Our blog would be nothing without our writers. Unfortunately they can’t stay here forever; they must go on to their next great adventures in life. So, we wanted to take a moment to recognize a few of our authors who have recently left or are preparing to leave soon. We wish you all the very best in your careers!
Kat Munley
What are you doing next after graduating?
I recently started a new position as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston. As a postdoc in the lab of Dr. Beau Alward, I am studying how hormones regulate aggressive and reproductive behaviors across different social contexts in a charismatic African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni!
What is a lesson/takeaway that you got from ScIU?
I think the most important lesson that I learned during my time with ScIU was how to effectively communicate my science to a broad audience. In my opinion, this is an absolutely essential skill that, unfortunately, many scientists are not proficient in. I am now much more confident when talking about my research, whether it be to colleagues in my field or to the general public!
What was your thesis?
I received my Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior from the Department of Biology at Indiana University in Spring 2022. As a Ph.D. student in the lab of Dr. Greg Demas, I investigated how the hormone melatonin, which serves as the body’s biochemical signal for changes in photoperiod (i.e., day length), modulates seasonal changes in aggression in Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus). Specifically, my research focused on how melatonin influences aggressive behavior in this species indirectly via steroid hormones and how the physiological mechanisms underlying seasonal aggression may differ between male and female hamsters.
All of Kat’s blog posts can be found on her ScIU author page. We also wish to give her a shout out for all her hard work copy-editing!
Dan Myers
What are you doing next after graduating?
I am a postdoc at the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pennsylvania. I evaluate water quality monitoring protocols and analyze water quality trends in National Parks of the National Capital Region (around Washington, DC).
What is a lesson/takeaway that you got from ScIU?
I learned the value of improving equity in access to scientific information. There is a lot of science published in pay-to-read academic journals or written in ways that are inaccessible to most people. At ScIU I learned the importance of making science available at no-cost and written in a way people will understand, so that more people have fair access to the science.
What was your thesis?
In the Geography Department, I studied best practices for fine-tuning and evaluating environmental models, simulating the snowmelt process of rain falling on snowpack, and understanding climate change impacts on snowmelt in the Great Lakes Basin.
All of Dan’s blog posts can be found on his ScIU author page.
Riddhi Sood
What are you doing next after graduating?
I am a Field Application Scientist with Thermo Fisher Scientific. I train scientists on how to use Luminex instruments and do assays. Furthermore, I help them with experimental troubleshooting and optimization. My position is remote based, and I support scientists in academia as well as pharma and biotechnology companies throughout the west of the US (Hawaii to Michigan).
What is a lesson/takeaway that you got from ScIU?
I learned how to communicate effectively with ScIU. Not only did I learn to write better through the writers’ program at ScIU, in my position as Managing Editor, I also learned how to work in almost-virtual teams. Additionally, science communication is relevant to a variety of careers where effective dissemination of information is important. Through the ScIU conferences, I met some amazing science writers who are making a difference in the world one scientific writing at a time.
What was your thesis?
I studied how chemoresistance develops in Ovarian cancer patients.
All of Riddhi’s blog posts can be found on her ScIU author page. We also wish to give her a shout out for all her hard work as our Managing Editor!
Jennifer Sieben
What are you doing next after graduating?
It’s something I’m still figuring out as I finish up thesis revisions, but I am aiming to continue working with survey data in astronomy, studying this beautiful and mysterious universe of ours. But first, I’m going to take a well-deserved time to rest and relax.
What is a lesson/takeaway that you got from ScIU?
I learned a lot about how to manage a team of people. It’s hard enough to organize for one person, but adding in a team of editors and writers who all need to meet deadlines is very difficult. This blog would absolutely not still be running without me being able to rely on the managing team and my co-editor-at-large.
Even more than that, I learned about the various cool work my fellow grad students were working on in their disciplines. It is always so fun to read about their research while editing.
What was your thesis?
My thesis focused on the initialization of a survey which finds emission-line galaxies. These galaxies are usually star-forming galaxies. Our survey has so far taken imaging data of 41 fields, giving us ~8000 galaxies. Many of these have follow-up spectroscopic data and are confirmed to be star-forming galaxies.
Work has only just begun on studying the changing star-formation rate of our universe with this data. This will be something I continue working on, even as the younger members of our research team step up to take the lead on their individual projects using the wealth of data we have collected.
All of Jennifer’s blog posts can be found on her ScIU author page. We also wish to give her a shout out for her all hard work as our Co-Editor-at-Large!
Allison Nelson
What are you doing next after graduating?
Since I don’t graduate until December, I’m not quite sure yet. Although, I’m starting to look into PhD programs to continue learning paleontology.
What is a lesson/takeaway that you got from ScIU?
I loved writing articles that brought complicated science to a wider audience. Working with the rest of the ScIU team allowed me to hone my skills of scientific communication (through editing) and mentorship (through onboarding new writers).
What was your thesis?
My thesis is on red wolves. I wrote about it in this post. Since then, I’ve learned that red wolves are very different from grey wolves. Interestingly, the red wolves who were rounded up and moved to North Carolina (and zoos around the country) have changed significantly since they were rounded up (and the captive breeding program established) in the 1970s.
All of Allison’s blog posts can be found on her ScIU author page.
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