Matthew Schumm

What motivated you to pursue a graduate degree and why did you choose FSU?

Life on Earth is so amazing, diverse, and surprising, and I realized during undergraduate research experiences that learning and sharing knowledge about biology and ecology was something I was passionate and excited about as a career direction. I learned from the graduate students I got to know in undergrad about how grad school could be an opportunity to pursue my own research questions, and to build myriad skills in research and technology, teaching, learning, writing, and collaboration. That's what led me to see grad school as the next step for me. I've been very fortunate that my advisor Dr. Dan Okamoto and my committee (Drs. Kim Hughes, Joe Travis, Mike Cortez and Mariana Fuentes) have helped this experience live up to and exceed whatever expectations I had back when I started. They have encouraged me to develop original research and to think creatively, and to leverage FSU’s existing infrastructure and Tallahassee’s amazing local nature as well as opportunities beyond FSU. I can’t imagine grad school in Biology without the people I’ve worked with here in our department. FSU’s Office of STEM Teaching Activities, and teaching faculty in our department as well as FSU Science Education faculty, have also provided opportunities to build my skills in student-centered and inclusive teaching, and I received a dual-enrolled masters in STEM Teaching in Spring 2024. Whether in the classroom or working with our amazing undergrad research assistants, FSU’s undergrads have been lovely to work with, and it’s exciting to live up to the example set by the grad students who were mentors to me when I was an undergrad.

Importance and/or impact of research and work

I’m focusing my thesis work on understanding complexity and change in the biology and ecology of individual fish, with a particular focus on insights for fish populations harvested by humans, and the feedback and interactions that occur between individual, population, and ecosystem. How does a fish respond and change in its development and ecology when the environment around it, and the number and size of other fish in its population, are all simultaneously changing? A fish’s environment is so complex, and it has so many internal, physiological needs and tradeoffs to balance. By using 100-year-old museum specimens from the Smithsonian, using Tallahassee’s own tiny wild live-bearing fish Heterandria as a model organism for a multigeneration experiment, and building computer models, we are trying to understand possible ways fish might change through time, to allow future work to figure out what to expect in fish populations and their traits under global change.

Career aspirations

I am interested in a broad variety of possible careers involving college STEM education and research in biology and ecology. Both primarily teaching-focused jobs and jobs including postdoc fellowships I’m working on applying for now, which will involve continuing research work, are possibilities I’m considering and pursuing.

Advice for anyone considering graduate school

Grad school and the path it will take you on can be so unpredictable. If you are ready for and want to pursue the intellectual challenge of never knowing what new random technical skill you will have to use to set up your experiment, or what new equation you’ll have to figure out how to understand and use, then grad school may be for you. The most important thing to getting through it all is having a strong support system, including a supportive and helpful advisor, so asking lots of questions before deciding on a lab to join and being confident you’re joining a healthy work environment is essential.

Accomplishments during graduate career

While I’m very proud of the internal/FSU and external awards and small grants I’ve received for my research, what I’m proudest of out of my time in grad school has been the work I’ve done with UROP undergraduates and Young Scholars Program high school students to help students get involved with research and develop their own poster projects!