Interview with Dr. Gale Ridge
[go to Interview Transcription]
In our fourth episode of the Voices of Local Leaders series, we interview Dr. Gale Ridge, a concert pianist that became an insect researcher at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Although Dr. Ridge’s specialty is bedbug’s behavior, she has helped solve several bug-related mysteries, from intercontinental transportation of exotic insects, to forensic entomology in murder cases, to mental disorders in which patients believe they are being fed on by insects. As she points out in the interview, her curiosity and attention to detail have been prevalent in her life and are a driving force that facilitated her crossover from working on the theater stage to the microscope in her laboratory. Her passion for six-legged creatures and her compassion for learners and patients in distress are inspiring and will make you want to learn more about her work!
Interview Transcription
“Hello, I’m Dr. Gale Ridge, I am an insect identifying expert at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Our offices are open to the public and we serve everyone in the state. Anybody who has a problem or a question about insects, mites, spiders, anything that has more than four legs, I and my assistant Katherine are the people that most people come to. Someone walks in and says ‘What’s this?‘ and I say ‘I haven’t seen that before’. Then we get very busy trying to figure out where that little visitor comes from, and often [it’s] from other parts of the world. So, I’ve got my finger on the pulse of entomology identification worldwide because of my seat. As years [had] passed, my work has evolved into research with behavior and traits of the human-feeding bed bugs and I’m currently in a very large project helping folks with delusions of infestations which is this belief of being fed on by insects or other pathogens or parasites. It’s very complicated and it’s an international effort to provide information for folks and service providers who are dealing with this particular condition. One more exciting thing is that I am also somewhat skilled in forensic entomology and have been involved in a few murder cases here in Connecticut as well. So, this job is far from dull!”
[Science Yourself] What motivates you to explore those different venues at your work?
[Dr. Gale Ridge] Curiosity! With the identification, I am a watch station for the introduction of exotic insects, and one of the most exciting and interesting [piece] was when a woman brought in a coat-rack that hung on the wall. It was bought on one of our local stores in Danbury. She hung it on the wall and then this powder started to fall out from under it. She brought it in and asked ‘What is going on?’ And what was in it was a population of live powder-post beetles.
Indian coat-rack infested with a live population of Eastern African power-post beetles detected by Dr. RidgeI look them up under the microscope and said ‘These are not our local residents; where are they coming from?’ So, tracing back through the line of sale, I found out that this particular piece of wood was from East Africa. It had been harvested in East Africa, shipped to India, meld and made into this coat-rack there in India, and then brought onto the United States and distributed. My work is much like a bloodhound: you get on a scent and you sought to follow it. It’s like peeling back an onion: things reveal themselves that are hidden; and you begin to dig deeper and deeper and deeper. I’ve been involved in a couple of murder cases as a forensic entomologist. You can imagine that onion was particularly fascinating!
“The wellspring of science is as in art. The worlds may seem very disparate and separate, but the fundamentals are the same: attention to detail, being a bit of a perfectionist, always curious, always asking questions”
[Science Yourself] What has inspired you to start working with arthropods and become an entomologist?
[Dr. Gale Ridge] Well, I’m a late bloomer. My first career was as a concert pianist and teacher in a company working with music theater and as a soloist. And I came to a point in my life where I was a single mom of three young children. As a professional musician, that doesn’t work really well when you’re trying to raise children because, when they’re home, you’re out working because music is during the social downtime to the population. We musicians have to wait until the end of the day to do our best work. It became very difficult to pursue a full-time music career with the youngsters. So, at that point, I crossed over into biological sciences. I had an interest because I was actually raised on a farm in West England, so I grew up in nature and was an observer from a very young age. So, I had that basic interest. And then the Experiment Station put out an announcement that they wanted a summer assistant in the entomology department, and that was when I was starting my crossover courses. You know, going from music to science, you gotta prove you can do it! I answered the ad and got quite fascinated by insects. And no two days are the same when you’re working with them. It’s such a variety and I have thought ‘This would be a fascinating profession to get into’. And here I am!
[Science Yourself] What has inspired you to be interested in science in general?
