For my community connections project, I chose to interview Rolf Mathewes who is a previous dean of science and a professor in Paleoecology and Palynology which falls under the umbrella of biology and earth sciences at Simon Fraser University.

Rolf attended Simon Fraser University the first year it opened in 1965, where after four years he graduated and received his Bachelor of science degree then attended the University of British Columbia for four years and received his PHD in botany in 1973. He first joined the department of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University in 1975, then went on to become an associate professor in 1982, becoming a full professor in 1985. Rolf has been a teacher at SFU for almost forty years and is now seventy-six years old and is continuing to teach, research and work as a professor at Simon Fraser University. Rolf has discovered many fossils throughout the years of his study and a few years back found three fossils of an extinct special type of big-headed fly species, one of the fossils was later found to be a new species which he named after his wife Donna. Rolf has made many discoveries and publishing’s throughout his career and has helped in crime investigations using forensic botany. I admire Rolf’s passion and adoration for his career, he loves what he does and inspires me to find a career I am just as passionate about in the future. I love earth sciences, naturel, and the environment so I enjoyed being able to interview Rolf and listen to his experiences and to learn more about his job and the other fantastic job opportunities out there, that can be achieved through the study of earth sciences and biology. Rolf inspires me to keep my mind open towards all the different branches of science as they are all connected in every science career.  

I am incredibly lucky I had the chance to interview Rolf, here are the questions I asked him throughout our conversation over the phone.  

1). Why are you passionate about your job or your role? 

Well, my job is a biology professor at SFU, and I am passionate about it because I have been a passionate biologist all my life, it goes back to childhood. Infact my old long passed grandmother in Germany used to say how Rolf is going to be a Schmetterlings professor which means a butterfly professor, I remember following butterflies and beetles and bugs and ants and ever since she can remember, so she designated me to biologist, way back before I could even remember. So, I have been passionate about it all my life because I have enjoyed the outdoors, I’ve enjoyed wildlife, photography of birds and I have enjoyed fishing and camping and all things where I am out in nature and seeing biological things happening.

.“Forest” by FAO forestry

So, the passion goes way back to my childhood, and I still like it even though I am seventy-six years old now. I love research and discovering new things even though now I am working more with dead things than living things but it’s still biology, dealing with fossils. So, for me I have changed my focus a little bit from animals to plants, to fossil plants but I have always been passionate about biology. I used to watch television programs of any kind that have biology in them, and I was always interested in everything biologists, so it goes way back, and it’s never been different.  

2) What obstacles have you faced to get you where you are today? 

For me the obstacles were the first year of university, where I was not well prepared as I was the first student back when it first opened in 1965 and there were some pretty tough professors and pretty tough courses for which I was not well prepared. And there wasn’t much biology to take, for my first year I took physics, chemistry math and English statistics, none of which where my major. The first semester I did not have a single biology course, so I found that disappointing and that was an obstacle because the worst marks I had ever gotten in university I got in that first semester, so passing that first year with physics, math and chemistry was my biggest obstacle. Once I kept taking biology courses in second year and third year and more biology, I started loving the courses more and more and my grade went up from C grades up to A grades and in my final year I had four A pluses and an A in my five courses. It got better but the first year was a real barrier. It was a tough year because I didn’t have a car, I lived out in surrey and bus rides and I was interested in biology, so I had to struggle to get through all these other courses, so that was a real obstacle. My second year was much better, by third year I was loving it and by fourth year I was excelling at it.  

3)What advice would you pass on to someone interested in doing what you are doing? 

If someone asked me “I want to work in biology” and I’ve had some undergraduate students in my courses who would come up to me later and say well “I’m not nearing my fourth year and I’m finding your courses really interesting, and what should I do in this area”. And I said to look around the department because lots of people have opening in students in their labs to do bits of research, and to look around to find out what you really want to do but if you want to what I am doing now which is botany and paleobotany take as many courses as you can that are related to it, including geography and climatology and other things because all of those courses might become really important. To give you an example, I am probably best known at Simon Fraser as the forensic botanist, I work with the RCMP and have worked on murder cases. And I was preadapted to do forensic botany and have been working for the last thirty years on incomplete bits of plants and sometimes other animal bits as well. So, the training I had in geology and getting to work with fossils trained me to work with other small things. That all became key for me to do forensic botany, over the years. You need to have a full degree and not just some courses or some experience, because you may ultimately end up going to court to testify and if you don’t have the background, they will tear you apart in court, you need a title and degrees. So, the advice I give to others is to find what you like, go as far as you can with it, take as many courses as you can and try and get your degree or multiple degrees as it opens doors that wouldn’t be there. I am always encouraging students to keep their doors open and be broad in their interests and take different courses.  

