Jessica Tingle is a recipient of the NSF GRFP, a former Grad Slam finalist (and Palm Desert Exhibition audience choice winner), and a recent STEM Coordinator for the Graduate Student Mentorship Program. She also really likes snakes.

What did you get your degree in, and what are you doing now?

I started college with plans to major in engineering, and then pivoted to biology after taking a herpetology class for fun and finding out there’s a whole field (biomechanics) that uses the principles of physics and engineering to understand how living things function. Now I’m finishing up a PhD in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, studying how snakes move and how their bodies have evolved in relationship to their behavior and ecology. In the fall I’ll be starting a postdoc that will let me keep doing cool research while working my way towards a faculty position (fingers crossed).

What are the top 2-3 things you did while at UCR that helped you finish your degree (and get a position in your field, if you have)? What was most helpful to you as a student here?

Some of the best things I’ve done as a UCR grad student were:

• Collaborating widely to meet more people in my field (and even beyond my field), which has given me exposure to new ways of thinking about things (plus new friends beyond UCR)
• Working as a consultant at the Graduate Writing Center, which helped me improve as a writer while also equipping me to be a more helpful mentor (let’s face it, whatever field we’re in, we all need to communicate well!)
• Making time for fun things, like a road trip up to Idaho to see the total solar eclipse in 2017, taco Tuesdays, and plenty of hikes in Joshua Tree

What did you like best about your graduate work? What did you like least?

I loved the freedom to pursue research questions that interested me, and to explore ways of answering those questions. Especially when I got to spend a summer out in the desert with collaborators whose company I love!

My least favorite part of grad work was the slog that resulted from bungled data collection for one of my chapters – it was one of those situations where you just have to grit your teeth and repeatedly try to reassure yourself “at least I’m learning something, and I’ll do better next time.”

Is there anything you wish you had done, or regret doing/not doing, while you were a UCR graduate student?

I wish I had been able to do fieldwork for more than one chapter. Things just didn’t work out that way. It also would have been nice to spend more time keeping up with language study, but time is finite. And I wish I had given the rec center a chance earlier! I never thought I was into exercise for exercise’s sake, but when I started going to the rec center during my fourth year, I ended up really enjoying some of their group classes, and it really enhanced my physical and mental well-being.

What are you most looking forward to in your new position/post-graduate life?

This fall, I’ll be starting a postdoc that I’m very excited about both because of the research topic and because it’s in a place that has real winter (which I’ve dearly missed since moving to Riverside). And I can’t wait to eventually start my own lab (again, fingers crossed)!

What advice do you have for other graduate students at UCR about finishing their degrees, going on the job market, or life in general?

No profound nuggets of advice here, but it definitely helps to remember you don’t need to go it alone. I wouldn’t have made it without my mentors (some at UCR, most at other universities), friends and colleagues who are a couple years ahead of me career-wise, and the many other folks who I care about and who care about me.