June in New England is a long stretch of long-lit days. When I was a PhD student, my Junes were the peak of my field season and I spent the long days logging miles up
Reading, Walking, Wishing
Posted June 28, 2018 by
Conservation
Hidden in Plain Sight: the Secret Tree Diversity of Cultural National Parks in the East
Posted June 6, 2018 by
Last summer, my daughter received All Aboard! National Parks, a whimsical board book that devotes full-page spreads of colorful, kid-friendly illustrations to nine National Parks along a fictional railroad route. The National Parks skew western —
Book Review: The Feather Thief
Posted May 8, 2018 by
I’ve got my conference roadtrip routine dialed in. This spring I drove to the Northeast Natural History Conference (215 miles each way), the Northeast Alpine Stewardship Gathering (150 miles), the University of Maine Climate Change
National Parks are for the Birds
Posted April 28, 2018 by
Happy National Parks week! While I tend to plan trips around plants — Thuja plicata in Olympic National Park, Lathyrus japonicas at Cape Cod National Seashore — I understand the draw of non-botanical Park residents:
An Epic Joshua Tree Roadtrip & the Reproductive Ecology of an Iconic Southwest Plant
Posted March 29, 2018 by
Think of your most amazing four-state roadtrip. How much data did you collect between stops at Disney Land and the hotel pool? Did you stargaze in the Mojave Desert or were you too exhausted after
Urban Forestry In the Schoolyard: Trees and Student Performance
Posted February 28, 2018 by
Research into how nature impacts our well-being has shown that being outside makes us feel better. Images of nature alone have been shown to lift people’s mood. But is there any connection with how the
Not Seeing the Grass for the Trees
Posted February 22, 2018 by
I appreciate repetition. My favorite class in high school was AP Chemistry, but I think I owe most of my AP success to the previous year’s slog through regular Chemistry. By the time I took
Conservations Genetics, Non-academic Coauthors & Erdős Numbers
Posted January 25, 2018 by
I spent a week in Washington DC about two weeks before the government shutdown. Part of my conservation science postdoc fellowship involves professional development retreats and this winter we were in DC for policy training.
The most talked about research of 2017
Posted December 21, 2017 by
While citations to academic papers are easy to track (see Google Scholar, World of Science), it’s quite informative to see what research people are actually “talking” about. Just yesterday my oldest son was reminding us
Fungal Disease Threatens U.S. Snakes — And Could Be a Global Problem
Posted December 20, 2017 by
Over the last few decades, fungal diseases have decimated populations of animals such as amphibians and bats. Now, a new study sounds the alarm for snakes. The research, published in the journal Science Advances, shows