4) Can you explain your roles and responsibilities with your current position? 

I am a full professor at Simon Fraser University in biological sciences, and every professor has three roles that they must fulfill at university. One is to do original research and publish it, another one is to teach various courses at various levels in your field of expertise and the third one is to contribute to the management of the university and the department. And they break it up so that it’s like forty percent research, forty percent teaching and forty percent of the rest. I administered for eleven years between the years two thousand and two thousand eleven, I was the associate dean of science, so I did a lot more administration which gave me less teaching responsibility.“Science of botany” by Francesco Gallarotti

Research and teaching are the most important things that professors like me have to contribute to the administration. If you do not do original research and publish you cannot have a normal teaching career at university which would allow you to teach for the rest of your life as long as you keep up your research.  

5). Can you tell me about the fossils that you found and the new insect you discovered? 

I have discovered quite a few and I worked with someone else who was a former SFU student who went to Harvard to get his PHD. And I worked with him on a lot of things as I am not an entomologist, I have taken courses and I know what a beetle is, a fly is and what other things are, but I can’t go to the level that is publishable, so I worked with other people and send the fossils to them. I found several that were named as new species that had never been seen before, one that I named after Donna, and it was a large scorpion fly. I found insect wings, and several insects that have been named by other people and my co-worker Bruce Archibald and I published with him, and we didn’t just identify the fossils but also what the fossils told us about the climate when it was found. We found fossil insects that are now only found in the tropics of The Amazon, Australia and Southeast Asia in North America and that can tell you about the climate and the environment. It’s not just about finding new fossils but also what the fossils can tell us about the environment and how the climate has changed over time.  

6) How and when did you realize you wanted to pursue this career? 

The final fossil focus, I have always found fossils very interesting, and my high school biology teacher was a keen fossil hunter, and he brought fossils into the class for us to see, and I thought those were really neat. But it wasn’t until the single event that got me started on the course on fossils and it was published for my university bachelor’s degree, I worked on this report from the fossils I collected in Princeton and the reason I found out about these fossils was because I was a member of the outdoors club at SFU, and we took some time away at the long weekend in May.

“Paleobotany” by Yale Peabody Museum 

We took a trip to a hotel and stayed in a hotel and did riding and in the lobby of the old hotel there were fossils on the windowsill so I asked the owners where the fossils came from, and they said that there is a little Quarry down by the creek where you can find them. So, I took a horse ride down there and spent the whole day finding some of my own fossils and thought that it was really neat and that I would do that for my single course worth three credits where I could do my own project and that was one of my first A pluses and that’s how I got really into fossils and digging, and paleobotany.  

“Planetary Biology” by SciLifeLab

Like I said before, science is a very interesting subject, it is so open and big. There are so many different types of branches and studies of science, and they all lead to wonderful careers, opportunities, and research. I enjoy learning more about the environment as I am passionate about nature, and he studies living organisms and how everything is somehow connected to each other. Without the study of science society would not be what is it today and the study of earth sciences, botany and biology help us further understand more about our planet, our environment and how throughout the years our environment has adapted and changed and constantly will as we grow. Rolf’s profession explores that and explores the history of plants, vegetation, forest, landscapes, and environmental changes caused by that, climate change and natural disasters. Rolf’s role is so complex and grand, and he studies and does so many more things, which use the other branches of science as well like physics. I chose to interview Rolf because I love the ability that his job is so flexible, he not only teaches at SFU, but he also researches and studies the environment, vegetation, plants, and everything connected which he uses for so many different causes. I find him inspiring and admirable as I want to be able to have an open career where I can pass on my knowledge to others but also continue to make observations, research, and grow societies and my knowledge on the environment and wonderful vegetation around us. I am passionate about science and continuing to grow my knowledge of the vast adapting world around me.

I greatly appreciate Rolf for taking the time to talk to me about his career and his passions.

Thank you so very much Rolf for the amazing experience and stories!

https://www.sfu.ca/biology/people/faculty/mathewes.html