This is that mandatory post that blog writers write once they’ve been blogging for a year. I started Ecology Bits about a year ago (I’m not a stickler for exact dates) and here’s my take on what it’s been like to be writing in the ecology blogosphere. (Yes, it does, too, exist.) One thing that …
Category Archive: Opinion
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2017/01/04/first-year-retrospective/
Thoughts on preregistering my research
Last week, I submitted the methods for the project I’ve recently started to the Center for Open Science’s Preregistration Challenge. Briefly, the goal of the challenge is to get more scientists to preregister their research, and it’s got a monetary incentive. The goals of preregistration itself are to increase transparency and reproducibility in scientific research. …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/11/16/thoughts-on-preregistering-my-research/
Advice for new postdocs
In case you missed it, last week was National Postdoc Appreciation Week. I almost missed it, but Harvard conveniently put up a huge banner and offered us a bit of free food (Super yummy Mexican food this year!) Good food = appreciation? Sure, why not. September seems to be a common time for new postdocs …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/09/28/advice-for-new-postdocs/
The thing that pushed me to post a preprint
I have mixed feelings about preprints. On one hand, I like the fact that they allow for the exchange of ideas on pace with the rate that science happens. On the other hand, in ecology, the concept is preprints is all muddled. In the fields where preprints originated and are now standard practice (physics, math, …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/09/14/the-thing-that-pushed-me-to-post-a-preprint/
Thoughts on my first double-blind peer review
Not too long ago I agreed to review a paper after skimming the abstract and looking up the journal. When I went to actually do the review, I saw that the journal has a double-blind policy, and so I couldn’t see the names or affiliations of the authors and they couldn’t see mine. (The latter …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/06/01/thoughts-on-my-first-double-blind-peer-review/
When should I start a family? (Actual advice rather than platitudes for the early career academic)
Standard replies as to when to have kids when you’re on the academic path are: “there’s no good time” or “when it’s right for you” or “there are tradeoffs” or variations on these themes. While this advice is true, it’s also useless. And for people who are looking for actionable advice, it’s frustrating to not …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/05/18/when-should-i-start-a-family-actual-advice-rather-than-platitudes-for-the-early-career-academic/
Let’s stop ignorance-shaming
The most egregious time I was ignorance-shamed I was working for a mid-sized non-profit whose mission was to raise money to fund cancer research. I had moved to a new city and had ended up at the non-profit through a temp agency; I worked part-time doing administrative tasks. While I was there, the executive director …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/05/12/lets-stop-ignorance-shaming/
Increasing the number of women in computer science requires real cultural change, not just recruitment
Not too long ago, NPR’s Planet Money had a segment on what’s happened to women in computer science. It really struck a chord. To summarize, women were a mainstay of computer science from its earliest years up until 1984. Then, the number of women in computer science at universities started plummeting, while the number of …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/04/06/increasing-the-number-of-women-in-computer-science-requires-real-cultural-change-not-just-recruitment/
Reflections on my first first-author pub (and the seven years it took to get there)
Coincidentally coinciding with my birthday, my first first-author publication came out this week. A nice birthday gift. Considering the paper has been seven years in the making (and that I’ve only been in the ecology field for a little more than nine years), this publication is also a moment for reflection for me. I’m hoping …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/02/10/reflections-on-my-first-first-author-pub-and-the-seven-years-it-took-to-get-there/
The Problem of the 12 Hats
I can’t think of any other profession that requires quite the diversity of skills as a scientific academic. By the time you’re a tenure track professor, you are expected to be proficient in a dozen skill sets, each of which is sufficient for a profession in of itself [1]: researcher and expert statistician grant writer …
Permanent link to this article: https://ecologybits.com/index.php/2016/02/03/the-problem-of-the-12-hats/
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