Trinity College Dublin, Ecology and Evolution
Congratulations – you’ve got your first Faculty position and you’re about to start! So you know you have to put together new teaching modules, get some grants and write some kick-ass papers. But in the midst of the head-down craziness of a new position it’s important to keep your eye on the ball. How do …
Last March we had the fantastic opportunity to assist with cannon netting Barnacle Geese on the Inishkea Islands, a wild Atlantic outpost off the coast of Co. Mayo. This research was part of Dr David Cabot’s long term study of the Inishkea Barnacle Goose population, which breed in Greenland and return to the west coast …
Continue reading “Wild Goose Chase – cannon netting on the Inishkea Islands”
You may have heard on the academic grapevine that I will soon be leaving Trinity College Dublin. As with all moves I’m both sad to be leaving, but excited to take on new challenges. I’ll be around until the summer, but now this is common knowledge I wanted to explain why I’m moving on. And …
With deadlines looming for attractive PhD scholarships such as the Irish Research Council, current undergraduates often realise that the path to a PhD is somewhat opaque, with many different ways to get there. Finding a PhD is something we have covered already, but a question I often get asked is: do I need a MSc …
Continue reading “Pathway to PhD: should I do a masters degree or an internship?”
On Wednesday January 14th the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk radio station hosted Professor Luke O’Neill (a prominent Trinity College Dublin Immunologist), in a segment exploring the causes of the huge declines seen in European bird populations newstalk.ie/player/podcast. Comments from both Professor O’Neill and Mr. Kenny implicating raptors and corvids in these bird declines provoked …
Quite regularly you get emails that annoy you… often they are flippant emails, and sometimes from students. Harmless or probably naïve that they are, they do get up some peoples’ noses. But every once in a while you get one that really gets your goat. Several months after some media coverage of a research paper …
Continue reading “Public service announcement: How not to email a professor”
In 2010 I graduated from the Department of Zoology in Trinity College Dublin. I spent the next year travelling and completing any wildlife related internship or voluntary position I could get my hands on. I soon faced a dilemma; should I follow in the footsteps of my friends in academia and find a PhD or …
Continue reading “The Sinai Hairstreak: rarer than the Giant Panda and the Snow Leopard”
We have finally decided on the winner of the Still Life photography competition. The theme was ‘Changing Seasons’ and first place goes to the ‘flooded forest’ which is our featured image today. As the entries were anonymous we don’t know who submitted the image so please make yourself known and gather up the plaudits you …
So for various reasons, one of which was being unsure of whether a PhD was for me, I found myself asking to work as an Intern with the good people in the Zoology Department at TCD. To give you a bit of background, I am a Zoology graduate with an MSc in Marine Biology, so …
Why are some snakes more venomous than others? When did plate tectonics begin? What geological mysteries await our discovery on Mars? How do organisms build their own bodies? How do businesses manage biodiversity? These are just some of the interesting and diverse Lightning Talks which were presented at a recent event in the School of …