debor042

According to legend, the story of the career of a biology PhD used to go like this: 1) student joins a lab, 2) student spends 4-8 years doing research and honing specific skills in their chosen field, 3) student gets a tenure-track job at a college/university and becomes a professor after 5 more years or so, 4) with essentially a guaranteed job for life, professor gets to do interesting scientific research and live happily ever after. Somewhere along the way another step was added between steps 2 and 3 (step 2.5: the post-doctoral research position). This story, whether actually the norm or not back in the day, is clearly not the story today. And it's freaking a lot of people out. It feels like almost every day I read another article or blog post about how screwed biology PhDs currently are in terms of the job market. Whether its the Washington Post  or the Atlantic Monthly  or many other news outlets, the prospects don't look too good in academia for biology PhDs. This "c...

Gastric bypass- a wonderful alternative to graduate school 'Tis the season of grad school acceptances and major life choices. Two years ago (!) I was an overly confident undergrad preparing to become a graduate researcher. Late night Googling of "how to prepare for grad school" further assured me I was ready. Have experience in a research lab? Check. Know I may have weird hours? Check. Secured some kind of TA/RA funding? Check. Today, reflecting upon this time of year, I wish someone would have told me about a few aspects of grad school that seem to never be highlighted on those "What to Know about Grad School" websites: 1. Yes, being successful in grad school is about working hard, but it’s even more about being creative . Probably in your undergrad studies, the more time spent on homework or a project was directly proportional to your grades or success. I assumed that since I was a hard worker and previously worked in a research lab, I would be a gre...

My research is on the diatom communities of the Everglades. To study how the communities respond to environmental changes, I have to identify and count each of the diatom species I encounter under the microscope. To do that though, the diatoms have to be stripped clean of any organic material and other 'junk' in the sample. The diatoms go through a harsh bath of acid and heat, until all that is left of them are their empty but beautiful cell walls. This is possible because diatom cell walls are essentially glass. Beakers of diatom samples mixed with hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid boiling away on a hot plate. Different amounts of organic matter (like peat or plants) and inorganic matter (like sand or clay) result in different colors and reactions. In the Everglades, the limestone bedrock adds a lot of calcium carbonate into the soil and periphyton. Some components of periphyton (especially mucilage-producing filamentous algae) attract calcite crystals like a magnet. The addit...

Somewhere down the road ecology evolved from this: To something like this: As a member of the Seagrass Ecosystem Research lab here at Florida International University I am, by default, a researcher in two long-term monitoring projects.  The first is the FCE-LTER seagrass monitoring project and the other is a seagrass monitoring project in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary .  Both datasets have resulted in mounds and mounds of data throughout the years.  As a side project to my dissertation I arrogantly decided to conquer said data mounds and turn out some ground-breaking revelations about benthic community structure in South Florida.  There's just one problem:  I am buried in MOUNDS of data!  To analyze these data, it turned out, would be much more complicated than just getting the R code ( R is a stats program that hates me, but it's free so I put up with the abuse!) correct so the program will tell me what I want to know.  Here is the first...