You read that title correctly - 140 characters (including spaces!). Why only so many characters? Because my grant proposal was submitted on Twitter - 140 characters is the maximum length of a tweet. I almost exclusively tweet about new blog posts, but I have yet to unlock the full potential of Twitter Sci Comm. Luckily, the Mindlin Foundation provided an excellent opportunity to branch out a bit from my typical tweets. |
The folks at the Mindlin Foundation put together a funding opportunity for education, science, and engineering that they've dubbed One Tweet, One Percent. To use their words, "The 1% Microgrant is intended to support 1% of a single investigator’s salary for a single year, approximately 20-30 hours, or an equivalent dollar amount to cover materials and other expenses for a project of roughly that duration". As long as you met their eligibility requirements, you could tweet them your grant proposal and potentially be selected as one of five people to submit a 500-word full proposal. One of those five people is then awarded up to $4,000 for their project.
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I don't know if you have read it or not, but I briefly discussed my R coding endeavors in my last Sci Comm blog post. R, in the words of its developers at The R Foundation, is a [free!] "language and environment for statistical computing and graphics". People in the Perry lab utilize R to make sense of our genomic data, run simulations of our findings to test significance, and, most important of all, to make lovely figures. Those of us that write in R a lot also tend to run it in RStudio because it just makes everything easier. One of the first thing members do when they join/visit the Perry lab with absolutely no coding experience (i.e., me three years ago) is learn how to code in R. Step one on our endeavor is Code School's free course called Try R, because it's a great starter set up that also happens to be pirate themed. While everyone's step two is a bit more customizable, it typically involves being given a task by someone in the lab that you have to complete with R. PJ and I had the idea of turning the code that I wrote for my second first-author publication into a little R practice project. The tasks I performed for our paper An evolutionary medicine perspective on Neandertal extinction were all completed in R with pre-existing datasets. Every time I had a marginal bit of success I would save a new "master" file with everything I had accomplished saved in additional columns of what ended up being a massive table. Thus it seemed a natural extension to turn this bit of code into a tutorial: DISCLAIMER: I am not an R wizard - some of my code is not that "pretty", most of it is rather inefficient, and there are about a hundred ways to achieve the same results as someone else in R, but that's sort of the point of this whole exercise anyway.
My last couple of weeks have been full of sharing and swapping techniques and tips with new and visiting members of the Perry lab, Anth and Biology departments. It's ranged from advice for field work in Panama to how we in the Perry lab prefer certain brands of micropipette tips over others. It's got me thinking about ways I like sci comm-ing with other researchers, which will be the theme of this week's blog post.
The Penn State grad students have an advantage when it comes to attending a large state school: ample outreach opportunities. One of my absolute favorites has been volunteering at the annual state competition for the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS). [Pro-tip: if you don't feel like reading right now, be sure check out an awesome student-made YouTube video about PJAS at the end of the post!]
Now even though I can only speak to the state competition because that is all I've ever participated in, I am a huge fan of PJAS for a number of reasons. First and foremost is just the general atmosphere of the whole event: young people getting involved in science, taking charge of their own research projects, and even gaining oral presentation skills and learning about professionalism - they dress fancy for their talks :) I can only imagine the kind of public speaker I might be today if I had those kinds of experiences in middle school.
The state competition is also a crazy fun time for the kids. They get to take a few excused absences from school to travel to PSU's main campus - which is always all flowering and lovely because graduation just happened - and hang out with their science-y friends and meet new students from other parts of PA. The students are escorted by parents and science teachers, who also get to socialize when not judging presentations or eating tons of Berkey Creamery ice cream with their students. I'll finish off this post with a neat video I found on YouTube made by some former PJAS participants. While the students no longer use transparencies and metal pointers for their talks, every other aspect of the structured presentation guidelines is the same. Enjoy, and remember to encourage your young scientists - remind them of how awesome they are for taking a stab at the scientific process and learning something new. And if you are a young scientist without the PJAS opportunity, ask your parents to help you swab your mouth and your pets to see whose mouth has more bacteria living in it. I did that experiment when I was maybe 10 years old, and let me tell you, my younger sister's mouth was wayyy grosser than our dog's :) Cheers! This is a peculiar week for me: three blog posts uploaded all at once. Since I was spending so much time on my blog with the other two posts, I decided it was high time to provide some much needed updates to every section. It all started with changing the font - hopefully you'll agree that this one feels a bit more readable. Once the font size increased, I had to mess around with the spacing of all the pictures and buttons and things to make everything pretty again, which then led to my upgrading the "CV" page to "Publications" (now that I have some haha). I also decided to completely refresh my home pages for each of my blog categories "Research", "Teaching", and "Life". During these edits, I decided that "Teaching" didn't accurately encompass my ideas for what that section of the blog should contain. I wanted to be able to talk about my teaching experiences, but also wanted to bring in discussions and ideas for reaching audiences outside of the classroom. So now, "Teaching" has become "Sci Comm" - short for "Scientific Communication".
