Movers

Per Ahlberg, Professor of Evolutionary Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden

Per Ahlberg's career as a palaeontologist has been marked by a constant search for balance — between teaching and research, his professional and personal life, and his native Sweden and his adopted home in England. His new position at Uppsala University, he says, brings all of those elements into line.

After earning his PhD in 1989 (see CV), Ahlberg took up a post, the title of which is now extinct — he became a 'departmental demonstrator' at the University of Oxford. That meant a fixed-term contract, with a heavy load of supervising practical lab classes and individual tutorials. Looking back, Ahlberg feels that the mix of teaching and research stood him in good stead. But at the time, he was worried that the position would shackle him professionally, as his teaching commitments meant he couldn't take on the kind of research that can make or break a palaeontologist's career.

Box 1: CV

1994–2003: Researcher (fossil fish and amphibians), palaeontology department, Natural History Museum, London

1989–1994: Departmental demonstrator (vertebrate biology), zoology department, University of Oxford

1989: PhD in Zoology, University of Cambridge

Ahlberg used a combination of fortune, experience, knowledge and instinct to turn this disadvantage on its head. Because he had little time or budget for travel, he devoted much of his non-teaching time to combing through collections in museums. At one museum, he noticed that some fossils that had been classified as bony-fish fragments in the nineteenth century actually had features, such as a distinctive snout, associated with land-based vertebrates, or tetrapods, that he had collected on a postgraduate dig in Greenland. Ahlberg showed that the mislabelled bony fish was actually the oldest known fossil of a tetrapod. The discovery served as a springboard for his scientific career and reinforced his inclination never to accept conventional wisdom.

A series of related findings led to a post at London's Natural History Museum. But after nearly a decade, the pendulum had swung too far in the other direction. He had plenty of time for research and travel, but was missing teaching. “I like the contact with the undergrads,” Ahlberg says. And the 90-minute journey to work in central London took a toll, particularly after the birth of his daughter in 2001.

The Uppsala appointment resolves all those issues, he says. He has the right teaching load now, and the office is a five-minute bike ride from home. Ahlberg sums up his career with a simple statement: “I was able to recognize some things that hadn't been recognized.” The same might be said for his recognition of the need for balance.