by Norma Rocio Forero Muñoz (norma.rocio.forero.munoz@nullumontrea.ca) My dream of becoming a disease ecologist took me through the journey of exploring quantitative methods. However, this adventure required the resilience to transform frustration into enjoyment. I am a Colombian DVM pursuing a Ph.D. in computational ecology at Université de Montréal. During my training at the veterinary school, I was convinced that I…
Read Moreby Anthony Snead “Network! Network! Network!” I can hear the phrase ringing in my ears, and it transports me back to when I was a fresh PhD student in my advisor’s office. As early career scientists, we have been told that networking is important, and I took that to heart. I jumped at every chance to meet new people, even…
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by Gina Errico After spending several weeks in Costa Rica running my field study, practicing my novel Spanish speaking skills, I turned to my field assistant and asked for him to pass me my field notebook, “Puedes darme el cuaderno?” (which translates to “can you give me the notebook” in English). He looked at me, confused, and the panic began…
Read Moreby Rounak Patra Conservation agriculture sounds like a great way to protect our environment. It promises to help keep the soil healthy, with more carbon locked in the ground, and less fertilizer runoff. But the reality is much more complicated. A recent study published last October found that forty years of no-tillage practice alone was not enough to add carbon…
by Krti Tallam Citation: Maria Laura Zoffoli, Pierre Gernez, Philippe Rosa, Anthony Le Bris, Vittorio E. Brando, Anne-Laure Barillé, Nicolas Harin, Steef Peters, Kathrin Poser, Lazaros Spaias, Gloria Peralta, Laurent Barillé. Sentinel-2 remote sensing of Zostera noltei-dominated intertidal seagrass meadows. Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 251, 2020, 112020, ISSN 0034-4257, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112020. Blue carbon. When I think about it, I think…
by Hayley Henderson By the time I was about to graduate high school, I was too busy trying to live until tomorrow to think of a future for myself. Many of my classmates had careers already in mind – intelligence security, computer engineering, veterinarian science. They’d talk about them openly, about summer internships, the best schools to apply to, the…
What do remote sensing, machine learning, and statistics have in common? Enhancing the accuracy of seagrass monitoring, for one by Krti Tallam Citation: Ha NT, Manley-Harris M, Pham TD, Hawes I. A Comparative Assessment of Ensemble-Based Machine Learning and Maximum Likelihood Methods for Mapping Seagrass Using Sentinel-2 Imagery in Tauranga Harbor, New Zealand. Remote Sensing [Internet]. MDPI AG; 2020 Jan…
Social distancing: a journey to understand manes and myself by Stotra Chakrabarti Citation: Chakrabarti S, Bump JK, Jhala YV, Packer C. 2021. Contrasting levels of social distancing between the sexes in lions. iScience, Cell Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102406 ‘Social life’ is rare yet fundamental to the world around us. A busy swarm of bees, a disciplined trail of ants or an enigmatic…
by Krti Tallam Note from the Author: Nia Symone Walker is a 4th year PhD Candidate at Stanford University. Nia received her degree in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 2016. Prior to her graduate studies, Nia conducted research as a Science Educator for the Maritime Aquarium’s classrooms, supported by NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Grants Program. Nia primarily uses…
Krti Tallam At the age of 13, my eagerness to make real-world impact, coupled with a thirst for environmental conservation and human wellbeing, fueled me to create an internship with an international conservation organization and then travel there to fill that spot. A day after final exams, I found myself in the remote Western Ghats of south India, studying Asian…
USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests & Ranges and Research Natural Areas As an early career ecologist, securing funds for new, field-based studies can be challenging. One strategy is to collaborate on existing studies. This type of collaboration is cost efficient because study establishment is already completed, allowing collaboration to focus on continuing the original objectives (e.g., re-measuring) or developing new…
Ecology is becoming an increasingly collaborative science, as seen in part by the increasing number of authors on ecology publications. As an early career ecologist, you’ve probably already worked in at least a few, and maybe many, collaborative research teams, whether your collaborators came from within your lab group, or institutions around the world. You’ve probably also already realized that…