And we’re back!
The tea room is fuller, society stands are being dusted down to create the Front Square Fresher’s week gauntlet and venturing out of the office during the lecture change-over times will soon be inadvisable unless you have a particular affiliation for crowd control. Trinity is gearing up for the new semester and our blog has returned from its summer hiatus.
We marked the end of the summer with NERD club’s first annual AGM. Theoretically an acronym for our networks in ecology/evolution research discussion group but practically far more appropriate if you take the true sense of the word, NERD club is our weekly meeting for people working on any aspect of ecology or evolution. It’s a diverse collection of people and certainly one of my favourite times of the week as, fuelled by the necessary provision of biscuits, we discuss each other’s research or wider topics relating to academic research and scientific careers. It is also the origination of many of our previous and, I’m sure, future blog posts.
The AGM rounded off a very successful year for NERD club’s members. Between us we attended and presented our research at 19 different conferences or workshops, received 4 new grants and produced 28 new papers, one of which was a collaborative effort arising from a NERD club discussion. We also contributed to an eclectic mix of science communication and outreach projects including radio and television interviews, blog and magazine articles and guided tours of the Zoology museum. We came up with plenty of new topics for discussion and teaching sessions along with ideas for future collaborations so I’m sure the year ahead will be equally if not more interesting.
Our NERD club awards were a fitting conclusion to a great year. Here’s the honour roll!
1) Best NERD club session of the year: Erin Jo for her research on toxic nectar and bees.
2) Best blog post of the year: Deirdre for her advice on coping with cuteness overload.
3) Best blog post pun: Keith for Apocalypse Meow!
4) Cutest study species: Sive for tremendous tenrecs (an unfair advantage when you consider that I study these!
5) Most annoying PI, aka the devil’s advocate: A draw between Natalie, Andrew and Ian.
6) Best threesis video: Thomas, for explaining phylogenies by means of baking…
Author
Sive Finlay: sfinlay[at]tcd.ie
@SiveFinlay
Photo credits:
Natalie Cooper