Trinity College Dublin, Ecology and Evolution
Inspired by recent reports of rising mental health problems in academia plus an acute increase in stress around the department this summer when many PhD students were writing up, we decided to run a “Dealing with stress” seminar at NERD club (ironically this session was canceled previously due to the PIs being “too stressed” to …
The Royal Society has published a new set of guidelines for managing the career expectations of PhD students in STEMM subjects (science, engineering, technology, maths and medicine). The publication was the result of a series of roundtable discussions held at the Royal Society with PhD students, supervisory teams and University careers professionals. This blog post …
Moderation is the art of “avoidance of extremes in one’s actions, beliefs, or habits”, according to dictionaries. In academic meetings chances are to find a colorful mix of extremes ranging from big mouths to shy introverts, and making everyone’s voice heard can be quite challenging. In worst-case scenarios, even hearing one’s own voice can become problematic. …
One of the benefits of doing research in an academic institution is the opportunity to interact with undergraduate students. Students benefit from being taught by leading researchers while staff have the opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists. Practical lab classes are usually a focal point of this direct interaction between student and researcher. …
Continue reading “Demonstrating: getting the most out of undergraduate teaching”
The start of the new academic year marks the end of my second conference season. I attended two conferences; Evolution 2014 in Raleigh, North Carolina and the British Ecological Society Macroecology meeting at the University of Nottingham. They were at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size and specificity but they were …
It’s that time of year again, the quiet before the storm of Fresher’s week and the start of a new academic year. After our short break, EcoEvo@TCD is back and raring to go. You can expect lots more posts about our research, seminar series, outreach activities, conferences and fieldwork as well as tips and tricks for …
When you imagine a scientist, what do you imagine? The first image that I see, despite never having seen it in real life (thankfully!), is the traditional “mad scientist”. The white lab-coat, crazy hair, glasses or goggles, holding a flask or test tube containing some dangerous-looking substance. This scientist is, inevitably, male (and white, but …
In a previous blog post I wrote about my work on “toxic nectar.” This paradoxical phenomenon occurs when potentially deterrent or toxic plant secondary compounds, usually associated with defense against herbivores, are found in floral nectar rewards. Throughout my PhD I’ve spent countless hours in the lab performing experiments on toxic nectar, discussed this work at …
Last week our newest EcoEvo@TCD paper came out in PRSB (it will be Open Access soon but currently it’s behind a pay wall – feel free to email me for a copy in the meantime. Code for the multiple PGLS models can be found here). This paper is exciting for me for two reasons – …
Consider this scenario. You’ve recently published a new academic paper. It’s effectively your baby. The months or years of experiments, analysis, frustration, toil and troubles are now distilled into a stellar research article which, in your opinion at least, changes the face of science as we know it. Great! Now you need to get the word out beyond …