The Rise and Fall of a Shrimp Biologist

Yes, I am a marine biologist. But, before you get all doe-eyed, thinking about swimming with dolphins, or saving the whales, I need to explain that there are two very different kinds of marine biologists in the world, one kind triumphantly leaps off of boats wearing stylish wetsuits to study highly intelligent and beautiful marine mammals, these are the dolphin huggers, while the other kind of marine biologist studies the less popular animals in the ocean, things like worms and slugs, or in my case, shrimp. And to be precise, I don’t study just any shrimp. My career choice was to study sick shrimp, shrimp laden with bacteria. While my dolphin-hugging colleagues are inundated with students—all of which, by the way, look remarkable in scant swimwear—they travel the world giving invited seminars to large enthusiastic audiences and seem to get research support with the flick of pen, I on the other hand am basically the proctologist of the marine biology world in terms of popularity. And like all proctologists, my expertise is entirely unappreciated. Read the article here 19:57

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