Christa Mulder and Katie Spellman

00:04 My name is caivano Spellman. I am 36 years old. Today's date is August 27th, 2017. We're here at the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I'm sitting here with my mentor and collaborator Chris Mulder.

00:25 My name is Kristen Alder. I'm 49 years old. Today's date is August 22nd 2017. I'm here in Fairbanks Alaska at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus and the relationship to my partner is I am her current collaborator and former advisor twice over.

00:46 Tell me a joke about your relationship Christian. When did you first?

00:52 Find me you did I find you or did you find me how we met each other in the greenhouse at your name? And I don't remember what I was doing in the greenhouse. Obviously something. That's what I were measuring Alief area. I think with Jenny maybe that's possible. And I kept running into you and Kate and Amy told me that you were a great field worker and I think he was finishing up your undergraduate at the time for right and I think you brought me to your office and showed me a map of New Zealand and then you were like, I'm looking for a grad student and that we got this awesome project in New Zealand's right and you showed me the map of all the islands you were working on and I was like, oh my gosh,

01:41 Science is so cool like that. Look at that. She's a travel to remote places to do really cool research and and I just spent

01:51 Time working with two really hardcore ladies and I was like, I'm going to be one of those hardcore ladies that have the boat down to ten in the river and slugs through the mud all day to remember that one of the main selling points on you as you were really tough in the field and you could spend an important quality in a grad student in my field anyway, and then I think the next time we were in contact as you would looking for a master's advisor and you contacted me and said you were interested and I was pretty interested and then you got to accept it, but then I think I'll give you a call when you and you were in Tacoma at the timer it working at a homeless shelter and you told me you weren't ready. Are you needed a year or something? So I just started the street newspaper and I hurt her circulation is already up to several thousand and all the guys on my homeless buddies that are riding with me for this newspaper.

02:51 They don't want me to go yet and I don't want to go yet and so can I delay here right now? So you waited a year and then you came up and you pretty much just started off on your own project. I mean, I think it was my idea initially this idea to look at what happened with M invasive plants in different environments in Alaska, but you kind of thought the whole thing from there and got most of your own money to yes. I was pretty much you working really really independently at that time, but it was just you you didn't have a partner or husband or as little kids yet, right. I remember you coming. I remember you coming into the office and saying I would love to go out of the greenhouse and I needed a key and I had to be let in by Blaine or something along those lines and going

03:51 Does getting knocked out of the greenhouse business what is going on here? Yeah night that was that was a start and then after that I finished my Master's and got a job and then and then they called me up when you got a giant Grant. And you said you wanted to do the perfect project for you for your PhD. Actually, I think that one of the other collaborators ran into your mom at Freddy's at the grocery store and your mom I think contacted you and then we got in touch and I said, I thought the project that's just right for you cuz I knew you were interested in working with people and I knew that this project was going to have a big citizen-science component to it or I don't even remember what we had in mind was all I know it was going to be some sort of training for educators.

04:51 Yeah, then you came up with the idea of turning it into a citizen science project. So you would doing kind of two things simultaneously, this is pretty cool.

04:59 That's its trajectory. Did so so yeah, so you came back to Fairbanks.

05:07 Yeah, and then the stories about me now crystallized it we need to get to the story about you. I guess the photo.

05:17 Yeah, he moved back to Fairbanks to start the project with you and I'll be bought a little house that was part of the deal for Blaine to move back up here because when were the most beautiful place on the planet and we got a house in a dog and he said, okay great, Labradoodle dogs became our field and then we grew a heck of a lot of little plants plants might interact with various pieces that are important to people and

05:59 Yeah, we did it in an experiment.

06:02 And we spent about a week running around looking for different sites where we could put out these plots where we have lots of blueberries and cranberries and I have some fond memories of that particular time. I remember the time we went down what we thought was a road which turned into a boardwalk at the back of the car all the way back out exact words backwards around the turn. And remember the time we went down the screen extremely little bushy Road that's scratched the side of our cars remember that was the guy who is like cutting logs there in his own little ladies and he walks over to the side of the trail and he pulled down a birch tree and said you guys to drive over this just don't tell your boss and you ran in and out of the window. She is the boss in about 2 million dollar prices.

