William McLaughlin starts his day at 7 a.m. with a cup of coffee.
A Ph.D. candidate in biological sciences, he likes to keep his mornings slow and predictable before driving to campus to work in Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Megan Behringer’s lab.
In the lab, McLaughlin is studying how chaotic dynamics arise in microbial populations, which are localized groups of tiny organisms like bacteria, fungi, or viruses inhabiting a specific environment. He is examining what ecological factors drive microbial populations from predictable, stable states to more complex, chaotic dynamics. This has potential implications for both the medical and agricultural fields, as it could help provide predictability in soil conditions or assist with treatments for the skin and gut.
“I love my job,” McLaughlin said. “It is amazing that you can take very simple mathematics that ignore selection and the detailed ecology of these environments, and you can get outputs that are highly accurate. What makes me excited is that yes, I am getting to perform complicated molecular biology and work with different cultured strains, but it is in such a controlled system that we are able to prove the math using biology, when normally it is the other way around. Coming in every day, I get to pull out a plate and see what the strain diversity is of a given experiment and then see if that aligns with the math, and I love it.”
Recent funding from the Hypothesis Fund has allowed Behringer and McLaughlin to expand this research, exploring the limits of chaos in ecological systems and its evolutionary consequences.
McLaughlin has always had an interest in science; however, his current career path wasn’t presented as an option until later in life. Growing up, he said his dad always encouraged him to spend time outside, which gave him an appreciation for some of the same ecological systems he is studying now.
“I grew up on the Tennessee River,” McLaughlin said. “I fished a lot and was outside a ton, and you do get an appreciation of how the ecosystem functions, and for how many parts need to work together to keep things stable. I toured the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology my junior year of high school, and I was like, ‘I could do this. This seems like a really neat job.’”
He went on to obtain his bachelor’s degree in microbial, cellular, and molecular biology from Auburn University, where he started on the pre-med track. After spending time working on plant development as the only undergraduate in a lab during COVID, McLaughlin’s interest in the ecology of agricultural systems blossomed.
“With plant biology, you get very specific very fast, so in graduate school I wanted to pivot and study ecology and evolution more broadly,” he said. “Vanderbilt has a great set of faculty, and I grew up two and a half hours from here. I could stay close to my family and, in my eyes, get a world-class education and train with some really amazing faculty. I applied, got accepted, and have been thrilled ever since.”
McLaughlin worked in three different labs before meeting Behringer, who earned the same undergraduate degree from Auburn. He said he enjoys having the freedom to try new things in Behringer’s lab, while also having the proper supports not to fail.
“Vanderbilt has a lot of resources, and having access to all the tools and equipment needed is great,” he said. “Megan is also great in that if there is something you want to dive deep into, she is very encouraging about trying it, and if it doesn’t work, she will help you reassess. At Vanderbilt, it feels like you are fortunate enough to have a certain level of academic freedom that you can try different things. You are also rubbing elbows with a lot of very smart people from very diverse skillsets, and because of that, it almost feels like I’m getting a liberal arts education through my Ph.D. in STEM.”
Thinking of the future, McLaughlin said he would like to keep studying plant developmental genetics, utilizing the skills and background he is gaining in ecology and evolution.
“Simple environmental cues can either ravage or greatly support the health of plant ecosystems,” he said. “I’d like to try to integrate what we understand from a basic-science level about ecology and microbial evolution and apply that to agricultural systems at large. I’d like to take the skills I’ve gained here performing applied microbiology and apply that to work in the future thinking about how we can design, analyze, and monitor plant associated microbial communities, which can have a great impact on the health of soil and crops.”