One of the most-asked questions I was asked during my Skype A Scientist sessions was "Do you get to travel for your research?" Honestly, my traveling has been some of the best experiences I've had in my life so far, so I wanted to start a running log of all the places I've traveled to and experiences I've had in the pursuit of scientific research and learning! I'll continue updating this post, so check back every once and a while to see where and what I've been up to :)
tl;dr - You can always turn conferences/workshops into mini-vacations, and most of the time you can bring your family along. Take advantage of every single trip and you'll always have a blast!
We're gonna count super cool outings I got to go on when I was little, class trips and things like that. I grew up in central NJ, and one of my absolute favorite places to go was the Liberty Science Center, an interactive museum with ever-changing exhibits. It's a place where your imagination can just go wild, no matter your age. |
If I decide to have kids one day, I know one of the highlights of their childhood will be seeing that gigantic Hoberman Sphere expanding and shrinking as soon as they walk into the museum. It certainly was an exciting time in mine.
We're gonna fast-forward to my undergrad years. I spent a lot of time on Sandy Hook, NJ because that's where I went to high school, but I got to go back during undergrad for an internship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I spent a summer working in the James J. Howard lab facilities, and collecting all kinds of data (water samples, biodiversity counts, and even fishing for some of our experimental specimens) in the Sandy Hook Bay and Atlantic Ocean. I highly encourage every person even remotely interested in marine science to seek out internships and other such opportunities through NOAA, at any of their labs throughout the country. It will change your life for the better, I promise.
Dan and I maintained a long-distance relationship for our undergrad years. We got to spend most holidays together since our families live in NJ, but we'd spend every New Year's Eve in New York City at his family's apartment. We still visit the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) every chance we get. We're particular fans of the Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life as marine hobbyists, and the Hall of Biodiversity has a special place in my heart. I'm hoping to to collect some specimens from AMNH soon, so keep your fingers crossed for me :) |
Grad school is really where my adventures started stacking up, in the best possible way. I spent part of my Summer 2015 at Penn State visiting the Duke Lemur Center and wrote a bunch of blogs about that. 2016 found me driving through the February snow to Washington, DC to meet with some collaborators and plan out our Madagascar trip for a few months later. I then went to Atlanta, GA to give my very first talk at my very first conference, but also made some time to visit the Georgia Aquarium and see the whale sharks.
A week or two after that conference PJ and I flew out to New Mexico to attend a Human Ecological Dynamics Workshop put together by Doug Bird and Rebecca Bliege Bird. We spent 3 days at the gorgeous Southern Methodist University in Taos campus swapping ideas and methods for researching how humans impact our environment. After the workshop, PJ took me to see the petroglyphs near Albuquerque and eat some delicious green chili-covered things. | |
That July I went to Madagascar. What a life-changing experience; I don't even know that I can accurately put it into words here, so make sure you check out those blog posts. After I recovered a bit from the jetlag, I drove up to visit Laurie Godfrey at UMass Amherst to supplement the data I collected in Madagascar with some subfossil measurements. I presented my findings at another AAPA conference the following April in New Orleans, and after the conference ended my dad and sister flew down to have a little vacation with me. Pro-tip from my sister: avoid trying the spiciest hot sauce in the shop unless you are positively sure you can handle it.
My next big trip was to Panama in the Fall 2017 for more field/data collecting and my mom joined me for a mini-vacation there, and then to France in Summer 2018 for the Evolution conference and a vacation with Dan. I'll be staying pretty local for 2019, but I promise to keep you updated as I go along. Cheers!