In that line of thinking, I think I'll keep this post short and sweet so you can go check out the other two that went up this week. Have fun, and enjoy science!
This week has been absolutely crazy – I’m submitting a fellowship application on Saturday and preparing for a talk I’ll be giving at the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. This will actually be my second talk at AAPA; I’ll discuss my first in a later post. I’m actually really excited for this talk because I’ll be participating in a super cool symposium. Remember when I mentioned the Up-Goer Five Text Editor in my post about Dan? Well I’ll be using that tool to try to communicate my research in just 5 minutes!!! I’ll let you know how it goes post-after-next :D But all this has got me thinking about how I prefer to give oral presentations. While TAing BIOL110, I gave some form of presentation every class, but these are typically less formal than the kind of presentation you'd give at a conference or for your class grade. Fortunately, I was also tasked with grading an oral presentation given by groups of my students about a biodiversity survey they conducted on campus. I noticed immediately that how I graded the presentations was heavily influenced by my perception of “what a good presentation should be”. I even gave my student examples to demonstrate what a “poor” and “good” presentation looked like – the “poor” had over 60 slides for a 15-minute presentation… A quick Google search will bring you to tons of sites that illustrate the “rules for a good oral presentation". Regardless, today I’d like to share with you the same tips I shared with my BIOL110 students. I bet you're getting annoyed with all of my quotes in this post, but my definition of "good" might be different from yours, and you should always go with whatever you are most comfortable with when presenting. With that in mind, here are my tips! tl;dr [too long, didn't read] graphic at the bottom of the post :) #1: Be Organized.
Being organized means knowing the order of the slides and speakers (in the case of a group presentation). An organized speaker will provide necessary background info, make key points, and anticipate questions that their audience might have. Using minimal text and lots of visual aids is also a sign that the speaker is confident enough in their material to not have to read off of the slides, a huge plus for everyone involved :) #2: Take Your Time.I am the guiltiest offender when it comes to this tip. Odds are if you're nervous about giving the presentation, you're going to speak more quickly either from nerves or simply just to get the damn thing over with ASAP. It follows that if you speak too quickly then you'll blow past important points or transitions and leave your audience in the dust, struggling to catch up with you and your words. So do me a favor the next time you're giving a presentation: take a deep breath, shake out those nerves, and do what you came here to do in the time that was provided (taking up too much time is not a great thing to do either really - no one will appreciate you running over time). #3: Make It Pretty.Your audience will appreciate that you've taken some effort to make your slides look nice, but this is only a happy coincidence. The real advantage to having pretty slides is knowing that you have pretty slides: pride can make us fools, but a little goes a long way when it comes to giving presentations. Think about your color choices, font styles and sizes, and your spacing on each slide. The graphic below is an example of a slide I gave in BIOL110 about oral presentations: dark background, large font, and color-coded :) Speaking of making your presentation aesthetically pleasing, it's time for me to go finish my talk for AAPA next week... Cheers!
All of the above examples are reasons why journal clubs exist. To broadly define it, a journal club is a regular gathering of people to discuss and critically evaluate academic literature in depth. A few journal clubs happen online, through Twitter or some similar kind of outlet (click button above for more info). Most of the journal clubs I've encountered are formal or informal weekly in-person meetings where one or more papers are chosen for discussion a few days in advance. I stressed that last bit because the entire point of journal club is to contribute and share opinions and ideas about the article, from methods design to statistical validity to figure construction and everything in between. The system doesn't work so well if 1) people don't read the articles or 2) if they read them too generally, as depicted in the comic and gif below:
I’d like to dedicate this week’s “Teaching” blog post to the interwebs. As a kid who grew up in the 1990s East Coast United States, I’m a part of a group of people that experienced the push to incorporate the internet into their everyday lives in primary/elementary school. All of a sudden, my homework assignments involved finding something on Google to help me answer the questions. Computer classes were evolving, too. We eventually spent more time learning how to find online resources than how to type as quickly as possible and make the best digital art of all time: Now, nearly half of the world population is online, and we've reached an entirely new level of accessibility. While developers have brought us amazing things like Facebook and Netflix, I still see the internet as a tool to help me learn new information. I’d like to use this blog post to show you online resources that I've utilized in my teaching endeavors (please feel free to share some that you like in the comments!).