06:53 This little lady's the boss pretty suspicious but a lot of a lot of time together driving to get to sites. Like that's what I think you did probably most of your like mentoring of me, you know scary because when the topic of like of mentoring came up in our invitations to tell stories here, I was thinking man that was really Christians did a lot of mentoring in the car if he asked you like how it works. And in the research World in Academia. Tell me the truth Krista. Is it scary like you are you always living on a thread ahead and stressed out and but you like you made me

07:52 Believe that you could do it and you can help me know that there's a supportive environment and that you're not by yourself. You're collaborating and people got your back. She don't and also some of the scary stuff to like, yeah, you're going to get rejected from one of my cuz I remember when I was a PhD student one of the things that really stressed me out was I would look at successful pea eyes and they would have these big Labs. It was a very top down thing you had all of these posts talks in the process of working with graduate students in another few seasons were working with the master student send a text in the undergrads and I thought this absolutely no way I can ever do that. And then when I did a postdoc in Sweden with some woman who checks in Houston now,

08:43 She showed me really different model. And that was a model is very collaborative when she had her hand in a lot of different projects and had a very specific contribution that you made to those projects, but it wasn't a top-down kind of approach. It was a very collaborative approach and I thought well I could do that that works as an approach for me. I could probably pull off that model. So so I think that was quite deliberate and I'm really glad that you showed me that because up until then and I've never worked with a woman because there were no women except for one one woman in the biology Department. I think none and my Master's institution when I first started in biology, I had worked with a woman the woman who got me into biology, but I haven't worked as a graduate student with women. So so if you were going to like to find your philosophy of mentoring,

09:36 What would you like collaboration is that is not something as one of your students? I I knew you empowered me to make a lot of my own decisions and when it when you start seeing me go down the path of like well, that's way far off the topic Katie and he would rain me and you know, and but what other things are do you think would be a part of your units in every kid is different than every graduate students different and some of them I like with you. I spent a lot of time just raining you in but I didn't have different projects and I was mostly just worried you were doing too much and you wouldn't be able to get it all done. But then there's other people wear what you need to provide as some sort of structure because otherwise they get themselves really caught up and Loops. I can't move forward. I mean there's of course the the regular in a teaching people techniques for teaching people statistics are teaching people how to write the paper. I mean, there's all those kind of components for those are pretty pretty much the same.

10:37 For everybody but it takes a while to figure out what works and you know, I think I'm a good Mentor for some people and probably not a very good Mentor for some other people. I think it's I think that's life. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it really doesn't but when it works, well, it's really it's again, it's like watching your kids do better than you did at something. I don't like I watch my daughter birthday cakes that are much much better than anything I could possibly bake and you know, it makes you feel really good. So, you know when you just got a big cramp that made me feel awesome cuz I can look at what she just did. What do you

11:18 Purelace excited. Sometimes they say say OK menteurs. You need to kind of be be there B positive help guide, but then you might want to remove yourself personally from that person. I felt like I was a part of your family like, you know, like I loved your whole family your dog your kids your husband. You you love my family. You've been at the birth of both of my to not at the moment of the birth, but you were like for the first visitors threatened to have the baby during the field where guidelines about to like help to me to give birth car away from the bedroom in my backpack my field tech. I'm so glad I didn't I was 9 months pregnant working with you.

12:17 But so like what do you what are your feelings of have like the mentorship and the feeling of like family and stuff like that? Do you think that it's important to keep or depends on the time and it depends entirely on the person like I can I mean I can think of situational we could convince a really successful and not have a strong personal relationship and other cases. I think you do have a strong personal relationship and then it's the same thing as with, you know you with your own family. That's really great. But then there's also times when you know that can get in the way and get emotional alert and know things can go wrong when something doesn't work if you have a strong interpersonal relationship as well as I do think actually the case. Is that where I've been the best Mentor now thinking about it maybe I should restate that have been cases wife also had a really good connection with that person. So yeah, so what what about you? What do you think work if I didn't work?

