Researchers must be willing to put aside emotions and even start afresh, UVA evolutionary ecologist Deborah Roach said. In 1986, as a researcher at another university, she set up what was meant to be a long-term study of plant aging in a field used for research. She and colleagues planted 27,000 seedlings and planned to follow them for a decade. Four years into the project, the university decided to build an art museum on the site.