SLU Public Information
President's Awards for Excellence
Energetic Ecologist
by Christina Chapple
As a sophomore at the University of California-Santa Barbara, Gary
Shaffer
was given a graduate student's abandoned research project "not because of my brain," he claims,
"but
because I could sort invertebrates twice as fast as the other student workers." He hasn't slowed
down
since.
"I hope to wear myself completely out," said the
young
ecologist, who is the winner of the 1996 President's Award for Excellence in Research. "I fully
intend
to be slap worn out and die before I retire.".
In six years, Gary Shaffer--"Shafe" to just about everyone--has received 30 grants and contracts
totalling more than $1 million and has well over another $1 million in grants still in the works.
He's
added ten more papers to the twenty he'd already published and he's been invited to speak
throughout
the country. In addition, he is being considered to contribute chapters on analyzing statistics to a
$50
million encyclopedia edited by Nobel Laureates.
On campus, Shaffer created Project CYPRESS, a program that shows teachers how to use
"the umbrella of ecology" to teach science and math. He moans that his involvement in the
science
education reform has "ruined" him as a researcher, but CYPRESS has been refunded and
refunded and
the experts say it's good enough to be a national model.
He's involved in establishing a "Wetlands Learning Center" at Folsom's popular Global
Wildlife Center. Shaffer is also the academic representative and statistical and ecological
consultant
for the 20-year coastal wetlands restoration effort known as the Breaux-Johnston Bill.
Shafe and the eight or nine graduate students he supervises each semester in his Wetlands
Restoration Lab have untangled the mystery of why the Pass Manchac area's cypress trees, clear
cut at
the turn of the century, won't grow back. Thanks to a new agreement with the U.S. Army Corps
of
Engineers, he has established a long-term cypress restoration fund at Southeastern. The
"mitigation
bank" (see cover story) will be used to plant--then study--thousands
and
thousands of cypress seedlings around Lake Maurepas.
He helped build two "mesocosms"--greenhouse laboratories where research can be tested
before it's moved to the field--where researchers are studying bioremediation of oil spills and the
feasibility of using the mud that comes out of oil wells to create wetlands.
Shafe's frenetic list of activities has prompted friends and colleagues to caution him about
burnout. And although he has heeded their concerns enough to cut his work week from 70 to 55
hours,
he doesn't seem worried. "I don't stress easily. I'm lucky in also being happy. If you love your
work,
what could be better?"
He admits that six years ago, when he first heard about a job opening in wetlands ecology at
Southeastern, he wasn't happy at all. As an undergraduate, he hadn't really wanted to leave
California
in the first place. "I lived on the beach--not near the beach, on the beach," he said. "I could tell
how big
the waves were from the rattle of my window. I surfed every day. It's still my favorite sport and I
still
have 13 surf boards."
Shafe thought his UC professors were "a bunch of idiots" for insisting that his research field
was too narrow and that he ought to accept a choice fellowship at Louisiana State University.
"Within
two months of coming to Louisiana, I wrote them all letters thanking them," he laughed.
In graduate school, first at UC-Santa Barbara and then at LSU, he investigated the importance
of diatoms--microscopic algae that sit on sediment--and explored analytical routines. Because
there
was no good way to analyze the behavior of things such as his algae that change rapidly, he
began
collaborating with "some of the finest minds on the planet" to develop a new technique, called
K-systems analysis. "It's only now being appreciated," he said.
For his post-doctorate work he switched to wetlands ecology, but his knowledge and fame in
statistics
sidelined him to LSU's Department of Experimental Statistics. "The position taught me how
important
teaching was and how mundane statistical consulting was," he said. "I felt more like a maid than
a
scientist. People bring you this pile of numbers and say, Ômake sense of it.' It's exciting at first,
but
after several years you've done everything several times over. It gets rather routine. I hate
routine."
Then his wife, Teri, was offered a position in Southeastern's College of Business. "I saw in
Science magazine that Southeastern also had something for a wetlands ecologist. What are the
chances
that two positions in marketing and wetlands science are going to open up in the same
place!"
Southeastern, however, didn't want him. "They thought I was too analytical and not enough of
a wetlands ecologist. I was irate!" he said. "I begged them to just give me an interview...and the
rest is
history."
Shafe's research career at Southeastern got off to a fast start two weeks after he arrived when
he received a $100,000 grant from the Nature Conservancy to develop a landscape reforestation
plan
for the Mississippi River floodplane. In 1992 came a $160,000 Louisiana Education Quality
Support
Fund grant to examine cypress and marsh restoration in the Manchac/Lake Maurepas area. "The
LEQSF grant was absolutely pivotal in launching a nationally recognized program in wetlands
ecology," said Shafe. "It was a complete springboard to many, many other grants."
Gary Shaffer hasn't looked back since. His eyes light up and his trademark enthusiasm takes
off as he talks about still-in-the-infant-stage planning for a "Center for Discovery Learning" at
Southeastern. "There's a total mandate from the general public that they don't want to see
professors
just doing research," he said. "They want to see excellent programs where students are excited
about
learning science and math. The timing is perfect for Southeastern to become the university in
Louisiana centered on discovery learning," he said. "We can be the best in Louisiana in short
order in
terms of science and math reform. I think we can be one of the best in the country. We can
actually do
that!"
Meanwhile, a multitude of research paths branching from the topic of cypress restoration has
kept him and his graduate students busy. "My students," he insists, "deserve all the credit for this
research award."
"We've changed the program several times since I've been at Southeastern," he said. "We
started out in geographic information systems, landscape planning and restoration [with the
Nature
Conservancy grant], then we really got into cypress restoration. Cypress trees defined the
Maurepas
system 100 years ago, now they're gone. How do you get the trees to grow in a system they're
supposed to be in? Unraveling that mess has been really fun."
Fun. "That's the whole deal," he says. "My wife would argue that I do way too much work.
And I do, it's stupid. I don't like to work more than I like to fish or ski or surf or work in my yard,
so
I've got to be a little better about that."
"But...it's fun. I'm a happy guy."
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