Ian collecting specimens in a Cameroon rainforest.

By the time his postdoc was over, Ian decided that he wanted to stay in the U.S. "I just find the place very exciting and challenging, and the people very dynamic," says the energetic Ian. He spent 18 months working on a project analyzing evidence for recent extinctions in animals, where he and Dr. Stiassny focused their attention on extinction in fishes. "It's not so easy deciding when something has really disappeared," Ian says, and he is ever hopeful that fieldwork can relocate at least some "lost" species. His next job took him to Maryland, where he worked for the National Institutes of Health, checking the accuracy of the taxonomic data included in the "International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration" formed by the molecular databases of GenBank, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and the DNA Data Bank of Japan. Together, these databases represent an enormous international resource of genetic information for over 100,000 species, ranging from bacteria from hydrothermal vents, to giant redwood trees, to Neanderthal man. "It
turned me on to a lot of interesting little organisms, many of which I
knew very little about before," says Ian.

But the stimulation, the research facilities, and the educational opportunities at the museum are bringing Ian back to New York again. He sees the Seminars on Science courses as a way to communicate his enthusiasm for and knowledge about fishes with others. "It's about more people having a better understanding of the subject and how it affects their day-to-day life in ways they'd never thought about."

Ian readily admits it's also great to be in New York City. "I've lived in and worked in some wonderful cities throughout western Europe, but nowhere beats New York City. Every time I have moved away from it, I've pined to return to its dynamism and freneticism." Not that Ian can stay behind a desk for too long. His research has taken him to several parts of the world, from a lake high in the Andes to pursue the legendary fat catfish (imagine the Michelin Man with fins), to the coral reefs of the Philippines, and to rain forests along Cameroon's Ntem River (ask him about that dinner of decomposing porcupine). Where would he choose to go on his next expedition? "Antarctica, because it's a fascinating continent and it's been the location for some amazing expeditions. Ernest Shackleton is something of a hero to me ­ probably to almost anyone who has read any of his diaries," he replies. "Antarctic fishes are also fascinating. Some are physiologically very unusual. Some have blood without hemoglobin, and with a kind of antifreeze so they can live in the cold temperatures. And the evolutionary history of some of the Antarctic fishes is interesting in terms of how they came to be there and what other fishes they may be related to. I would love to go down there and see some of the wildlife." Knowing Ian, he'll get there.