As a grad student, Liz Neeley falls in love with the order of science, but when she heads into the field, she’s forced to confront messy reality.

Liz Neeley is the executive director of The Story Collider. She is a lapsed marine biologist who will always name her printers after fish. For the past decade, she has been helping researchers around the world understand the science of science communication and find the courage to tell more stories about their work. She is a member of the advisory boards of Ensia Magazine and the CommLab at MIT.

This story originally aired on March 10, 2017.

Story Transcript

So I started drinking in college –- alone. And it’s not in the sad and sloppy way, or at least not in a sloppy way, but rather this was an extravagantly nerdy experiment conducted largely in secrecy.  You see, it’s the autumn of my freshman year.  I've done the frat parties, the house parties, I like it.  Except I realize, I am data deficient.  I don't know what’s been given to me in these drinks, I don't know which liquors I actually like, and I don't know how my body responds to this stuff so I think this is a titration problem.  All I need is a more precise calibration. 

So fortunately for me, one of my best friends Irm had already collected a massive liquor cabinet.  So one night, when all the guys were playing poker, I sat down to methodically taste my way through.  You see, I was a young scholar.  I had my lab notebook and I was not afraid to use it. 

I really enjoyed that process.  It was kind of luxurious going through. Kahlua, yes.  Tequila, no.  Blue Curacao, why is it blue?  Why?  And the color mattered to me because I had, of course, arranged my bottles in rainbow order the same way that I arrange my closet, the same way I arranged all of my books, the same way I arranged the photographs I had from the Audubon Society.  Fish and flowers and feathers dancing in this vivid splendor of a rainbow, underneath, in my dorm room I slept and I studied.  You see, I had this bizarre notion that I was going to take over the world of marine biology by becoming some combination of Sylvia Earle, Mary Poppins, and Zooey Deschanel. 

So I approached this problem of calibrating my blood alcohol levels with the same enthusiasm, gusto, and rigor as I did my classes.  I wanted everything in my life to be efficient, to be tidy, to be beautiful whenever possible but always, always to be in control. 

And so the next year I was taking animal behavior and genetics and oceanography.  I loved it.  Best of all, I got a research position in a lab that studies oysters.  I love oysters.  And not necessarily to eat.  I like dissecting them.  There is something incredibly powerful in cracking open that shell.  You stick your knife in.  You can feel it give under your hand and that gnarled, rough outside gives way to this silky, beautiful oyster inside. 

I liked looking at their frilly little gills, their plump bodies, the pale tube that is their rectum and anus, because that’s what I was after.  I had a very sharp pair of small scissors with which I would cut out that rectum, stick it in a tiny little test tube, label it in my best handwriting and, of course, you know there was color coding going on. 

I was living the dream.  And the reason we cared about oyster rectums, just I should probably mention, is that this is where we would find concentrations of these parasites that were causing diseases ripping through the Chesapeake Bay.  Diseases with names like Dermo and MSX. 

And so when we talk about oysters, it’s really important to know that they used to be huge.  More than eight inches long.  So much bigger than my hands.  And they would form these colossal reefs jutting up off the floor of the Chesapeake Bay.  They were rock hard and razor sharp, and they would disembowel ships that ventured into their path.  So, for me, the idea of the connection between these bizarre little animals and then the entire ecosystem, it blew my mind. 

So the next year, when I had the chance to take a class on Natural History of the Chesapeake Bay, I leapt.  This was offered by a professor I'd never met before and I really didn’t think much of him in the beginning.  He was kind of grayish, a little disheveled.  This describes a significant portion of academics in this field.  In my mind, I sort of classified him as a salty old seadog and didn’t think much more of it because these classes were amazing. 

I was learning to look at the waterways and the landscapes of Maryland and Virginia with new eyes, to understand how our soils and our water and our fish and our birds all connect.  And for the logic- and order-loving part of me, oh, all the taxonomy.  I was spending a lot of time memorizing Latin names for species, starting with trees.  Liriodendron tulipifera was my favorite because I thought it was just the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard in my life. 

And even better, to help us memorize some of these names, we had catchy little rhymes that scientists make up, which means they're not great.  But it would be things like “sedges have edges while rushes are round.  Grasses have knees that bend to the ground.”  Except for bulrushes, which are sedges, because of course they are. 

This was the time where my sort of deeply felt innate need for control and tidiness was starting to bump up against the messy nature of reality and nature.  And this was all going to come to a head at the class field trip that was the culmination of this course. 

So we were due out on a research cruise to look at oyster reefs and other animals at the Chesapeake Bay and so with great enthusiasm -- you know I’m good at packing -- piled up our stuff, got in a van, caravanned out to the eastern shore of Maryland.  We pulled up in front of a big, rambling, old two-story house.  It had a porch in the front.  And as we unpacked and settled in for the evening, I was feeling great.  My plan is going as it should. 