13:17 Enter people, you know in like it might cuz my immediate reaction would be like if I like you do, you know a field day with a fresh cup of coffee at my house to help my husband do a little work on it but feeling like you want to treat hear your students like like you actually care about them, right? Yeah, but I don't see them for me and made me want to work harder, you know, because I knew that you cared and I

13:58 I also knew that you didn't accept crap, you know, like I wanted to work hard and

14:06 Yeah, which probably like your kids some kids that bite like turned on and be like, hey, I really want to make Krista proud of me and like not not do crappie work for her. But but some that some people might be like will Chris's pretty tough and that's kind of like, you know, and yeah, I felt like it worked for now. I think when it works, well, it's great. I think I can sometimes you know be a little bit dangerous. I can think of some cases where I felt like I had built a really good relationship with a mint tea and then at some point things didn't go well work wise man. It was much harder because we had built up a good personal relationship as well. I can think of one case where that one badly. So I think it's kind of you know, it's kind of tricky but it's like I mean you have graduate students are undergraduates into whatever who become your friends sometimes friends for life. At least you hope for life. I don't know yet and then other times it's

15:06 Too much more. So we have professional arm's length relationship. And I think both of those are fine. I mean when I'm thinking back of the people who mentored me

15:16 I was not super personally close with anybody but I felt like I had some really good mentors.

15:27 Was it the first field course that you ever took it as an undergrad as that that was there was a woman in the first week or so back in August. What year was and I think 86 there was a hurricane hurricane Gloria that swept through New England and knock down a whole bunch of trees in a part of the country that was owned or part of the state. That was owned by Major Logging company. I can't remember which one and so one of the faculty member says hey who wants to come out and help me measure these trees before the Logging company comes in and cuts down and I should have said I will and so off we went and we were literally measuring these trees to see how tall they were and how you know, how big around they were there diameter as the log behind us with chainsaws cutting these lovely trees up and while I was in the field with her, she asked somebody else asks you whether they wanted to come to Costa Rica with her on this project looking at moth pollinated time.

16:27 This other woman can do it and I kind of pipes up my supposed to go to Columbia. So I ended up going with Sharon Kinsman to Costa Rica and like many people I thought I was going to work on sweet fuzzy animals and I fell in love with plants and that was because she was so enthusiastic about him and she would get so excited about these plants and their relationship with pollinators and what happened to the pollen that landed on the statement all this I was kind of stuff that I got completely swept up in that and ended up being a plant ecologist. So it was one person that throws that very much did she did you have any sort of mentoring relationship with her or anything like that or just wish she'd just like her enthusiasm you were like, no, she was a great mentor in the house and she taught me a ton in the field and and we did have a good relationship. And then when we got back I ended up doing an undergraduate project under her guidance.

17:27 So I need an honors thesis so that there was a that was a real relationship. And of course you're living in the field with somebody always getting you know, somebody close to people we living in a little house. So we spent a lot of time doing things like making yogurt have a personal relationship with her but then no one's I Love College. Kind of disappeared and I haven't heard that she's retired that I haven't talked to her in a very long time. So it doesn't always laugh. Did you ever tell her that she oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She knows that you lost me.

18:11 Did she have kids she did not have kids and I know she did not have kids. Yeah, so I think I think the other thing that's important about Mentor relationships is that if it goes, well the meant he has as big an impact on the mentor as vice versa again, just like kids write to me you change because of who your kids are you doing sister? Fuck them and I think you know, I mean, I would never have gotten involved in any of the human resources got involved in the in the citizen science stuff for into Science Education stuff. If it hadn't been for you, I would never have let me some of the other things that I'm doing like my involvement in the fostering Science Program where we working with kids in foster care, I would probably have done it but I wouldn't have done it in the same way. And also I can I program my other people so, you know, there's lots of different things is a lot of ways in which I changed because of working with you so

19:07 Yeah, we built each other's confidence in front of each other different skills and the complementary skills. I think that's why I was so or the day before we're still working on for four projects together clever. It is for Life Krista. That's right several Us in funded and I think it's cuz we have complementary skills. And I think that's about as good as it gets right when you build up the skills that you can and then somebody else picks up new skills and teaches them to you and now you've got complementary skills and you working together so easily that you know, it'd be silly.

19:46 We also know each other his circumstances and like so and we know that.