[Dr. Gale Ridge] I come from a life of fine arts and a desire to satisfy curiosity. And with that, a sense of perfection and detail. It’s a type of thinking, but also having the freedom of creativity and questioning. The wellspring of science is as in art. The worlds may seem very disparate and separate, but the fundamentals are the same: attention to detail, being a bit of a perfectionist, always curious, always asking questions. And science allows you to be much like a sort of a bred racehorse with a desire to run. And you’re running with these ideas and concepts, on a frame that is secure, firm and principled. And it also allows you to be very creative. I think that science as an art, science as a discipline, if you allow it a presence of mind being in the moment and being open-minded. It’s just the revelation of discovery. There’s always something you can find. And science has that powerhouse of information and history that you can build on.
[Science Yourself] What is a common myth or misconception that you had come across in your work?
[Dr. Gale Ridge] One classic myth that is all over the place is that bed bugs feed in straight lines: breakfast… lunch… dinner.
I’m a bed bug behavior researcher and I look for an Achilles heel in that behavior which we can get into and use to manage these creatures. Most research is about how to kill them. But I study their behavior, so with that knowledge I can then provide that alternate information that this particular person needs. Bed bugs are actually very delicate, they’re very fussy feeders, they never feed in a straight line because they are capillary feeders, and we don’t have any straight capillaries in our body. The only instance where I’ve seen any kind of straight-line feeding is if they are feeding along the line of some clothing, and then maybe one or two of them are there. It’s the only time when that would be possibly the case. But that myth has stuck in society’s psyche forever. And once you get initial misinformation, it can stay around and be perpetuated.
Dr. Ridge on her laboratory at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (New Haven, CT)“I’ve got people to understand, I’ve educated them, and then people go away much more empowered, much happier, much relaxed, and not so intimidated by something they didn’t understand when they walked through the door”
[Science Yourself] How do you use science and present your knowledge as an expert to educate the public and help them re-evaluate a misinformation?
[Dr. Gale Ridge] I deal with this all the time. Most of the conversations I have with folks is stemming from the misinformation they get of the internet and search engines powered by Google, Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube. It’s difficult when somebody gets initial information that’s erroneous to, then, as the expert they’re talking to, disengage that connectivity of initial information. It’s very powerful. My job is to be able to replace that information with correct information. Sometimes it’s easier, and sometimes it’s more difficult. We’re actually soaked culturally in this fear of arthropods. When I’m working with people is often dealing with situations of anxiety. So, rather than talking at them (which is easy), I talk with them. Rather than facing at them (like you and I are looking at each other), I turn so we are side-by-side. And we walk together, along a trail, and I am the guide to their discovery of new information and a new way of looking at it. Often, I have people coming back at me, at the end of the session, and saying ‘Oh, they are kinda cute! You do like them, don’t you? Now I can understand because we’re done!’ I’ve got people to understand, I’ve educated them, and then people go away much more empowered, much happier, much relaxed, and not so intimidated by something they didn’t understand when they walked through the door.
[Science Yourself] What would be your advice to someone who might be thinking in changing careers, is fascinated by science and insects, and is seriously thinking about becoming an entomologist?
[Dr. Gale Ridge] One of my early professors, who is actually an expert in possums, and he couldn’t figure out why possum (which are basically Tropical South American creatures who self-introduced themselves to the Unites States) could stand the cold up here, because they are basically bald. So, he was doing research on balding possums. Anyway, when you cross over into a new profession, one’s antenna is always up. There’s a freshness of interaction, and during that fresh period he said something that was very profound to me: ‘When you’re studying a subject, always see the complete canvas; but at the same time, see the detail.’ A good analogy is to look at the tree, but also look at the forest. Look at the sky, look at the horizon, but also look at the subject you’re talking about. You’ve got to have context! My feeling with becoming an entomologist is to have a knowledge of ecology and evolution. Much of evolution is driven by research with insects, and how they react to the environment and the negative pressures against them. And how quick it can be; with insects, you can actually see within 10 years fundamental changes. So, when you’re working in evolution, studying insects and arthropods actually is very revealing because it can be within one’s own career timescale. Because we really have 40-50 years career… that’s nothing! So, little arthropods are really remarkable in being able to reveal to us our place in life, life itself, and how the planet works. Everything goes back to insects. Pilots call insects ‘sky plankton.’ And at any moment you are in the suburb, you look up and there’s probably about 17 species of arthropods commuting over our heads. They can move across continents. They can use the winds from Africa to come across the Atlantic [ocean] to North America. These are just remarkable little creatures. So, if you’re going into entomology or entomology-associated professions, evolution and ecology are certain aspects you should study, and they are such fun!
