Are we yes? Where are we here? Why are we here not entirely clear? We are misfits

thrust into existence by random chance with no hints at all as to how we're supposed to make sense of it all.

It's immensely bizarre. Here we are.

Hello everybody and welcome to the here we are podcast. I am Shane Moss.

I'm back doing my first podcast in like a month. I've been I mean to you guys listening I banked episodes and stuff you won't know this but I haven't.

I banked a bunch of I've been traveling I've been exploring what my future is going to look like in terms of touring and where I'm going to live and that sort of thing.

I've had a break from the show and I feel refreshed and excited and I'm here with what's really fun about doing this podcast and finding a bunch of academics in so many different fields.

And just you know I started the show I was touring and I just look up random people at universities and be like hey well you come on my podcast your work looks interesting.

And what's cool about that is sometimes I've I've had a non trivial number of people on this show that it's their very first podcast ever.

And today is is that case Adam Wilcox is joining me today. Thank you Adam for joining me welcome to your first podcast we're doing it.

Awesome thanks for having me Jay. This is this is better listen I sit in and a lot of like virtual conferences and stuff I take a lot of like online classes and everything and this is way easier you don't need to have a PowerPoint presentation and you don't you don't even need to be correct.

About things we can just wing things it's it's super fun I love doing this show and I love having casual conversations with scientists can you tell with people a little bit about your background and what you do.

I'm here currently I'm here at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and I'm a research associate professor I'm in the Department of Forestry Wildlife and Fisheries and also in the Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture.

And I do quite a bit of teaching and some of it relates to one health this concept of one health humans and the environment and animal health really my passion is it's conservation.

I've been involved in conservation my entire career since I left school back at UVA I've traveled the world to Cameroon and Tanzania and just came to UT recently about eight years ago and found a really good place where I could raise my family shares on my experience with the students that I've had from all my adventures abroad and then continue some of my research as well.

I've got research projects in Central America and some sort of Africa still. It's kind of anything academia for me I didn't really expect those going to like it for say because I've spent so much time away from it and I spent many many years between all my degrees.

But actually it's a good fit. It's a good fit for me and a good for my family well that's that is fantastic I it actually goes perfectly into something.

This is one of the first things that I wanted to ask you anyway and you led right into it by talking about the adventures that you've been on.

Because I know you've you've got to go abroad a bunch in your career and and spend the time with with with cultures you know very very different and a lot more diverse than a lot of Americans are are used to.

And I wanted to ask you in terms of well I was kind of wondering how you got into it and I wanted to ask you what moved what was it like your passion for science or was it like oh this would be a cool idea.

It wasn't the it wasn't the adventure side of things or was it a blend of both or.

It was definitely an adventure side of things I'd say change so I went to university or Virginia undergrad and I did degrees in environmental science and then English language and literature really weird mix but I did have sort of a plan to my madness.

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