JOSHUA MEISEL

Joshua Meisel

Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar (2007-2008)

Scholar story

The operative word from my Fulbright experience is “independence.” Both the Australian-American Fulbright Commission and The University of Queensland provided me with the freedom and resources necessary to become a fully independent scientist. I entered my year in Australia with experience working in Stanford labs and Stanford classrooms – both very safe places where I thrived. I am leaving Australia now able to develop my own innovative research proposals, plan field trips to remote island locations, build aquarium systems and pioneer new laboratory techniques, and see the research all the way through to publication. On a personal level, I have lived independently in a new, foreign city, founded life-long friendships and professional relationships, and pushed myself to make the most of my short time in Australia.

I arrived in Australia with a research proposal: travel to Heron Island (which burned down shortly after I received the Fulbright grant), subject corals to heat-induced bleaching, and look for oxidative DNA damage. I had never performed fieldwork. I had never worked with corals. My previous research experience was in an Oncology lab and Genetics lab in the Stanford Medical School, where the most travelling I’d have to do was to the neighbouring building. And I had worked on human cell lines and sea anemones – both easily maintained in a controlled laboratory setting. Thankfully, Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty, a Venezuelan-born post-doc in the Centre for Marine Studies, helped me extensively plan my first field trip to Heron Island (coinciding with the aquarium deck being rebuilt). He even traveled with me to the research station and helped me collect my corals for 4 days on the reef flat. I then spend the next 5 weeks on the island working independently and arrived back in Brisbane with 200 frozen coral samples and the ability to perform independent fieldwork on the Great Barrier Reef.

Once back in Brisbane, Ruth Reef, an Israeli-born PhD student in the lab, mentored me in laboratory techniques that included everything from air blasting the tissue off coral skeletons to ordering supplies and chemical reagents from Japanese companies. Since the Centre for Marine Studies is so large, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (my advisor and centre director) gives his students full independence. Some students find this frustrating and wish they had more constant supervision, but those who can operate independently thrive. I was given a set amount of funding for my research and field trips, charged with ordering all supplies myself, and budgeted my entire research project. I was able to troubleshoot and optimize laboratory techniques, developing novel ways to measure oxidative stress in corals. Ultimately, I learned to perform scientific research completely independently. At the end of my Fulbright year I planned another fieldtrip to Heron Island, this time without the help of Mauricio, and carried out the next step in my search for the cellular processes underlying coral bleaching. In the coming years I will pursue a PhD in Biology back in the US and begin my graduate program fully able to plan, carry out, and publish innovative scientific experiments. This would not have been possible without the freedom provided to me by The Fulbright Grant and the Centre for Marine Studies.

In my Fulbright Application Curriculum Vitae, I wrote, “For me the appeal of Biological research lies not only in the countless mysteries and questions waiting to be investigated, but also in its power to bridge political and cultural divides to solve those questions….research has the power to integrate scientists from all over the world into one cross-cultural investigative team.” This sentiment has proven to be truer during my Fulbright year than I could have possibly imagined. As I have already mentioned, my two scientific mentors at UQ were Mauricio and Ruth: a Venezuelan and an Israeli. And throughout my time in Australia I have collaborated with scientists from Colombia, Germany, Mexico, Thailand, New Zealand, Britain, Sweden, Holland, and of course Australia. My Fulbright experience wasn’t so much a cultural exchange between the US and Australia, but an exchange between scientific communities throughout the world. I also lived in a beautiful 3-bedroom Brisbane house during my stay here and had roommates from England, Germany, and the Netherlands. I have connected with life-long friends and research collaborators from all over the world, thanks to the amazing cultural diversity of Australia. Much like the United States, Australia seems to be a place where cultural exchange is thriving.

When I return to the United States I will be attending the International Coral Reef Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where I will be giving an oral presentation of my findings from this year. Here again I will be connecting with scientists from all over the world, and discussing the results from my Fulbright research, which are profound. I detected oxidative DNA damage in the coral symbionts just at the onset of heat-induced bleaching. This has significant implications for our understanding of cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis breakdown and will provide insight into how coral bleaching is initiated. Thanks to my Fulbright experience, I will begin the next stage of my scientific career with a high-impact publication, scientific contacts throughout the world, and the independence necessary to live in a foreign country and perform original groundbreaking scientific experiments.