Aly Putnam

[Image Description]: Aly is a woman with a long, brown ponytail. She is wearing a black tank top sitting in front of a purple bucket of crabs with a crab in each hand.

[Image description]: Two photos that were taken the first day sit in contrast. In the first photo, Aly is seated on a rocky coast, working in the field with various, basic scientific tools. In the second photo, Aly is hooked up to an immunosuppressant infusion.

[Image Description]: Aly is seen wearing a puffy jacket, jeans, and a white baseball hat. She is sitting with her research team on a rocky coast, all seated on overturned Home Depot buckets. 

Meet Aly, a marine ecology PhD student!

What do you study?

I am finishing up the fourth year of my PhD in organismic and evolutionary biology. I have a Masters of Science in biology with a focus in marine ecology. I consider myself a marine ecologist who studies intertidal invertebrates and seaweed here in the North East and the impacts of climate change on those systems.“Intertidal” being that space on the coast when the tide goes all the way out and then disappears when the tide comes all the way in.

I think it’s a really interesting space because organisms that live there have to go through so much. They have to be able to tolerate air, they are inundated by water, here in the North East they get freezing cold temperatures, they also have really hot, dry days - they have to tolerate so much stress and desiccation. I guess it reminds me of my personal life, going through all these stressful things and still being able to be there!

I have a small focus on introduced species, which comes with the components of climate change. Either increased temperatures created an environment that new species can shift the distribution into, or those increased temperatures created an environment that when transported by humans (ex. boats), it’s now prime space for them to reproduce and colonize.

What excites you about your field of study?

We came from water. In evolutionary history, we came from the ocean, so the ocean has always been something I really connected to. I’ve always been interested in science, ever since I was a young kid. I was interested in the natural world, like “why does this tree look the way that it does?”, “why do ants do what they do?”, “why do my chickens squawk the way that they squawk?”. It’s sort of how I’ve always been - curious. I met a professor once who said “take what you love and turn it into a job so you can love what you do”. I really loved the ocean and I really loved science.

I just really love learning about why the marine animals and seaweed, the invertebrates and algae, why they do what they do and why the habitat tolerates stressful conditions. Now that I’m a scientist, my interests are still on the basic, conceptual, fundamental questions but there’s also a level of concern on the environment and the impacts climate change is having. It’s this dual thought process of why I continue to do what I do: a general interest and excitement for learning, as well as a concern for how everything we know is changing and how we need to re-figure things out again.

What accommodations or “hacks” helped you navigate the pandemic?

I’ve been really fortunate that my advisor has been able to accommodate me being as remote as I need to or want to be. During the pandemic, I shifted initially all of my research to be field based, outdoors, and in remote locations - so there was also the accommodation of nobody enforcing a certain amount of lab work or having to be indoors. Working remotely has been…huge. I give a lot of credit and thanks to my advisor Dr. Michelle Staudinger for being understanding and supportive of what I go through and making remote work available to me.

I have Crohn’s Disease and something called Central Nervous System Demyelinating Disease, which is basically my dysfunctional immune system which causes my Crohn’s Disease also causes inflammation in my brain; it’s a bit like Multiple Sclerosis. It makes certain things challenging. When I was first getting diagnosed, I was struggling with finding words and talking - I could see the word but I couldn’t say it. I was really tired and had really bad brain fog. I couldn’t remember things, so certain accommodations around that included when I had to give a presentation on research, people were super understanding about pre-recording research talks so I had time to read my notes and think and talk slower than situations requiring thinking on the fly. That was really important for times when I was clearly really inflamed in my brain before I started my medication.

Other tips and tricks and hacks…I bought a portable toilet and I bring it to remote locations and bring it with me in the car when I’m worried I’m not going to have access to a bathroom. As a person with Crohn’s Disease, bathrooms are quite important. It made it really challenging at the beginning of the pandemic, when traveling to research sites an hour or two hours away, and trying to find a COVID safe bathroom, let alone a bathroom. I relied on porta-potties and my own personal porta-potties. There’s different portable toilets or bags.

Crohn’s Disease can feel like a sort of humiliating disease - I don’t really feel that way, since I’ve had it for so long and I also have two kids, so nothing is sacred or modest in our house. But, to not have access to a bathroom when you really need a bathroom is stressful. Having to go behind a rock or tree, especially so often, can feel humiliating or demoralizing. Knowing that there are other things you can purchase to keep yourself bathroom ready was really helpful for me.

Additionally, I collaborate with a faculty at a different college who lets me use her lab for lab work where I can be isolated. I don’t have to worry about other people or someone not wearing a mask coming into the lab. There’s no small or private lab space on my campus, so the collaboration allows me to progress on lab work while staying safe. A couple students who help me have always been willing to wear a mask or rapid test if they’re going to be spending long periods of time with me. I think those are “accommodations” - those are things other people are doing to help me and help keep me safe given that I purposefully turn off my immune system so it doesn’t kill me.

What helps you make lab work and field work…well, work?

I want to first give the credit to my collaborator, Dr. Paulette Peckol, who makes it possible to have that lab component. Without her, I would be strictly in the field or remote, at home in my comfy chair in my home office. When I’m in the lab, it’s about planning and timing: knowing when my doctor’s appointments are, the time of day when I can or can’t do something, and I’m really grateful that the lab is across the hall from a bathroom. Knowing my limitations - it doesn’t take much to tire me out - and communicating that with my collaborator, my advisor, or any students helping me is key because they are my allies. They are the ones who support me so we can do things together and do them in less time then it would take me to do it alone, so I’m not passed out for three days after because it took too much out of me. That’s how I do it - it’s people. It’s the other people who recognize me, who value me, and who work together as a team to make the accommodations work - that’s what makes it all possible.

What advice would you give to your younger self, considering post secondary in STEM?

Find people who are like you. To me, finding other people who identify as a disabled scientist, regardless of what they study, makes me feel like I’ve found my people, they understand, and even where it’s different it can still be the same. Find people to reach out to to ask questions and learn tips and tricks.

For older students at the grad school part of life: I hate to say that you have to be the one to do the digging because it shouldn’t be our job, but that information isn’t publicly available. Talk to current students in the lab you’re planning on joining, ask questions, look people up on Twitter. Try to prioritize yourself in the process of making your decision. These are long term decisions, graduate school, so think about what you need now and three years from now or five years from now.

Is there anything you wish was available to help you navigate the STEM world?

My wishlist would be for conferences to be more accessible in a hybrid style. Most of our conferences have gone back to being completely in-person, which decreases access on a whole bunch of levels. Conferences need to get their act together and make their interactions and presentations in a hybrid style so when it hurts to get out of bed or you are immunocompromised, you can still learn and advance your knowledge.

Most of the equipment and tools that I use isn’t even supposed to be used for science. The most recent, “fancy” technology I’ve been using in the lab is “sou vides” - what you use to cook things in a water bath - I’ve been using those because I can control the water temperature really precisely. I’m doing some experiments on how increased water temperature impacts the survival of certain marine intertidal invertebrates.