Interview with Michael Westphall

Westphall.M.1957_02.25.2020

Wed, 10/20 3:13PM • 33:59

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

question, research, academic staff, lloyd, cryo em, graduate students, university, electron microscope, money, nice, lab, grad school, felt, astrophysics, particle accelerators, michael, physicist, instrument, thought, meaning

SPEAKERS

Speaker 2, Troy Reeves

Troy Reeves 00:01

Okay, today is February 25, 2020. My name is Troy Reeves. I'm here with Michael Westphall. We're interviewing Michael because he is one of the academic staff award winners. That's a project that we're doing for the oral history program. This interview is being done in Union South. So Michael to help me with sound quality, could you say your name and spell your last name?

Speaker 2 00:24

Michael Westphall, W-E-S-T-P-H-A-L-L

Troy Reeves 00:28

That's perfect. So as you know, I sent you these questions in advance, we start off with sort of a big broad one, which is sort of what brought you to UW Madison.

Speaker 2 00:38

Okay, um, you know, that is a good question. So it went like this, I was in graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis, in the McDonald Space Science Center. And so I was working on my doctorate in cosmic ray astrophysics. And so, this kind of would have been in the late 80s, everything was looking pretty good. And then, early 90s came along, right when I finished up, and it was when the cold war between Russia and the US basically wound down. And so that just had several interesting impacts on my life, and one that it allowed Russian physicists into the US. The defense industry kind of took a big hit, which was another employer of physicists. And that combined with my desire to move away from experimental astrophysics for a bit, mainly just because of the turnaround time and experiments-- 10 plus years. I decided I would spanned out and look for other fields where instrumentation was kind of required, but that the background of the individuals who have normally been in this field that wasn't their cup of tea, so to speak. And at the time, that turned out to be the Human Genome Project was kind of just getting underway. And so my wife and I decided, how we'd about this was simply that we have a list of cities, we wouldn't mind ending up in. And it was the first one of us to get a job in any one of those cities, where it would go and figure it out for there from there. And so supposed to be kind of a short term endeavor. And it turned out one thing led to another. This would have been just when the gopher server went online. And so it kind of would have been the start of the internet, so to speak. And Lloyd Smith had posted a position on there. And Lloyd Smith Professor over in chemistry, he, for his postdoc, he was with Lee Hood. He was part of the 00:03:00automated DNA sequencing endeavor. And so he was kind of a part of the Human Genome Project. His brother, and his dad was a physicist. So I was like, I think he had a soft spot. But anyways, he offered me a position to kind of see what-- what you know, we could do in the area of DNA sequencing. And that was, you know, mainly looking for different ways, faster ways to sequence DNA. And so we moved here with a thought of, we probably be here for a year or two, and I'm now on my 27th. year, so.

Troy Reeves 03:46

So thank you for getting us here. And now probably going to go back a little bit because I'm wondering what factors led you to being interested in instrumentation interested in physics?

Speaker 2 04:01

Oh, sure. So as an undergrad, I was my original intent was to do mechanical engineering. But, um, I had this unusual situation where I kind of grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. My dad had dropped out of school in the eighth grade. And their basic desire for me was to be an auto body repair person, because I had started working in a shop when I was in high school. And when I told them I was interested in going to college, you know, they basically said, "Fine if you're would to waste your time and money on those endeavors," you're on your own type of thing. And so, on the plus side, I was able to continue working in a body shop to put myself through school. On the downside, it kind of limited my options somewhat. And so I started out at UW Whitewater, with the thought of transferring to UW Madison for their engineering program. But during that time, when the, I guess the cold war between the United States or Russia was going strong, there was actually a thing called the national need for physicist. And so even as an undergrad, you know, it turned out that you had to take physics courses and math courses as part of the pre engineering program. And for me, it was something I could do, you know, it wasn't like, what I want to say, I was overly gifted or anything like that, you know, it's like, if I had to write, I hated it, I was horrible at it. But for whatever reason, physics and math, I could kind of do without much effort. And then when the government started giving you money to continue down the physics path. That's kind of where I 00:06:00stayed. And so I guess there's always been that mechanical engineer in me in that I've always been more interested in the instruments and how you make a measurement than what it is that you actually do with the measurement once it's made, if that makes sense.

