|
|
|
Starting in Finland...
Sari Ruuska
My ending up in Australia is the result of serendipity and the Brownian motion of my life. Here a short summary of the events leading to my relocation to Down Under.
|
|
| Our family enjoying a midwinter stroll around the Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra |
I grew up in a small dairy farm in northern Finland, about 400 kms south of the Arctic Circle. As a child I remember always being particularly fascinated about the natural environment, especially the change in seasons. I remember I used to sit outside on sunny summers afternoons marvelling the fact that within 6 months time it would be dark, frosty and everything will be covered with snow. Come spring, I remember watching the signs of the pending summer: snow melting, migratory birds returning, and of course all the plants waking up after a long winter.
As long as I remember I can recall that I wanted to study biology, and to become a scientist and do what ever they do because it must be fun. The final certainty about this was brought upon by watching the amazing documentary “Life on Earth” by David Attenborough – I don’t know about other people but that series, and the book that followed, was inspirational for me. All that I had been wondering about the world, life and all the creatures were presented as a part of this documentary and it gave me the feeling life was intricate, precious and complex.
Following my dream, I started to study biology at the University of Turku in 1987. At that time, the degree requirements for the Candidate of Philosophy (equivalent to MSc) were fairly broad, meaning that during the first 1-2 years one really had to study several fields of biology, and only after that one would choose the area to specialize in. So, the first year was filled with chemistry, mathematics, biochemistry, as well as ethology (science of animal behaviour), ecology and of course, taxonomy. Part of the taxonomy classes was the requirement to recognize a list of species by sight, and to know their Latin names as well. That meant hours spent staring at various specimens of insects, dried plants, or stuffed animals, and repeating their names. We also spent many hours in the animal anatomy classes, carefully dissecting exotic creatures like earth worms, frogs and fish. At the end of one of these classes, we could optionally attend a human autopsy, and several of us went. It was really quite incredible to see what is inside each and every one of us. Equally carefully, we studied the inner workings of different plant families in the plant anatomy classes, making drawings of xylem, phloem, reproductive structures and such. And, spent hours crossing fruit flies in laboratories swarming with the ones that got away from their little culture tubes.
Although many students did complain about the extent of these general biological studies, I always found them interesting. The way I see it, they gave me a very good and broad basic knowledge about biology in general, and it has made it easier to follow discussions about many topics (and I was inspired by the Life on Earth don’t forget). I am sure that nowadays the degree requirements have been streamlined a lot, and for a good reason of course (my MSc degree took about 5 years I have to admit). However, I feel that specializing to one’s favourite subject too early is a bit of a loss of a wonderful opportunity to be taught (as opposed to try and learn by oneself) about many aspects of biology.
Back to my current career. I ended up choosing plant physiology and biochemistry as my main subjects, and did my thesis work in the Finnish Forest Research Institute (FFRI) studying how birch trees try to minimize the damage done to them by predation by leaf-eating caterpillars by upping the photosynthetic capacity of the remaining leaves. At that time the basic undergraduate degree really was MSc, so it was about 4 years of studies plus about one year of work for the thesis. Most students would choose to do their thesis work within the department, but I wanted to combine my fondness of forests and ecology with plant physiology. Moreover, FFRI was a bit closer to my parent’s farm than the University.
I stayed on in the same project at the FFRI after graduating, working as a research scientist until 1994 when the grant money ran out. My supervisor at the time knew Prof. Barry Osmond from the ANU’s Research School of Biological Sciences, and he suggested I could apply for a PhD scholarship to come over and do some work there. Since I had always been fascinated about the animals and plants of Australia, I jumped to the chance and soon found myself in Canberra. I ended up working with Dr Susanne von Caemmerer, studying the regulation of photosynthesis in various transgenic tobacco plants. As often happens, I met my husband Warwick while we both were students in RSBS. After we both got our PhDs, we did a 4-year stint of postdoc in USA, at the Michigan State University in Michigan.
Now we are back in Canberra (weather here is much more enjoyable than in Finland, I guiltily admit), I am doing (yet another) postdoc, this time in CSIRO Plant Industry where I work with Dr Linda Tabe in a project that studies drought tolerance of wheat. The approach is very broad, from field experiments to the genomics of carbohydrate metabolism, and this is very appealing to me of course. I am also busy raising my 6-month old son Henry, and coming to terms with the endless juggle of work and family life.
As a summary, I have found that all
those hours studying I guess what you’d nowadays call “non-core” subjects at the
University as an undergraduate student has been a great advantage later in life.
I’m not sure how much professionally so but hey, it’s great to ponder the
anatomical wonders of sea slugs during a walk at the beach.
