{"id":5045,"date":"2016-07-06T17:51:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T00:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/?p=5045"},"modified":"2016-07-06T17:51:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T00:51:42","slug":"hope-bruce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/2016\/07\/hope-bruce\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

From an \u201cEcologist Directory\u201d maintained by the ESA Education Office about 2004-2005. Profile circa 2004.<\/em>
\nDegree<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ph.D.
\nPosition<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Scientist
\nOrganization<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
\n\"brucehope\"Describe your route to a career in (or using) ecology. What challenges did you need to overcome? What was your training, and what positions have you held?<\/strong>
\nWhen I was in high school in Los Angeles, my scientific interests were mainly in physics and electronics. But in my junior year, a close family friend introduced me to backpacking and mountaineering, activities which got me out of the city exploring mountains and deserts throughout California, southern Nevada, and western Arizona. These numerous outdoor confrontations with \u201cnature\u201d shifted my scientific interests toward biology (\u201cecology\u201d not being the household word it would later become). So, I spent two years as a biology major at a small college in Oregon (beginning an enduring love affair with the climate and mountains of the Northwest), then transferred to the University of California (Santa Barbara), graduating with a B.A. degree in geography. Why geography? Well, mountaineering taught me to love maps, the geography department was small and friendly (and not overrun with avaricious pre-med students), and its subject matter addressed larger, more holistic questions (well before the concept of \u201cwatershed\u201d gained its current presence).
\nAfter graduation, I worked in a commercial research lab for a year, then went to graduate school at the University of Southern California. My M.S. was on an aspect of the physiological ecology of desert ants but, for my Ph.D. I shifted to aquatic toxicology, primarily because this seemed a more tangible subject. Graduate school gave me no driving interest in an academic career, so I was happy to find work with an oceanographic consulting firm shortly before receiving my Ph.D. We gathered and analyzed data on deep water benthic communities and I spent several months aboard a survey ship cruising off the U.S. East coast. Unfortunately, our project sank in rough political waters after only one year. Curious circumstances then led me to spend the next nine years in realms totally unrelated (or so I thought) to ecology. Finally, resolved to get back into environmental work no matter what, I interviewed for a job in \u201cecological risk assessment\u201d and was surprised to find a field that needed a combination of ecological knowledge and risk-related statistics (which I\u2019d learned in my \u201cnon-ecology\u201d job). I\u2019ve been doing risk assessments ever since, first with several consulting firms (which included work helping convert the old navy base on Midway Atoll into a National wildlife refuge), and for the last few years, with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Although most of my work has focused on risk posed to ecological receptors by chemicals, we\u2019re now including risk posed by other impacts, such as habitat loss or loss of prey base. A year in Washington DC as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Risk Policy Fellow allowed me to broaden my knowledge of risk to include that posed by food-borne microbes and bioterrorism.
\nRisk assessment has continued to hold my interest not only because of its scientific and technical aspects, but because it is an important link between science and policy. When resources (time, money, expertise, etc.) for fixing problems are scarce (as they almost always are), considering risk can help us separate problems more likely to occur from those that, although dramatic (\u201c\u2026the sky is falling!\u201d), are of such low probability as to be irrelevant to pragmatic policy making. Ideally, we\u2019d like to direct limited resources toward more probable (and potentially more solvable) problems and away those that are seemingly dramatic (or agenda-driven) but otherwise improbable.
\nWhat key advice would you offer a student today?<\/strong><\/p>\n