Troy Reeves 06:26

So so from you started Whitewater, I mean, you finished again--

Speaker 2 06:33

Finished out Whitewater then, and then went to Washington, yeah. Then I got a job at the Institute of Paper Chemistry, which at the time was with Lawrence College in Appleton. And so there, they had this very [word unclear] program where you get your PhD in Paper Science. And so they had this whole facility, I think it was funded by like 30, some paper companies, which could agree on fundamental problems. And so they had just like any other university, almost every department you can think of, and my first job there was in the physics department looking at color properties of paper.

Troy Reeves 07:20

So then what led you to-- to Washington?

Speaker 2 07:22

Well, so then basically, I realized in this job, my first job that if you wanted to stay doing research, there was an obvious, at least apparent ceiling that a PhD was going to be required because it seems like they got all the fun toys, and everyone else got less exciting toys. And so then, basically, I ended up at Washington University because-- well as a sophomore, I think it was, I tried tutoring, and just absolutely hated it. And I lasted for about two weeks. And I just came up with this mindset that whatever I do, I'm not going to teach. And so then, I was fortunate enough to get a kind of a full fellowship through McDonnell Douglas at the time, which was still in business in St. Louis. And so that meant I could basically go to grad school with a comfortable income and never have to be a TA. So that kind of met all my requirements. And then, on top of that, I could be involved with an area where you know, the type of work that you do, there's nothing you can buy off the shelf, to, you know, detect high energy cosmic rays. So everything had to be built. And so I felt like a good match. Basically, it wasn't like I had a burning desire for Astrophysics, or any of that type of stuff that led me to, you know, that particular location.

Troy Reeves 08:59

Sort of bring us back here to our campus. So when asked, how do you describe 00:09:00what you do?

Speaker 2 09:10

That's always a tough one, actually. So now, I guess I'll make it into a story. So as part of first starting here on campus, when we're investigating when I was with Lloyd Smith trying to investigate different ways to sequence DNA, we decided to explore this area called mass spectrometry. And so that was basically trying to make identifications of molecules based on how they would break apart and the more or less the individual masses of the pieces that they broke apart into, try to reconstruct that in to a form of identification and so turned out that the mass spectrometer was really, at least in my eyes, just a very miniature particle accelerator. And as a graduate student, I spent lots of times at various different particle accelerators testing these, you know, instruments we were building for cosmic ray detection. And so it seemed kind of nice, it was just like this little this little niche, it was kind of like these nice small particle accelerators. And so started looking at technology development for those. And that kind of turned out to be just a good area to make a living in that. I learned quickly, that the type of thing that I was doing, you know, I had to view everything as if I wanted to keep a job, I have my salary, take 35% of that for fringe benefits, add those two together, take another 52%, or whatever it is now for overhead to the university. And that was basically the amount of money I had to come up with yearly through proposals and other things if I wanted to keep a job. And so today, I'm still doing that's how I survive. But now I focus on doing mass spectrometry of proteins and small molecules. But I'm still in the technology development arena, meaning that we collaborate with biologists and other individuals who may have a question thing they want to detect a measurement they want to make. But there's currently not a means to make that measurement. And so then just put a lot of time and effort into coming up with a way to get the answers that they need.

Troy Reeves 11:51

Knowing that there's no such thing as a typical day, sure, what are some of the tasks you could or would do on a typical day?

Speaker 2 11:58

So on a typical day, so my wife as of now now we have about in the lab that I'm 00:12:00in with the PI is Jashua [word unclear]. There are, I should know, this actually, it's probably well, five staff scientists, two postdocs, and about 12 graduate students. And so basically, it's kind of the number one task is making sure that everything's kind of functioning for every one else rounds is kind of like, not quite a lab manager, because I'm not worried about purchasing things or other things like this, but it's kind of like making sure that the various research projects are continuing and moving along and that nobody has a major bottleneck. Then the other thing that I do is with Professor Coombs, basically write grants to NIH. And then the rest of that I'm kind of more focused on doing my own research, which right at the moment kind of involves combining cryo EM and mass spectrometry together?

Troy Reeves 13:14

Could you explain what cryo--

Speaker 2 13:16

Sure so cryo EM is this technique of where you're using an electron microscope, but now what you're doing is you're taking your proteins, or whatever it is that you're looking at, and you're freezing them so quickly, that the water that's on them or around them, doesn't have a chance to form a crystal like water likes to do. And so it's what's called-- it forms amophus[?] ice, meaning that all the water molecules are randomly oriented. And that's just important because they like to set up a little diffraction group for the electrons. So if it forms a crystal, all you'll ever really see our diffraction pattern from the ice. But if you get this amorphus[?] ice to form around your protein, then it allows you to actually use the electron microscope to image your protein. And so then you can actually see what it looks like-- physically measured dimensions and get its structure and all this type of stuff. And so then, I'm currently just trying to take the advantages of mass spec and the advantages of cryo EM to-- one um combine the two to actually make the sample. So that means like he's in a mass spec for an end to do like the initials screening, non filtering out in the gas phase, all the other impurities and things that you don't want, and then trying to get them down onto a surface and within ice that you can then image him with, with the tongue and electron microscope.