19:54 It's going to get done. So, you know, we have enough trust in each other that if we know that whatever the task is it'll get done and we know what the other person might be overtaxed a pretty amazing way to be you don't get that chance of collaborators very often though. You don't like the circumstances of their life in their project is pretty amazing. Yeah. I kind of had it a couple few times to pick up to other projects where I had really good when I feel like we're really good collaborators and and we could really count on each other to you know, when one person got overwhelmed the other person would pick it up and vice versa and that's that's a really really great. But I've also had lots of projects for that hasn't worked at all so picky

20:46 Do you think I'm kind of back to this idea of like komentarz roll? And do you think that I feel like as women in science Ventures?

21:01 AR

21:03 They they serve as role models for how to especially work-life balance rate in as what work like to at least talk about it with your Menchie's and male or female with children. Do you think it's part of your role or do you think it's something that just kind of popped up as needed? I think it's part of my role to be realistic. So when somebody comes in and says, oh I'm going to be a professor. I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. I think it's unrealistic to point out that it is impossible for all people for sample become PCS students to go in two universities in only small portion of it are going to do so, I think it's important to talk about you know, so the costs because they're very considerable cost. I mean

22:00 I remember one sitting in the lab measuring something-or-other listening to the radio and hearing I'm somebody talked about a survey where they had found that they were looking at people who did not have children by choice not by choice voluntarily childless either because it didn't find the right partner or didn't have the right circumstances or whatever and they found that that level was incredibly high in professional women and and and and included in that academic women remember being really depressed because I was indeed, you know, what is an academic woman who at that point did not have children and part of that was for reasons that were outside my control and I was also depressed because I realized I didn't need me to their qualifications as a professional woman cuz I didn't make enough money, but I think it's important to be realistic and I think part of that is work-life balance because you know, it's is it is

23:00 Still really tough time to do both I could do both because I have a husband who it was very supportive but I'm not going to say that it was easy on either of us, you know, we adopted two kids so they gave me a little bit of breathing room cuz I didn't have those first two years, but on the other hand the other had to deal with so I think that a naturally comes up no matter who you're working with because when you're making decisions about where you going to go with your life, you have to take into account things Beyond just your career statistics in the it like you mean according to your PC, you think you're going to have to teach your students, you know, but that is like there's this whole realm of like you got to be realistic and he has your life and your parents and you know, and then think about other options because there are lots of options for think she can do with higher degrees, but you have to kind of have to be open to them in some people absolutely focused on you know, this is what

24:00 They want to be a professor and that's it. And and and that's fine. But you know, you got to be realistic about the costs that come from that why do you think the students that come in with that mentality do like say I want to be a professor?

24:16 I'm not really sure. I mean I was a little bit like that myself and oddly enough. I am less like that. Now I'm actually sort of starting to look at other things that I can do with my life accounts of the midlife crisis midlife crisis or something, but

24:34 I think I was just I think I was really enjoying doing science. And then and then I thought hey, this is great. Sums. Okay me ask questions and come up with answers. And well, this is a minor issue of finding money to do so, but we can do a lot of stuff for very cheap in our field which is how you got away with your Masters. For example

24:57 I think that.

24:59 I think that when you start off their used to see this nice straight path of where you can keep doing that I think for me after doing that for what 20 plus years now close to 25 years. It's become a little bit start to look around going. What else can I do with my life? And I think that's okay.

25:25 Although the other talents that you have beyond your statistical proud West she is very good at statistics everyone. Yeah, it is. It's really need to see the kinds of programs that you're diving into and social justice related and you're making science acceptable and understandable and I know our world needs that you know, I think the other thinks you're unusual because you came in already having a very strong sense of social justice and how important that was and how this was going to be part of what you were going to do. And I mean it is right to the heart of the citizen science work that you're doing now, it's melting science and and and education is social justice The Villages for me. I kept those my scientific part of my life and my personal life very very separate for a very long time. I mean, I've always been interested in child welfare, you know ever since I worked in an orphanage in Columbia back in the early nine.

26:25 An 80s really bad time to be in Columbia Heights this all the way up to fairly recently. I was interested in that and I got involved in the casa volunteer court appointed special Advocates and all those things but it was a separate part of my life. And it's only now that I'm starting to fit those pieces together and say Hey, you know, maybe I can do that and can be a scientist and I can bring those two sets towels together and that's a part of your influence because you've been doing that right from the start. Thank you.

