Q&a: Professor Emeritus Jan Pechenik looks back on storied marine biology, education career

by Anushka Singh Staff Writer

In a career spanning over 40 years at Tufts, Professor Emeritus Jan Pechenik has left an indelible impact on marine biology and generations of students. The Daily sat down with Pechenik to discuss the questions that have motivated his work for the past four decades and the unexpected — and rewarding — turns his teaching has taken.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Tufts Daily (TD): How did you come to Tufts?

Jan Pechenik (JP): I was an undergraduate at Duke University. I took a marine invertebrates course which I found really interesting. The diversity of life in the ocean is just so amazing; we know so little about so much of it. I thought, well maybe I’d go into research, but … I had to decide whether to take the MCAT test for medical school or the GRE, which were for some reason given on the same day that year. So I flipped a coin and it came up heads. I took the GRE and ended up doing graduate work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. … Then I got a chance to come to Tufts.

The thing about Tufts is we have no marine facilities here, and so I had to find species that could work with no running seawater, no algal culturing facilities, things that you’d find in most marine labs. One of the main animals I’ve worked with is a snail called Crepidula fornicata. They all start off as males, become females as they get older and they form stacks on top of each other. … I’ve also done some studies with a small marine polychaete worm and with hermit crabs. Those are the three main groups of animals I’ve been able to work with here. I’ve had some great undergraduate students and graduate students working on all those organisms.

TD: Do you have any research, or any particular story that is closer to your heart for any reason?

JP: One of the things I keep coming back to is something that I called latent effects. Latent effects are experiences that animals have had early in development that don’t kill the animals, but then the question is, did those experiences influence how well the juveniles do after the animals metamorphose?

One of the first studies I did actually was with barnacles with a colleague in North

Carolina. Barnacles release these wonderful, tiny, microscopic larvae that eventually metamorphose into an entirely different larval stage, which looks like a rice grain with legs. If they don’t find the right cues, they will just keep swimming until they do. Once they attach, they never move again.

We found if the larvae had even delayed metamorphosis for a single day, the juveniles grew much more slowly. The implications of that are pretty intriguing. Because once you’re stuck on this rock, that’s it, you can’t move again. If you’re surrounded by other individuals, then you’re growing more slowly, and you’re likely to be crushed, and also you’re going to be more vulnerable to predators.

And it’s interesting in itself, but also typically, the EPA has a system where you look to see what concentration of a pollutant causes 50% mortality within 96 hours, and anything higher than that is evil. And if it’s lower than that, then you know it’s safe. Well, the pollutant doesn’t have to kill things directly to be evil. … So that’s something that’s becoming more and more important.

TD: [Besides research, what were the highlights to the teaching side of your career?]

JP: One of the things I like about Tufts is that it’s not just research that’s valued — teaching is also valued here. Science isn’t just about memorizing things. It’s a way of thinking and learning how to express yourself clearly and logically

Senior Profile: Teamwork is everything for former TEMS Executive director Eric grin

by Tvisha Goel Staff Writer

Many students have a story behind their passion. Inspiration is hard to come by, but when it does come, it often fuels the drive behind a career choice.

Senior Eric Grin’s inspiration comes from his first hospital experience.

“I had an appendectomy in … the eighth grade,” Grin said. “I had always been irrationally afraid of surgery … and my mother’s kind of a hospital-phobic.”

He described how the surgeon explained everything that was going on and what was going to happen as he went into the procedure. That intersection between science and communication is something that stood out to him.

“As a person, I felt really respected,” Grin said. “I had never seen medicine as a science field and also one where you’re interacting with people.”

With this experience in mind, Grin was propelled into the medical field and went on to join Tufts Emergency Medical Services in college.

From the second semester of his junior year to the first semester of his senior year, he served as executive director of TEMS. His experiences in the organization have only bolstered his love for the multifaceted field.

He described that the EMS field, much like when becoming a doctor, consists of patient interaction, academic work and teamwork.

“You’re interacting with people, you’re doing academic work, especially on the acute care side of things,” he said. “There are a lot of situations where you have to make a lot of judgment calls very quickly. … Also, giving good care means working in teams really well. In EMS that means you’re working with nurses, firefighters, paramedics [and] you’re working with the doctor when you get [to the hospital].”

Grin, an EMT and aspiring trauma surgeon, is often faced with the pressure of having to make those quick decisions, which begs the question of whether or not the decision is correct.

“There have definitely been times when I’ve made mis - takes, and you know, who wouldn’t? Especially when I was a new EMT,” he said. However, Grin, a double major in biochemistry and Russian and Eastern European studies, believes that it’s important — when placed in those situations of not knowing exactly how to proceed — to ask for help and recommendations from peers.

“I think it’s a factor of recognizing when you are less comfortable and knowing how to ask for help, and how to work in a team,” he added. “Over time, you develop those skills. Now I work with newer people and it’s the same sort of thing. We might go on [a] call, and something might not go right, and very often it doesn’t go right.”

Mistakes can often cause a fear of failure as opposed to promoting perseverance. But Grin encourages students to acknowledge that mistakes will be an inherent part of the learning process, as he has learned much from his own experiences through his college and EMT career.