Office Hours: An Honors Professor Reflects on His Office and Lab

Peter Ungar inspires honors students to conduct incredible thesis research, but he also manages to keep his lab fun and approachable. Cartman, razorbacks and an assortment of famous scientist figurines keep students company in the lab.

​There are 54 stairs between Peter Ungar’s office and his lab; two microscopes (one adorned with googly eyes), more than 50 skulls, one miniature putting green, five plastic figurines of famous scientists on a windowsill, three stooges (Larry, Moe and Curly) framed behind his office door; and at any given time, up to 12 honors students, lovingly referred to as “Ungar-grads,” in his lab.

Ungar is a Distinguished Professor of anthropology in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Environmental Dynamics Ph.D. Program. He is the first U of A faculty member to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In his lab, students use teeth to reconstruct diets of past species to better understand the impact of environmental change. Read below as Ungar describes his most sentimental keepsakes and the inspiring environment he creates to nurture exceptional undergraduate research.

The packed bookshelf is a prominent feature of his office in Old Main. To the right, a photo of the Three Stooges is hidden behind his office door.

I feel fortunate to live in Old Main. I don’t actually live there, but I have spent the better part of the past 28 years splitting time between a third-floor office and ground-floor laboratory. In those past 28 years, I’ve collected a lot of mementos, some associated with teaching and others with research; each has special meaning and an honored place in my office or lab. A couple of these stand out in my mind.

Back when I was department chair, I printed and framed The Pale Blue Dot. The photograph was taken 3.7 billion miles from Earth by the space probe Voyager 1. As the probe turned homeward to take the picture, it happened to catch our planet in a scattered ray of sunlight. Carl Sagan described it as “a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam.” “That’s home. That’s us,” he wrote.

Being a department chair is among the hardest jobs on campus. Not only do you teach and do research, but you constantly juggle the interests of students, faculty, staff and administration. Since those interests often conflict, someone is usually mad at you. The image of that pale blue dot has helped me put the magnitude of my own stressors into a much larger context. I sometimes share the image with students who are similarly stressed — and it often helps.

A poster from the Museum of Natural History was updated by Ungar to replace “man” with “us.”

I also have a wall and bookshelf of accolades on display. I’ve been fortunate to be recognized by the university and my discipline for the work I’ve done here at Arkansas. The most meaningful of those awards to me is a wooden club given during a naming ceremony led by a chief of the Meru people on Mount Kenya. I was working at the National Museum in Nairobi, Kenya, many years ago when I met a bright young man, Francis Kirera, who had been entrusted with the keys to the vault containing many of the most important human ancestor fossils in the world. He was wicked smart, and I encouraged him to apply to the graduate program at Arkansas, helped get him funding, and mentored him in our Environmental Dynamics Ph.D. Program. He’s now a tenured professor of anatomy at Mercer Medical School. It was immediately clear at this ceremony that the accomplishments of this young man from rural Kenya were not his alone, but achievements of his whole community. I was given the name “Motethia” (the helper). I remember standing behind Francis as he spoke and inspired young students at an assembly of the regional school he had attended as a child. I’ve never been prouder of a student. Yes, I’ve been fortunate to get recognition from the university and my peers for research, but there’s nothing more gratifying to me than being able to mentor and help students achieve their goals.

Our lab has a very different “vibe,” but the memories and activities there are no less gratifying. To see the honors and graduate students working there and hanging out – it can get pretty busy. But my students are my principal collaborators and it’s wonderful to watch them huddled around Connie the crabby confocal microscope (or its younger sibling, Wall-e, replete with googly eyes) gathering data. I couldn’t “do” my science without my students. They, in turn, get publications, theses and to walk across that graduation stage with honors stoles and medals.  It’s a true partnership, and it’s one that I’m grateful for.