27:03 I guess it kind of comes back to the

27:08 Work-life balance, which they're starting to call satisfaction right vs. Left work life satisfaction cuz

27:16 Because balance is unrealistic in anybody's case to balance work and life but to be satisfied with with full of sleek feel like I knew coming in as a grad student that I

27:29 That I didn't want to do sites in it in a vacuum. I wanted it to be meaningful for people and and that helped keep my Heart Phil to know cuz you can get lost in the spreadsheets and which I enjoy but I know that that getting lost in the spreadsheets going to help to somebody someday, you know, if ya need to get out that has an initial I thought well, maybe I should just two more applied science because when you're doing your address and then I realized I applied science turning me on it was not making me want to be up at 3 in the morning crunching through the number so, okay. We'll go back to basic science. But what can I do that is really really useful. So I think some of the Outreach thinks that way now and then I can't possibly do by myself because I don't have the social skills to do them, but I can do them with other people. I think that's working out really well, so

28:29 Yeah, so that work and we've got this new program with youth in foster care that I don't know where it's going to go yet, but it'll go somewhere private project for so.

28:48 I'm sure we'll come up with other things, too.

28:55 Guess what? This is actually an Outreach component of the Bonanza Creek LCR sights and we were thinking about audiences that really have been neglected and among those are Urban Kitchen in Alaska to there's a lot of programs to get real kids involved in science, but Earl Urban kids and we think about kids in foster care because they often don't have any opportunities to participate in in summer programs. Especially wants to get about 8:12 or so, because when you're when you're five years old, you don't need to have any skills to go to Camp by the time you get 13 14 15 years old. You actually need to have some background usually in the type of cat pee go to so, you know, my kids go to music camp, but they already play instruments and a lot of times kids are in foster care and have been moved from home to home. Don't get much opportunity to build those skills.

29:48 For the encouragement to do it or the consistency to get good at it. And so we thought what if we had a camp for kids and it's one of the signs education slice of venture capital early a lot of natural history and turned into the Summer where kids get involved in signs. They learn about natural world. They learn that they can ask questions and answered them themselves and know we're hoping to release of increase or self-efficacy there their ability to to tackle their own problems and answer them. And and also we wanted them to have a group that was

30:26 That was supportive that understood each other that was in similar circumstances, but not be focused on what has happened to them not be focused on their own, you know histories, which is often what happens when you bring kids together who's been who are in foster care, but to be focused on something positive some something in their future and new ideas that they were exploring all those kinds of things and some of the things that kind of emerged from the camp this year. This is the first time we did it was the feeling of being a leader principal investigators and Ward ever everyday and like I'm somebody that was just men they were spot-on the whole morning and and they has so many cool questions to the guest scientist and they were you know, you know, it's so that ended up being a really big deal that every kid wanted that principle.

31:26 DIY on it. And yeah, so the feeling of like leadership a lot of times these kids according to the counselors get in trouble and in classroom, that's a typical classroom. But in a smaller environment where the structure was just exploring nature together that people were empowered to be leaders into the like the focused and it was it was pretty amazing. And what does thinks it emerged to assist each kids would have found one area that they were particularly interested in whether that was trapping animals or no one kid got really excited about soil. So soil profile which is amazing things. Like we had somebody come in and drill permafrost in the permafrost course at we we made us record out of candy and all these other kinds of things, but it was really cool to see each one of them. This is something

32:26 I'm really interested in I can do and so that was a lot of fun. Yeah to know that science isn't something that you just have to memorize and that you feel like you're not good at in a large classroom setting but to be like this is size to this is awesome. You know like the same things as for us like I want to be one of those ladies that's dirty every day and just looking through, you know, these places without trails and people that care about them other thing we brought in. I'm guess I'm just in case artists to teach them about different topics and showing the really cool things. We have somebody come in and show them radio telemetry. We had somebody come in and show how they do drone surveys. We had an old and they were all really involved with the kid. That was really really cool. But it

33:26 Another area where we could have pulled it off without the complementary skills lots of ideas for projects and we had several other people involved to had great skills with the kids and that's not my strength. So I didn't work the organizational stuff.

