Solny Adalsteinsson

Tyson Staff Scientist

“I was originally educated in science culture to ‘be a scientist first’—keep all that human stuff, your personal life to yourself, so that you can do good science. It’s now become clear that we need to be understanding of each other, figure out what’s going on in the lives of the people we work with and give each other a break, if that’s what we need. We need to try and factor in more of the human element in our day-to-day interactions as scientists.”

Each summer Solny Adalsteinsson and her tick and wildlife team collect field data for her long-term experiment about the effects of fire on tick-borne disease risk, including the study of tick parasitism in birds. This summer that work, gone remote, includes a research synthesis and consideration of the human dimension she’s found lacking in science.

“Our current, cultural shift is towards a greater recognition of systemic racism present in the U.S.—and in many places around the world, unfortunately—and taking action to dismantle it. We’ve engaged our lab group this summer in taking a closer look at the ways in which scientists and the science they do are influenced by, and complicit in, systemic racism.

I’ve been learning and thinking about how we can face these issues head on and in doing so improve our science and make the science community a more equitable and just space for everyone.

That’s what we as mentors in my lab group this summer are trying to emphasize and integrate into our students’ training. Our undergraduate fellows are learning to code, read scientific literature, and identify birds and ticks. They are also learning about systemic racism in this country, particularly how it relates to science, so that they can be good scientists and good community members.”

Solny is a principal investigator for the St. Louis Wildlife Project and leads the Tick & Wildlife Ecology team. Learn more about their prescribed fire and tick-borne disease ecology research here.