Trinity College Dublin, Ecology and Evolution
Recently a conference on Phylogenetic Comparative Methods was advertised online, and quickly the Twitter community noted that all six of the plenary talks were being given by men. Normally my response to this kind of thing would be some grumpy tweeting and then I’d let it go. However, this time was different; I know one …
Continue reading “Gender balanced conferences – we all need to try harder!”
There are a long list of reasons why mobility in an academic career is considered highly desirable, both by individuals and the institutions which fund them. Scientists move around to take up jobs in a tight and international job market, communicate their work to the wider scientific community, work with new people, learn new techniques, …
Continue reading “How to get the benefits of mobility – even when your movement is constrained”
Between the 1st and 2nd of May several members of the Trinity Centre for Biodiversity Research got their game faces on for the inaugural Intervarsity BioBlitz Challenge. For the first time the Trinity fox and co were pitted against the best biodiversity on offer from the DCU, NUI Galway and UCC campuses. The stakes were high …
Are you interested in science? From nano-materials to Martian landscapes, microbiology to neuroscience, immunology to ecology, chemistry to evolution, Soapbox Science Ireland has something for you. On the 26th of April (this Saturday!), Soapbox Science will join efforts with Trinity College Dublin’s Equality Fund and WiSER to transform Trinity’s Front Square into a hub of …
Before I came to TCD, I spent my last six months at Lancaster University working with Dr Georgina Key on a systematic review of methods to make agricultural soils more resilient to threats like climate change, and erosion. What is a systematic review I hear you cry? Allow me to elaborate, and share some of our …
The recent debate between Bill Nye, the Science Guy and Ken Ham, the Young Earth Creationist got me thinking about our methods of science communication such was the controversy it generated. There is value in communicating science to the lay public when our society is so deeply ramified by its discoveries, its ideas and its risks. And …
Continue reading “The Heat and Light of Science Communication”
The recent hilarious #SixWordPeerReview hashtag on Twitter got me thinking about the first ever review I got for my first ever paper (thanks @Phalaropus for the reminder!). I thought I’d share it here (and if you want to see if you agree with the reviewer, the paper was eventually published in Global Ecology and Biogeography: Cooper et al 2008). …
The Christmas decorations have been banished for another year, stashes of left-over turkey are dwindling and the hollow echo of empty biscuit boxes tone the end of holiday indulgences. As the promise of ever-longer evenings beckons and the first, brave (or fool hardy) snowdrops contemplate their next move it’s that time for the inevitable “year …
Over the last month or so you’ll probably have noticed that a lot of posts on EcoEvo@TCD are essentially “what I did on my summer holidays” essays. Luckily, I think most of us did quite a lot of interesting and scientifically relevant things! My summer this year seemed to be full of conferences, so I …
This August I celebrated one year of being on Twitter. On the auspicious occasion of my Twitter-versary I decided it might be useful to reflect on the year. Did I get what I wanted to get out of the experience? Did I get other things I didn’t expect? Or did I just find myself …
Continue reading “To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question…”