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Who is Thomas Pressley?
Ecologist to Physiologist

 

Thomas A. Pressley was born in Baltimore, Maryland. For as long as he can remember, he’s liked science. Of course, it probably helped that he read a great deal of “hard” science fiction, such as the stories of Arthur C. Clarke. Tom always imagined that he would be some type of professor when he grew up. That kind of life just seemed to appeal to him from an early age.

Deciding What to Study
Tom grew up in a small town between Baltimore and Annapolis in Maryland. When it came time for college, he was lucky that there was a very good university close to where he lived. He decided to go to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Even though his friends all referred to him as a “townie” (because he lived in the area), Johns Hopkins University proved to be a wonderful experience. Tom studied ecology (how plants and animals relate to their environments), thinking that he wanted to be a marine biologist. In the late 1970s, however, so did nearly everybody else, and it was very hard to find openings in graduate school programs. Luckily, he also took a lot of classes in cell biology. Graduate programs were much more interested in having him come to their school as a biochemistry (the chemistry of biological processes) student. He decided to go to graduate school at the Medical University of South Carolina, because they were willing to work with him to combine his two interests.  

Discovering Physiology
When Tom started in graduate school, he was interested in how the biochemistry of organisms changed in response to different environments. This was how he used his training in ecology even though he was in a graduate program in biochemistry. He studied how animals, such as crabs, that live in both fresh and salt water deal with all the salt in their environment. As he was doing his research, he found that more and more of the questions that he was asking were best answered by looking at the interactions between the different systems within the crabs. Although he graduated with a degree in biochemistry, he realized that his work had more in common with that of the physiologists he knew. Once he had his degree, Dr. Pressley went for additional training at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York. There that feeling was made even clearer for him, because he worked in a laboratory that was well known for combining biochemistry and physiology. 

How to Find a Job
At the time that Dr. Pressley was finishing his final training, there were two options open to people wanting to continue in research, either take jobs in academia or in industry (drug companies). As was true when he was a child, Dr. Pressley still was only interested in finding a position at a college. He ended up being lucky and found one without too much trouble. 

When he was looking for that first job, it certainly helped that he was coming from a well-known and respected laboratory. However, it was by going to many scientific meetings that he was able to meet the people he needed to in order to find out about the available jobs. He found out about a job at University of Texas at Houston when he was at a meeting talking to people about his research. He applied and got the job. A few years later, when he began thinking about moving on, again it was people he knew from meetings that told him about job openings. He decided on a job at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX and is now a Professor of Physiology there. 

Being a Physiologist
Dr. Pressley spends most of his time doing research. He is in charge of a group of other physiologists, trainees, technicians, and students. His group studies animal cells and how sodium (high amounts outside the cell) and potassium (high amounts inside the cell) are moved in and out of the cell. Dr. Pressley’s work is focused on the how the pump works that keeps the amounts of those chemicals at the right level both inside and outside of the cell and what controls it.  

He also spends time teaching basic science to first-year medical students, as well as to graduate students in various other scientific fields.  

Dr. Pressley has other duties with the university. He is currently in charge of the graduate program for his department and serves on various committees for the department and university. In addition, he is one of 12 members nationwide who were selected to be on the APS Education Committee. 

For Fun
Dr. Pressley is enthusiastic about flying. He spends a lot of his free time flying gliders, which he learned how to do when he was living in Houston, Texas. The Lubbock area of West Texas is world-famous for conditions that are friendly to gliders, and pilots come from around the globe to fly there. He is also a computer buff and has become his department’s unofficial computer expert, offering advice on what programs and equipment to buy. Each summer, he combines his interests in computers and gliding by helping as a scorekeeper at various glider competitions around the country. He is also the official soaring record keeper for the State of Texas, which means that pilots who think they’ve set a new State Record must submit all their flight documentation to him for evaluation. 

On a more serious side, Dr. Pressley also is interested in international relations.  He spent five months in France in 2002, learning about the education system and advising students on the opportunities for study and research in the US.