33:45 Buena Vista things about projects like this and citizen science projects and this storycorps project that I really love is showing scientists as people and I can't I can't, you know those kids with the stereotype of the scientist in the lab coat that's boring and talks like the Visine commercial guy, you know, and then they find out that scientists have kids. They have babies. They are shy they are loud. They are silly. They are serious. You know, they they cry, sometimes they get mosquito bites and are you don't like all these things said make science seem more accessible, you know, so we did a lot of that to we did some storytelling. Yeah. Yeah every day.

34:42 And Hampton

34:45 So I guess we're going to buy think we're going to be collaborating for a while to come cuz we keep coming up with more projects.

34:53 Yeah.

35:03 How do you know?

35:24 I'm learning about that right now. Actually, I just like as my P I have my first big project in trying to understand where he's coming from especially if you don't already have a good person or working relationship with them, you know, it's really challenging cuz like there's some people on the team that I know really well and know already their strengths and weaknesses and what I can ask them to do and what I do know is better for somebody else to do and the people that I don't know. Well, it's been a lot harder working with them just because I don't know there's drinks yet, you know, and I don't know if so and I'm not sure how to do that. You know. I'm not sure it like do you need a big camp out where everybody likes Spencer in the woods together to get to know each other and we talked about your strengths and weaknesses that doesn't really happen science and maybe it should so that you can have more effective collaborations. I don't know.

36:21 I've had a couple of collaborations. I wouldn't say they've gone they've gotten from wrong so much as they've just really petered out then they've been so disappointing. I've had collaborations where I felt like people pull their weight and that's really tough. I shouldn't have some in a relationship with grad students at haven't always worked out and that's and that's hard to never had a complete disaster. But I've had some. I certainly wasn't didn't feel as good about us I could have and I think I've just kind of decided that you know, you make you make the best of it and then you kind of cut your losses like I wouldn't work again with somebody that I felt then pull their weight out just wouldn't want to do it. It wouldn't be worth it because it's so you depend on each other so much that that really doesn't work and you don't like the way it makes you feel like snow and then some other cases where I felt like somebody's

37:21 Ben not not entirely honest or fair and that's that's really hard. I'm not very good at confronting that it's actually interesting. I just did the fellowship Christ Fellowship in a big part of that was about having difficult conversations and dealing with people that your class with another man. I'm not very good at that. I'm like a lot of people I avoid conflict as I possibly can. Yeah, but after I've definitely decided it's not worth working with people no matter how brilliant they are. If I don't feel like I can rely on them or trust them. I've seen you navigate conflicts before Christie, you're so bad at it very tactfully and thoughtfully so I do have learned is to never ever respond right away, like whatever you do don't do that. First thing you want to do which is that nasty email or the midnight caller there, whatever you do, don't do it.

38:21 Yeah, cuz inevitably it's it's not as bad as you think it is, but but it can be really hard. I mean it's it's it's so much fun collaborators because there are so few things anymore. You can do entirely by yourself and Me Maybe the occasional mathematician can but I certainly can't you pick them collaborators kind of like cold call refers to that's kind of risky cuz you don't know like what how did you gauge whether or not it was worth getting into a collaboration with them. I just I did just called call or email them interested in this and you were right. It was just a conversation to see if we had similar interests and then I invited this person up to come work with me and you know, she and I got along just fine, but it took a while to figure out whether I thought this was really going to work but you know by the time you've written a grant together usually have a pretty good feeling for weather.

39:21 That's actually really good way to find out if they're not in there. If you know 3 in the morning on those three days before the darn thing has to make it to the office lights. Yeah. Yeah, then it's probably not going to work in the long run together Crystal like that are just interested in the same topic this, Yeah, you think it's clever? It is like that you don't really do. Well. I pop it into you and that if you meant to me working with kids and people of all ages without sounding like a complete idiot, cuz that's what I'm not very good at.

40:13 And I guess in the end it all has to do is like so I just being real people and accepting everybody where they're at. Right and yep and knowing that their person with a Alli Fitz spread them in many directions just like you right. Yeah, that's right and realizing that there is something they can do and something they can't do and you just kind of have to live with that.

40:39 Look for the cause not get inside. What I learned from you forget that I mind it. Thank you for being my mentor since the Year. 2005 right? I think that's right. Yeah, it's been a long time will thank you for being part of my life for that entire time as well as a longtime. Plus I got to watching your kids grow up there going to be a part of my life your husband high-fiving.