Troy Reeves 14:53

And how long is this research-- has been research interest of yours.

Speaker 2 14:57

Oh goodness, this is a relatively new one. It's another one of those things 00:15:00which started in kind of an odd way in that we do, we have a sponsored research agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific. And so they are kind of the main supplier of mass spectrometers used for proteomics and other things. And so, as part of that work, we have agreements I guess to like fundamental issues we look at with them as far as developing technologies and improving the mass spectrometers. And then a couple years ago, they purchase FEI, which is the world's leading to TEMR electron microscope manufacturer. And so, then, you know, they were just asking general questions about like, "Oh, you know, how can these two technologies coincide, coexist," and then even I won't say it here, it kind of sparked in my head, bringing in my astrophysics background as to maybe what we could do to bring these two things together. Okay. And so it's been about two years now, basically. So, yeah, it was just kind of one of those things.

Troy Reeves 16:15

So how much time do you feel like you get to spend on-- on your own research, and has that changed over time?

Speaker 2 16:25

Um, I'd say when I was younger, I had much more time. Because I-- what do I want to say-- maybe the best way to describe it is my advisor in grad school told me the, the better you are, the harder grad school is. And that's mainly because they know they can get something useful out of you. And so then what that is becomes more valuable and challenges become higher. And-- and I think that's kind of what happens in life in the lab also. So it's like, as you become more knowledgeable with, you know, obtaining money through grants. And then you have all the responsibilities of the you know, doing progress reports, and all this type of stuff. And then just trying to launch new projects and get students started on that he kind of get caught up in being pulled out of the lab, which is what I fight against, constantly daily actually and so because for me, it's still my, the happiest place to be. And so I still say that, in general, I probably get at least half my time to be in the lab.

Troy Reeves 17:51

You've talked about this, as you've talked about your work. But I always like to ask this question directly, particularly to folks like us that have grew up 00:18:00before computers--

Speaker 2 18:02

Right.

Troy Reeves 18:03

And so the question is, and is how have changes in technology changed your work?

Speaker 2 18:10

Well, I guess the biggest impact, oddly enough, is the availability of scientific literature for me because I remember being in grad school, having to go down and look through these-- they're almost like Reader's Digest of scientific articles, which came out. And then if something like it would be interesting, then you had hope that was on the shelf or get it from the whatever it is. And so now, you know, the biggest impact it's had on me is simply that, you know, like with web of science and all the, the access that the university has, I can do a pretty good job of scouring the literature in a short period of time. And I think it's also had a negative impact because it's kind of become an industry where, you know, every day I get emails about new journals, new this publish here type scenario. And I believe the quality of scientific publications, to a big degree has plummeted. And so now it's like, even though you can find things faster, there seems to be more garbage you have to weed through to get to something which is useful.

Troy Reeves 19:40

And one of the other things sort of the subcategory of tech, not not necessarily sub tech, but we're able to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime, right? And I wonder in again, in your work, how have you-- how have you seen that ability to be able to sort of instantaneous-- not get at the scientific research communicator, but just get at people or people getting at you.

Speaker 2 20:07

Yeah, you know, um, that, once again has kind of been a 50-50 type thing, right? Because once it became easy to get in touch with people, you start getting inundated with people just wanting to get in touch with you for, you know, and it's like you try to be polite and answer. And since, for example, people know that, you know, I do a lot of work with mass spectrometry, technical development, and now we have this research agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, they seem to think that I'm going to know the problem with everything that they have. And so I just get a lot of random emails more or less asking for technical support. So that's, kinda like a downside. But a plus side 00:21:00is, yeah, it's kind of like, you know, I can talk to anyone anywhere, and it doesn't have to be a big ordeal. So I am also kind of a believer in that, you know, I think conferences are becoming data. So you have 20, some years ago, let's say before the internet, before electronic publishing, you know, conferences were a good way to get out, see where other people in the field were doing and find out where they're at. Now, you know, no one's going to dare speak about anything that's not already published. And so, for the most part, it's like you kind of know, all you need to know without going to any conference. But they still appear to be popular.