When the bottles of alcohol came out that night, I wasn’t worried.  Guys, I was prepared.  I was not prepared to watch that professor start taking tequila shots head to head with other students in the class.  I was not prepared when one bottle gave way to two, gave way to three and they emptied.  And I certainly wasn’t prepared when his eyes locked on to me in this bleary way and he started telling a rambling ghost story about how this old ghost in the house seemed to primarily manifest by going up to the bedroom I was staying at.  And this ghost loved to grope young women.  And this ghost loved brunettes, because of course he did. 

Now, I don't know for sure if this professor was talking about himself, but I knew he was talking about me and I was done.  I wasn’t going to sit there and think about this and try and be cool anymore.  I bailed.  Grabbed a couple of friends, we went up to that bedroom, grabbed my mattress, and dragged it down to the living room, where we set up a makeshift camp. 

So as I bed down for the night, I remember feeling distinctly pleased.  Like Field trip, underway.  Awkward social situation, handled.  Liz Neeley, in control.  That is until I was woken up by the sound of someone stumbling into the room.  One second, I’m squinting into the light and I see the silhouette of someone slumped against the door.  The next second, I am fully awake and already moving when I hear this professor’s pants hit the floor. 

I grabbed the girl sleeping next to me and I’m going, “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.”  And we commando-roll off of our mattresses across the floor and we’re up onto our feet and, in a flash, out the opposite door.  But not fast enough to miss the unmistakable sound of him peeing all over himself, all over the floor, all over everything. 

I’m shaking and disgusted, kind of angry but mostly afraid.  I’m worried because I’m thinking to myself this can’t be an emergency if my biggest concern is that my classmates won’t think I’m cool if I wake them up, if they think that I can’t control myself and I’m overreacting.  I would have put myself back to bed if that professor hadn’t passed out on my mattress. 

So I’m thinking, All right.  We need to reestablish control.  This trip needs to get back on track.  I’m going to find my TA.  Unfortunately, he was in flagrante with one of the other students in the course. 

So now it’s pitch black outside.  I’m on the eastern shore of Maryland, and I feel lost and alone. 

Fortunately, the few other people who are sober and awake start to gather in the kitchen the way that scared people have I think since we invented fire.  And we come up with a plan, which is an excellent one because it involves pancakes. 

So Bisquick used to make these plastic jars of dry batter with a screw top, and I regained control by very precisely filling them up with precisely the right amount of water and shaking them for exactly the right amount of time to make the best pancake batter that ever was poured out of a Bisquick jar.  My labmate made us laugh by making silly shapes and animals as he baked the pancakes.  And then we decided to go outside, look at the stars, name the constellations, and watch the sunrise. 

As these things do, we started to feel better.  And we decide we are not going to miss the research cruise that brought us out here on this trip in the first place.  The oysters are calling. 

So we decide we’ll go in, we’ll check the professor.  When even ringing a cowbell over his head fails to rouse him the slightest, we leave him in the recovery position, hope he doesn’t aspirate his own vomit and die while we’re gone, and we go out on that cruise. 

By the end of the day, my head and my heart are just singing again with the animals of the Chesapeake Bay, with the toadfish and the terrapins, the seagulls and the sea grass.  The scientific names of these species are like a litany to me that soothes and inspires.  I know these animals. 

I know the feisty little blennies that are always looking for a fight.  They're called Chasmodes bosquianus.  I know the mighty blue mussel, Mytilus edulis.  And I know the blue crabs whose name Callinectes sapidus means beautiful swimmers.  I realize I know these animals even if I don’t actually know how to pronounce their names because I know them from textbooks and journal papers.  But I know where to find them.  I know what they look like.  I know what to expect from them. 

And so I take comfort in the fact that I was prepared for this trip.  This was under control even if the entire expedition was something I hadn’t anticipated. 

The saddest part of my story is that it is so damn common.  It makes me angry that I feel lucky.  Lucky that what, I wasn’t assaulted? No. I feel lucky because when we came back, my advisor caught wind of this and demanded that the university take action.  I feel lucky because nobody second-guessed me or questioned my account of that night. I feel lucky because the administration levied penalties and immediately took action. I feel lucky that I wasn’t permanently harmed in ways that so many of my colleagues and friends have been. 

I think the hard truth is there's not such thing as control, not even, and maybe especially not even, in science.  I think whether it’s bad people, bad decisions, or just pure bad luck, these experiences scare us when we’re lucky and they scar us when we’re not. 

But we can take solace in the small things.  Oysters are amazing.  Pancakes are delicious.  The sun rises and sometimes it’s even beautiful.  We may not ever be in control, but, in science and in our lives, when we’re lucky, we’re able to wake up, shake off that horrible night, and go get on the damned boat.  Thank you.