By Mackenzie Ciolino, Marketing Intern, Summer 2024
Margot Popecki, Ph.D., has come a long way since her Safari Camper days here at Seacoast Science Center. Since then, she has studied woolly monkeys in Ecuador, sea stars in Vancouver, and fireflies in Georgia. Now, she has earned her PhD in Genetics from the University of Georgia in Athens. Karen Provazza, Senior Director of Communications and Marketing here at SSC, and I sat down with Margot when she revisited the Center recently. Her journey has been full of inspiration, challenges, and learning, and it all started here in Rye.
Margot explored Odiorne Point even before becoming a camper. She recalls, “I remember coming here a lot with my dad and my brother… We would explore down by the water and on the trails we’d go walking. And then of course, coming in [the Science Center] I remember touching all the invertebrates in the touch tank. That was always really exciting.” She credits these trips with her family as being a formative experience for her, saying “I think my love of the ocean came from exploring with my dad.”
Margot’s love of science wasn’t always as strong as it is now, however; when she first discovered she would be coming to the Seacoast Science Center’s summer camp, she was less than thrilled. “I was not happy at all because I actually really didn’t like science,” she explains. “I wanted to go to one of those fun camps where people were just playing games!”
This quickly changed as Margot got to know the counselors and experienced what the camp offered. She remembers her counselors fondly, saying how “they were just so nice” and “always so excited.” She tells one story where one of the counselors accidentally stepped on a clam, and even though Margot and her fellow campers were devastated, he quickly turned it into an educational experience, showing them the inside anatomy of the clam. The importance of having a great mentor continued to be a theme throughout Margot’s life, and “By the end of the summer, I had just a complete 180 in my opinion of the science camp.”
Once Margot reached high school, she struggled with science classes. Though she maintained her interest in the subject, “the way that it was taught in high school just was not appealing to me.” Despite this, Margot began her college career majoring in Marine Biology at the University of New Hampshire. She gained some experience in labs during her time there. However, she decided “It wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I wanted to get more into behavior and genetics.” After UNH, she worked with graduate students during an internship on Vancouver Island, studying sea stars. Unfortunately, at the time, sea star wasting disease, a fatal illness that has caused sea stars to essentially disintegrate in droves, was beginning to take hold in the area. This affected the study greatly, and in turn the graduate students Margot was working with. However, one of her biggest takeaways from the experience was the importance of mentorship and “figuring out who you work best with and a topic that gets you excited.”
During the internship, Margot discovered that topic for herself. “They had a little library and I picked up a book on animal behavior. It was an old textbook and I was looking through it with my friends… and I was like, oh, wow, this is so cool.” She felt she had finally found her niche, saying “This field of animal behavior unites my interests in ecology and evolution. It’s not just like I have to pick and choose one, I can actually combine them into a field.” After that, she worked on a landscape genetics project with cottontail rabbits, which is where her journey in that field began. It continued in Ecuador, working with primates. “I was kind of realizing, OK, this is a shift, pointing me more toward genetics… and I wanted to do social behavior specifically.”
Then, Margot moved to the University of Georgia to complete her graduate studies, where she rotated between different labs. She ended up in a firefly research project, which she describes as “the perfect project for me.” At this point in the conversation, Margot lights up, much like the fireflies she studied. “So fireflies are amazing,” she explains, “They’re bioindicators, so you’re seeing a healthy ecosystem if you see fireflies.” Conservation of the insects is also of interest to her. “It’s really important we maintain the space that they have evolved to communicate in and find mates because if you alter it dramatically through cutting down wood, that affects the lights and how they’re able to find habitat and females to find places to lay their eggs.”
As Margot was once inspired by science as a child, she was also able to do the same for other kids. “Early on in grad school, I became involved in this group called EcoReach, an outreach group where we did a lot of work in the Athens Community in schools doing local events… We would do library events. We’d do crafts and other projects with kids in an after-school program. And then during the pandemic, I was able to work with them to create a virtual firefly outreach event. I received some grant funding, so we were able to get firefly field kits together with bug nets and journals.” Margot also created a field guide and infographics relating to fireflies and did a firefly walk, giving her the chance to educate others on the animals. She also mentioned how easy it was to talk about fireflies with people “because they’re so charismatic. People love hearing about them.”
Margot plans to continue her work with fireflies. “My dream would be to do a firefly conservation genomics study because I’m interested in understanding the historical demographic changes of their populations… But it raises the question to me of are they just good at surviving in these altered conditions, or are they thriving? How are the populations changing over time? Is there anything we could be doing now?”
When asked what message she would like to share with children and families today, Margot replies, “Everyone can be a scientist and science is fun. It’s just about asking questions and being curious.” She also emphasizes the importance of mentors in science. “It was a very difficult journey even through my PhD, and I’m very grateful to my mentor who believed in me… They saw that I was capable of doing science, learning coding, and asking questions and testing them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for all of my mentors. I’ve also become very passionate about teaching and a lot of that is derived from the fact that I truly believe everyone can do science and it really just requires people to gain confidence and become interested.”
Anyone can develop an interest in science, and anyone can excel at it with the support and inspiration of others in the field. Margot is a perfect example. Even though she didn’t want to go to a science-based camp at first, even though she struggled with the subject in school, even though not everyone believed in her through her college career, she has excelled, conducted important research on various animals, and earned her Ph.D. Now, she inspires others the way she once was by her counselors at Safari Camp and her mentors in college, becoming a beacon of hope and acceptance in science.