Troy Reeves 21:57

Yes. So we're going to talk a little bit. Well, actually, I'm going to talk about-- I'm going to skip one and then come-- come back to it. So the question is, do you think about the relationship between faculty and staff?

Speaker 2 22:17

Okay, yeah, um, so, that's an interesting one, basically. And so I would say, the way the hierarchy is set up here at the university, I've always had very good relationships with the faculty of who I've been employed under-- are working with basically. So like, Joshua Kuhn and Lloyd Smith, I would say, outside of that, I don't think I kind of exist in the university or, you know, other faculties or other departments, or whatever it may be. And I know a lot of other universities, in fact, where I went to grad school, more than 30 years ago, already had, for example, research professor positions. And I know he places like Duke now I don't even have research professor positions have just called Professor positions, either teaching or non teaching. And always kind of felt like this university is way behind on that.

Troy Reeves 23:33

And that, assume I-- well, I'm gonna ask it that and so has that always-- have you always felt that way in the twenty-seven years that you've been here.

Speaker 2 23:41

I have because I sit and I look at-- you know, part of it is like, you know, I could have chosen to play the game, but I didn't and then I just think about like, the amount of money that I helped bring in versus but many professors actually bring in and all this type of stuff, I kind of feel like you know, 00:24:00certainly on par if not exceeding and but yet at the same time, it's like kind of not acknowledged, right? It's like you're not part of any department meetings or anything like this, right? You kind of have no say in anything basically.

Troy Reeves 24:24

So I guess this kind of leads into the question above, which is, have you-- have you been involved or chosen to be involved in academic staff governance or groups?

Speaker 2 24:34

You know, that has always been somewhat of-- ah this is gonna sound horrible-- but like a mystery to me in that. Since I always kind of felt like I was almost like an independent contractor working for an individual PI. And it was kind of like if I couldn't come up with the money. You know, if we weren't doing things that we couldn't get funded for that was going to kind of be the end of my job, so to speak. It's like I didn't see the university is having, you know, a large impact on that. But there was a stint must have been around 2009, 2010. I was over in, in the Astronomy Department for a couple years, because I kind of had the urge, like, well, what am I really missing astrophysics, or am [word unclear]-- I went over there. And there was a gentleman by the name of Curt [words unclear]; he was the representative academic staff for whatever area that was. And so then he asked if I would be the alternate, so he could switch off going to those, the monthly meetings or whatever they were. And so I said yes to that, but I still I can't say I did anything. You know, and I almost hesitate bringing it up. And, you know, nor do I really understand, you know, from a selfish aspect, you know, like how the, the academic staff, organizations, I mean, that type of stuff is going to impact me, and help me even and I that may just be naive on my part. I'm not saying it's anything that they've done wrong or anyone else has done wrong. It's just kind of the path I've chosen, so to speak, I guess.

Troy Reeves 26:25

Well, I think also the living on soft money. When sometime-- if you're living on stuff, I'm gonna opinionize here.

Speaker 2 26:35

Yeah.

Troy Reeves 26:35

But if you're on soft money, I've always thought that because you're on soft money, you need to be doing what the soft money tells you you should do.

Speaker 2 26:43

That's exactly right.

Troy Reeves 26:44

I mean, because you have to report that-- that's why I report effort. Yeah, I mean, I have to report effort too when we do things like that.

Speaker 2 26:50

Sure.

Troy Reeves 26:50

I'm sure every year you have to report effort about this is what I-- this is how this money was spent.

Speaker 2 26:55

No, that's exactly right. And yeah, and you have to, you know, I mean, I guess 00:27:00there's this flowery image out there of academia and that, you know, people can research whatever. But truth of the matter is, it's kind of like you can research what you get funded for. And, and it's kind of what I do.

Troy Reeves 27:19

So I now want to-- the last set of questions before the-- the last set of questions before the last question.

Speaker 2 27:25

Okay.

Troy Reeves 27:26

Is the story behind the award. Okay, so the first question is, did you know you were nominated?

Speaker 2 27:34

I did not.

Troy Reeves 27:35

Okay. So how did you find-- so what were your thoughts and reactions then when you found out that you had won this award?

Speaker 2 27:44

Okay, so the build up to the award, or how this all kind of came about is that there is an honorary research professor title here on campus. And so the, the gentleman that I'm currently working for Josh Kuhn was nominating me for that. And so he had to get, you know, letters and all this other type of mumbo jumbo together. And more or less, he thought that since he had it, all this information together, you might as well submitted for this award. And so I was unaware of that, you know, it was very nice. Some past graduate students, you know, provided letters and said very nice things. And so I was very happy about it, you know, from that aspect. But it wasn't, once again, it wasn't even something I was aware of, until I found out that I got it and then basically googled it.

