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In 2019, I interviewed a faculty member at the University of Texas in Austin, who I discovered was doing some cutting edge cichlid research. That interview was very informative and ultimately led to his second interview today.
Many years ago, when I started the blog and began contacting people for interviews, Dr. Ron Coleman was one of the first I reached out to. At the time, his schedule was too hectic to get an interview done. Fast forward to this year. I attended the recent annual ACA convention, and Dr. Coleman was one of the speakers. I approached him, reminded him of my efforts to get an interview with him way back when, then asked him if he was interested in revisiting. He was very enthusiastic about it and quite apologetic for not being able to do it all those years ago. With that, let me introduce him.
Back in April, I stumbled upon a marvelous scholarly paper that focuses on the taxonomic diversity of Lake Tanganyika. In fact, I published a post about the paper. In that post, I wanted to include an image from the paper, so I reached out to the lead author for permission to reuse it. That author was Dr. Fabrizia Ronco. She quickly replied and granted me permission.
Over the years I have posted a few times about the CARES Preservation Program. Yesterday I came across a Facebook post (shout out to Pete Liptrot) linking to a short article about CARES in New Scientist magazine. For more information about the program, check out the interview I did with Greg Steeves. If you want the complete lowdown on CARES, you can go straight to the their website.
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Hans Hofmann |
In 2016, while looking for a new interviewee for the blog, I ran across the website of a research laboratory at the University of Texas, Austin. I checked out the website, looked at a few of the lab’s publications, and it became quickly obvious to me that the lab’s director, Dr. Hans Hofmann, was someone I needed to interview. I reached out to Dr. Hofmann, introduced myself, and asked him if he would be interested in doing an interview for the blog. He replied within a couple of days and happily agreed. We began the interview process, but work caught up with him, and we weren’t able to get it completed. So fast forward to the present, and we did a complete reboot of the original interview. |
Since receiving his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Leipzig in Germany, Dr. Hofmann has received numerous fellowships and awards for his work at the University of Texas, Stanford University, Harvard University, and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In addition to running the Hofmann lab at the University of Texas, he has served as Director of UT’s Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and UT’s Center for Biomedical Research Support. He has given over 130 invited keynote lectures and seminars but has also given numerous public outreach presentations.
Needless to say, getting Dr. Hofmann to take time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions with me was a real bonus. Outstanding stuff ahead. Buckle in!
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J. R. Shute |
To date, all of the interviews I’ve conducted for the blog have been with aquarists who are involved with cichlids in some capacity. Today’s interviewee is different. Because I am a real proponent of fish conservation, I’ve been looking for someone to interview who is heavily engaged in the practice. Many of the core values of fish conservationists span all types of fish, cichlids included. J. R. Shute is co-director of Conservation Fisheries Incorporated (CFI), founded in 1992 by he and co-director Patrick Rakes. |
Over the past 25+ years, CFI has worked with more than 60 species of rare and imperiled fishes of the southeast United States, some of which are considered the rarest in the country. Recently, J. R. and Patrick were awarded the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Regional Director’s Conservation Partner Honor Award in recognition of “Outstanding Performance”.
A few weeks ago I asked J.R. if he would be willing to do an interview for the blog about CFI and the organization’s efforts. He happily agreed and, after giving me a personal tour of CFI’s facility a few weeks ago, we completed the interview.
Let’s get started!
