Virtually Home

I like my job. I like it so much that I can't really imagine doing anything else. But there's also not a lot else that a PhD in the evolution of animal sexual behaviors will get you. There's not a lot of call for animal behavior in industry. And I have zero interest in finding an industry niche. So, I have a lot to gain by succeeding and a lot to lose by failing. Let me explain. The weird thing is that the structure of academia precludes partial success. For every PhD who wants to stay in academic science, there is only one goal: to be a professor. If you don't manage to get hired as an assistant professor, that feels like failure. And after between 5 and 7 years spent earning a PhD and between 3 and 5 years of postdocing, during which you may move around once per year. All the moving comes at great financial expense and tremendous cost to one's personal life. For instance, you can give up hope of living near your family. If you have a spouse, they have to change ...

Stephen Hawking was an incredible scientist and said a lot of interesting things. One of the things he did that was most valuable was make science interesting to non-scientists and relevant in pop-culture. In the wake of his death, his quotes are making the rounds on social media. From my perspective as a biologist, the two most-often shared Hawking quotes this week are the worst choices to be broadly disseminated among non-scientists. 1) "Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious." Astrophysics is rad, but also there are SO MANY things going on under your feet we still don't understand. Turn over a rock. Look at a salamander or an insect or a lichen. Honestly, just look at the rock. You can be curious about why we're here in such a more direct, accessible way than is implied by this quote, taken out of context. There are a ton of ways to be a scientist, or just a cur...

Female cricket at my field site. January started in the back lot of a Lutheran Church in Hilo, Hawaii. I recorded and captured crickets with my colleagues, counted invasive cane toads, and collapsed into bed sometime after midnight Hawaii time (hours after my friends in Europe and the continental US had finished celebrating). I spent as much time as possible on that trip snorkeling and reveling in the warm weather. Grand Canyon is Grand February was pretty quiet, but we saw the Wild play the Islanders in Saint Paul, and the Gopher men's gymnastics team take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Minneapolis. I caught Josh Ritter and Guster on tour. I tried not to freeze to death. My life as a lab rat in the spring In March, Jacob and I took a massive trip to Arizona. We visited his family in Phoenix, camped for three nights on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and roadtripped to Canyon de Chelly, Walnut Canyon, and other places. We saw a lot of amazing Pueblo dwe...