Troy Reeves 28:48

So, so when it says here on this, this nice thing they did when they-- the website, the academic staff did-- says you're the distinguished instrument innovator.

Speaker 2 28:59

Yes.

Troy Reeves 28:59

So that's an actual title that you're the lab person that Josh--

Speaker 2 29:04

It's a -- so what it is, is a goofy one too so many, many years ago when I was working for Lloyd back then. So it was always this question of, you know, to continue increasing my salary. I had to find a position, which didn't have an upper end actually, if that made sense. It was kind of my thinking at the time. And they had these instrument innovators slash research positions, official university title. And so I chose that for a couple of reasons. One, you know, what I just mentioned and the other thing was at the time, I had every intent to go into industry. And so I thought that might be like a useful title for doing the type of thing that I wanted to do. And so I've just been in that category forever. I'm finally got to the point where he nominated me for the 00:30:00distinguished portion of that, which I got. And that's kind of [word unlcear] stayed. So yeah, I've been on the instrument innovator track for years here on campus.

Troy Reeves 30:15

What were your thoughts or feelings about the the reception?

Speaker 2 30:19

You know, it was nice. I felt a little out of place in that I-- it really had significant meaning to some of the recipients and I could I could tell that. And for me, it was still kind of like, this thing I did not have a lot of familiarity with.

Troy Reeves 30:45

Where-- I forget where they have it where

Speaker 2 30:48

I think it was the Fluno Center.

Troy Reeves 30:49

Okay.Did they ask you to say a few words?

Speaker 2 30:54

They did. They did. And so then yeah, all I really did was so I did invite both Josh and Lloyd. And basically, I just thanked them both for providing [word unclear] with an environment that I could keep doing research on soft money for 20 some years, basically.

Troy Reeves 31:14

Right. So it's, it's interesting now that that we've been talking for over a half hour. I'm now going to ask sort of questions about legacy because

Speaker 2 31:24

Yeah

Troy Reeves 31:25

But, but it's what I like to ask. And it's not that you're retiring tomorrow, but you have have been here for a good chunk of time

Speaker 2 31:33

Retiring sounds nice, it'd be something different.

Troy Reeves 31:36

So the first question is, you know, what, what do you feel you'd be remembered for?

Speaker 2 31:48

You know, I saw that in the list of questions that you gave me, and, I really didn't have an answer when I read it. And I really still don't have an answer.

Troy Reeves 32:02

Well, then, do you think the other question then, do you think-- well, I asked you what you feel you'd be remembered for? But do you think regardless of what you surely be remembered for, do you think you'll be remembered for something?

Speaker 2 32:16

Oh, I, I do think so. And probably, mainly by the graduate students that I've worked with, over the years, basically, just kind of helping them get to where they needed to be.

Troy Reeves 32:34

So--

Speaker 2 32:34

Which is kind of odd given that I have a you know, I know I really dislike teaching and maybe it's like the classroom teaching that I dislike, but you know, working, doing research with the graduate students is a different story for me.

Troy Reeves 32:49

That I was gonna ask if you had seen that correlation, because earlier in the interview, you said you, you tutored once hated it, never wanted to teach again,

Speaker 2 32:56

Yes.

Troy Reeves 32:57

Your-- your legacy is the graduate students who wasn't classroom teaching, but 00:33:00you certainly

Speaker 2 33:02

Right.

Troy Reeves 33:03

And you certainly taught them.

Speaker 2 33:04

Yeah. And it was kind of like, I always use the model. And this was like I got from Lloyd, he just said, you know, you're the icebreaker. And they're the smaller ships. And so it's like, if they can keep up and be useful, we work with them. And if they can't, you don't. And so it's an interesting thing to be-- so it's not like I have a set rigor that I use with every single student, and I'm sure some see it as unfair but you know everyone has a natural abilities and talents and some, just a better match for, you know, the project that may be on at the moment versus others so.

Troy Reeves 33:47

Michael, is there anything else you want to say before we conclude this interview?

Speaker 2 33:51

No, I really don't think so.

Troy Reeves 33:53

Okay. Well, Michael, I want to thank you for your time.

Speaker 2 33:55

Sure.

Troy Reeves 33:55

This concludes the oral history with Michael Westfall.