research. That being said, if anyone reading this wants help working with Burmese pythons in a couple of years, they should absolutely let me know!