Campus Currents
The Making of a Biologist
“I know I have the best job in the world, without a doubt,” says Jim Nestler with the conviction of the truly content. Nestler is professor of biology at Walla Walla College and director of WWC’s Marine Station at Rosario Beach. Nestler’s infectious enthusiasm for his job extends far beyond the walls of his classroom. In his lab and remote locations, Nestler has delved into the natural world through professional research he has conducted for more than 20 years.
Most recently, his interest in oceanography became the topic of a lecture that he presented in December as part of WWC’s annual Distinguished Faculty Lecture series. His lecture, titled “Surf’s Up: Exploring the Complexities of Oceanic Cycles,” discussed the movement of air over the oceans, the movement of water within the oceans, and the cycles of earth’s temperature.
His fascination with biology has its roots in his days as an undergraduate at WWC. “It was here that I really fell in love with biology,” says Nestler. While studying the interactions that take place inside a cell during his junior year, he had what he describes as a “wow” moment.
“I realized that I wanted to go into biology, for the sake of biology, to learn more about it. It just fascinated me,” he says. “What I was studying was incredibly complex, but it all fit together inside of this little package that we call a cell.”
Nestler earned a bachelor’s degree in 1984 and a master’s degree in 1986. He has been conducting research since his undergraduate school days, first studying the sleep habits of gulls as an undergraduate and for his master’s degree, then examining the physiology of daily torpor in deer mice for his doctoral degree in environmental, population, and organismic biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
After completing doctoral studies, Nestler joined the WWC faculty in 1990 and happily continued to study the biochemistry and physiology of dormancy in deer mice. That is, until his mice began turning up with Hantavirus in increasing numbers each year. In 2000 he was forced to make the decision that working with the animals posed too great a risk. Hantavirus has nearly a 50 percent mortality rate in humans.
“The decision was a killer for me, because I loved doing that kind of research,” he says, “And I was making a difference in the world of science.”
He was deliberating possible research directions, and feeling as if he was starting all over, when a student showed him a paper suggesting that sea cucumbers may have a form of dormancy. In this subject, he recognized a combination of the knowledge he already possessed and his love of marine biology and scuba diving. The next phase of his research began.
He now studies the effect of temperature on sea cucumbers in their natural environment and their role in recycling nutrients. He spends his summers at Rosario, except every third year, when he spends approximately six months in the Philippines, studying sea cucumbers in a warm water environment.
“I feel guilty, especially during the summers, taking a paycheck,” he says. “They’re paying me to do what I enjoy doing.” W