Taking a Dive
This story originally appeared in the 2006 issue of Vassar Views in celebration of URSI’s 20th anniversary.
Taryn Donovan ’97 dove into her URSI project way before summer started—in the swimming pool at Walker Field House. Her mentor, biology professor Marshall Pregnall, met with her regularly during the spring semester to train her in SCUBA so that she would be licensed by the time they headed out for Coos Bay, Oregon, to investigate rock scallop growth rates. “The training and diving were such an extraordinary part of my experience,” says Donovan. “Dr. Pregnall was a wonderful mentor and teacher. He was especially good at remaining absolutely calm during stressful situations. I remember thinking, ‘I hope I can handle problems like that all the time.’”
The URSI project built on previous work that assessed the population structure of purple-hinge rock scallops on a subtidal reef off the southern coast of Oregon. Pregnall, Donovan, and Hoi-Sze Wong ’96, also an URSI fellow, mapped and measured over 100 scallops at five study sites to establish a baseline for future studies.
Since they were diving in the Pacific, encountering sharks or sea lions was always a possibility, but they never came across anything that large. “There are very brightly colored mollusks called nudibranchs—sea slugs—which were always a beautiful and interesting diversion,” says Donovan. “When we got to the surface, we’d rifle through Dr. Pregnall’s books to identify all the fish and other animals we had seen during the dive. I really loved that part of it—identifying all the species we saw.”
URSI was especially important to Donovan because she was on the verge of a big decision: “Did I want to be primarily a researcher in biology, or did I want to be a veterinarian? After URSI, I felt confident that I would be happier in a clinical setting.”
She earned her DVM at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, completed a year-long internship in small animal medicine and surgery at the Animal Medical Center in New York City, and then took a year off before her residency to work as an associate veterinarian in the city. Her residency in veterinary anatomic pathology at Cornell was supposed to last three years, but when her dream fellowship opened up at the San Diego Zoo, her advisors encouraged her to apply for it and spend the third year of her residency there. She is now a pathology fellow in the zoo’s Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES) department, taking part in necropsy (autopsy of animals) procedures.
The San Diego Zoo has an exceptionally large and diverse collection of animals—one of the largest in the world. According to the website, CRES, founded in 1975, is “one of the largest zoo-based research centers in the world,” with eight research divisions, numerous field programs, and over 75 researchers “dedicated to preserving and protecting rare and endangered wildlife and their habitats.” CRES projects range from the Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program, a CRES/government collaboration to develop and implement restoration strategies for 12 endangered Hawaiian forest birds, to the Frozen Zoo®, a repository of genetic material from 7,000 endangered or threatened mammals, birds, and reptiles.
CRES’s Pathology Division comprises “three laboratories (clinical pathology, anatomic pathology, and molecular diagnostics) that work together to investigate and resolve health problems that affect animals in the zoo’s collection and field conservation programs” through routine health monitoring and disease surveillance.
The necropsy procedures entail microscopic examination of excised tissues, or biopsies, as well as macroscopic and microscopic examination of animals that have died. They examine all tissues from all animals to find out why the animal died and also to create an archive in case they need to use the information for retrospective studies.
“It sounds funny,” says Donovan, “but I feel privileged to be able to examine these tissues on all levels. The fact that every day I am able to observe, interpret, and learn more about the intricacies of organ systems and cellular interactions in relation to function and disease is exciting to me. I am amazed at how many times seasoned pathologists I’ve worked with have said, ‘I’ve never seen this before.’”
At what point did she become interested in veterinary conservation rather than a standard veterinary practice? “Conservation has been my goal since entering veterinary school. I enjoyed my time as a veterinary practitioner, and I think it helps me in the field of pathology, but I did not feel personally fulfilled. I wanted to focus on helping animals regain their populations or natural habitats, rather than to play a role in the human-animal pet bond, or in agriculture. At the same time, I wanted to pursue a field in more of an academic environment because I enjoy learning and understanding the details and pathophysiology of disease. Aiding in the diagnosis of diseases that threaten an endangered species, or that can thwart conservation efforts, is extremely important.”
The biggest personal challenge Donovan says she’s faced since Vassar was being apart from her boyfriend, Alexandre. They met at the Animal Medical Center in New York when she was doing her internship and he was doing his residency, and then lived together the following year before she began her residency. “It was a four-and-a-half hour drive from Ithaca to New York, so we only got to see each other about twice a month. We were both doing our respective residencies, so we didn’t have too much free time anyway, but being away from each other was difficult.”
Now they are reunited in San Diego where Alex has accepted a position as a criticalist (a critical care specialist) at a large veterinary referral hospital. “It’s very exciting that we get to explore this new place together,” says Donovan. And pretty lucky, too, in a world where two-scientist partnerships often find themselves in the unenviable position of having to choose between the personal and the professional. Their plan is to take turns. “He gets to choose the next move!”