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ProfilesBob Kirby, University of Iowa Honors Program
Whether mentoring students or mountain climbing, Bob Kirby enjoys keeping both physically and mentally fit. Kirby, who serves as the associate director of the UI Honors Program, also directs the Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates (ICRU), which celebrates its first anniversary this fall. He also serves as an adjunct associate professor in psychology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. So while you might find him mentoring students and helping to match them with faculty according to research interests during the weekdays, you’re likely to find Kirby hiking down a trail amid the rolling hills on his family’s acreage in rural Williamsburg near Lake Iowa Park, or working in his garden during the evenings and weekends. With almost 24 years of experience at the University, Kirby joined the UI Honors Program in 1999, and last year was named the director of ICRU, a new enterprise that grew out of the UI Honors Program, and was created by the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Office of the Provost, and the Graduate College. The center’s mission is to give all UI undergraduate students and faculty a central point of contact on campus for information on research opportunities, mentoring, and funding. The University has about 5,000 honors students, and all undergraduates are eligible to use ICRU regardless of their academic status, discipline, or interest. Kirby recently sat down with fyi to share what he most enjoys about his work, his passions outside of work, and the importance of creating research opportunities for all UI students. How did your career path lead you to the UI Honors Program? I came here from Virginia as a postdoctoral fellow to work with A. Kim Johnson in the psychology department. I thought it might be a very good place for me to be because of my interest in sympathetic nervous system development and how that could be influenced in situations of stress and cardiovascular control. What was one of your first research projects in college? One of my earliest experiences in college was working at what’s called homograph encoding. It was a very special experience because it was my first real mentoring experience working one-on-one with a faculty mentor. The project involved looking at words such as “can”—as in “I can go to the store,” or a “tin can”—and recognizing those words with extremely brief presentations. How do your interests complement the work you do at the UI Honors Program and ICRU? Doing research provides undergraduates with an opportunity for growth. They’re entrusted with a real project that they’re responsible for—that’s basically what research is all about. Being trusted with something that is unknown and saying, “Take the skills, creativity, and curiosity that you’ve got and turn that into a successful outcome.” What is most rewarding about the work you do? One of the things that I think is really fun at the University is the great range of people that you get to meet—faculty, professional staff members, and students. What’s something about you that would surprise your colleagues? Once, early on in my career, I shaved my head like Mel Gibson in Mad Max—that was quite shocking for people, to go from a ponytail to a shaved head. What was your first job? I made fishing tackle. It was wildly exciting. I put my foot down on a hydraulic pedal that closed a vise, which held a little ring. You put a fishing hook and a spinner on there, clamped it closed, and then you’d drop that and see how many thousands you could accomplish per day. On your days off, where will you most likely be found? Outside working in my yard, fields, or one of the buildings on our acreage near Williamsburg. Do you have a favorite vacation spot? My real love is to be out in the mountains in Washington, where you’re up above the trees and there’s just miles upon miles of totally open wilderness. What is the biggest risk you ever took, and did it pay off? In retrospect, it was more so a risk my parents took in letting me climb mountains when I was younger. I’d be heading off for entire weeks with friends to the mountains on these climbs. I didn’t think about it until I was a parent myself. There was a huge statement of trust that was there, and it was tremendously worthwhile because it let us develop a sense of confidence, independence, and trust in our abilities. Favorite web site? Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/). I love to look up many of the places where I’ve been, and you can look at things like glacial recession. One of the things that I wanted to do early on was be a glaciologist—I wanted to study glaciers because of my love for the outdoors. My lack of willingness to take mathematics classes probably had the biggest impact on my career choices. Favorite book? I really love Norman Mailer’s first book, The Naked and The Dead, but I also have a quirky love for writers like the Polish author Stanislaw Lem who wrote Pirx The Pilot. Favorite music? I have an appreciation for Italian or Spanish opera. I love sopranos, and I have quite a collection right here that my colleagues don’t appreciate me listening to at times because they don’t share my appreciation for opera. Favorite weekday lunch spot? My office. We have a nice room where we eat and there’s lots of interaction. My favorite lunch is whatever I can find left over in the fridge. Tell me about your family. My wife, Lynn Zimba, and daughter, Alexis “Lexy” Zimba-Kirby, are a big part of my being here, along with 20-plus cats, three dogs, two horses, and whatever other creatures come to visit. Iowa City is a wonderful location for the things we value. The town has great resources for its size, the people are very open, and we can easily live in the country with a short commute. Were you an honors student when you were younger? In high school, no. In college, I graduated with honors. By Lois J. Gray
Past Profiles
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