Earlier this week I completed my Twelve Days of 2019 Ecology Literature challenge. I read the last paper on my list, drained my mug of tea, and blew out the candle. I started my advent
This is The End
Posted December 20, 2019 by
Early Career
Wrapped and Read: A Reading Advent Update
Posted December 11, 2019 by
Spotify just told me that Superfruit was my artist of the year. “You discovered 265 new artists this year, but you really vibed with Superfruit,” Spotify Wrapped announced*. Google Scholar has not released a comparable
She’s Making a List…
Posted December 2, 2019 by
It occurred to me in November that my #ToReadPile was beyond overflowing. One of my friends* had recently published a very cool paper and it was receiving wonderful press, but between lesson planning, job applications,
Reading & Listening to Cape Cod
Posted October 16, 2019 by
Cape Cod does not appear on my CV. I study alpine plant ecology — my postdoc research is literally founded on carrying heavy things to high lakes — and the hooked peninsula of the Cape,
Writing and Publishing: Mentos, Manatees, and Sinkholes
Posted September 28, 2019 by
I’ve been reflecting on my own writing. Today, I picked up three bound booklets from my local copy shop. These are the ‘after’ picture of my PhD dissertation — the pdfs of the peer-reviewed papers
Drawn to Learning
Posted July 10, 2019 by
This post is a short attempt to peel back the curtain on my “bad at pollen” process. Since my very first pollen clinic in the BEAST Lab at University of Maine I’ve been instructed to
Learn Again
Posted June 19, 2019 by
I’m in the middle — the frustrating, slow, and muddy middle — of learning how to be bad at science. How to be bad at one very specific part of a subdiscipline of a scientific
An ornithologist and an entomologist go into the kīpuka…
Posted June 2, 2019 by
There is something magical about reading a well-written, remarkable paper from outside of your sub-discipline — the echoes of familiarity in methodology, the unpredictable overlaps, the serendipity of finding the research in the first place.
Book Review: The Lady from the Black Lagoon
Posted May 15, 2019 by
In 1953, ichthyologist Kay Lawrence joined a research expedition searching for fossils in the Amazon Basin. This was the same year that Rosalind Franklin left King’s College in London, after she created the X-ray diffraction
Scientists Who Selfie: Building Public Trust Through Social Media
Posted May 10, 2019 by
There are many ways to communicate science, but few as expedient and direct as social media. But while Twitter and Instagram have given scientists unprecedented, unfiltered reach to new audiences, there has been a desire