The super cool Dr. Katie Hinde has spearheaded the effort behind March Mammal Madness (MMM) since 2013. Essentially, Dr. Hinde’s team uses scientific research and probabilities to determine the winners of simulated battles between non-human mammals. They post a mammal bracket and battle schedule at the beginning of March (click the button above to download yours), then use Twitter to narrate the “battles”. Each battle contains a slew of factual information about each contender, and, while the winner is determined by probability, an element of chance means you should never count out the little guys. As MMM has grown in popularity, so has the team itself, and the battles are often accompanied by custom artwork and experts in the field. This is a really fun way to learn about mammals all around the world (sometimes even fictional ones!) and to interject some friendly competition into the learning atmosphere. Our lab's winner this year gets to "adopt" a World Wildlife Fund animal of their choice - yet another cool way to learn about and help support some amazing animals :D
Those who have attended university know that the first class of the new semester is typically dedicated to discussing the syllabus for the course (and possibly getting out early for the first and last time all semester). As students typically have a series of classes spread throughout the working week, I've taken to fondly calling the first week of each new semester "Sylly Week". It's the calm before the storm, the last sweet opportunity to be a bit lax with your time and resolve yourself to what's coming ahead. Sylly Week is also a time for the instructor to set a good first impression, whatever they feel that might be, and to go over class expectations and due dates. This first meeting is often said to "set the tone" for the classes to come, and a quick Google search will bring you to several teaching guides and sources that stress the importance of this first day with your students (see gray button below for one of my favorites, by Carnegie Mellon University). That said, there is no one "right" way to teach someone, so take all of my advice however you like and adjust to your own personal tastes :) As I've mentioned, I taught two semesters of a 1-credit introductory Biology wet lab (as opposed to a "dry"/computer lab) that was required for full course credit alongside a 3-credit lecture component (see blue button above). Wet labs are interesting because there's often a lot of physical movement when compared to a traditional sit-down lecture-style setting. There's also a considerable amount of group work, mostly to share materials and disperse responsibilities for larger experiments. I've found that Sylly Week is the perfect chance to get into this working-together mentality, and one thing that I've adapted and found effective from my days as an undergraduate resident assistant is the use of icebreakers.
I kid you not, since my last post in this "Teaching" section of the blog, I have taught two full semesters of BIOL 110. This means that 1) my teaching requirements for the Biology Ph.D. program are fulfilled and I most likely won't have to teach again in graduate school; and 2) that I have a decent amount of experiences to share with you all that will hopefully come in handy in one way or another. I absolutely loved every minute of being a teaching assistant, and hope to hear about some of your stories as I share some of mine :) I thought the most useful thing I could do for you, my reader(s), would be to sum up my top teaching tips in one post and elaborate on some of the experiences a bit later on. I hope you'd all agree with my strategy here, but your approval doesn't really matter much anyway because you don't get to read this until it's finished...so yeah, on we go! Tip #1: Be organized.
to be their job, right? Teaching us *fill-in-the-blank*." If you are going to have to teach a class of any kind, whether for a requirement or for your paycheck or whatever, take the time to teach that class well. Make some pretty slides, read over assignments ahead of time, check your emails as often as possible without driving yourself crazy, and, above all, know what is on the syllabus, especially due dates for assignments and quiz/exam days. Channel your inner Leslie Knope and get it done!
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All Research Updates
Visit to the Duke Lemur Center - July 2015 [Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] ----------------------- "Mada-hoo-ah?" "No, not hoo-ah. As-car." ----------------------- Antananarivo - Week 1 ----------------------- My very first first-author publication!!! ----------------------- Beza Mahafaly - Week 2.5-3 ----------------------- Ancient DNA Lab ----------------------- AAPA 2017 + UpGoer Five Symposium ----------------------- My latest publication :D Let's talk about SNPs ----------------------- Protocol optimization: How to grind up lice ----------------------- Protocol optimization: I am attracted to good magnets ----------------------- MorphoSource Lemur Surface Scan Repository ----------------------- Making a Species Range Map in R ----------------------- Bocas del Toro - Panama [Part 3] ----------------------- Garage Lab ----------------------- Dirty Jobs: Science Edition ----------------------- Training My Undergrad Volunteer Research Assistants ----------------------- Preparing Pretty Poster Presentations ----------------------- All About Aye-ayes ----------------------- Evolution - Montpellier 2018 ----------------------- Oh The Places She's Gone...For Science ----------------------- Making Things Easier For Yourself: A Love Letter To Technology ----------------------- Say Hi To Perry Lab People At AAPA 2019 ----------------------- Evolution - Providence 2019 ----------------------- One-Slide Research Summaries ----------------------- Productivity and Mental Health ----------------------- All Sci Comm Updates
It begins with being taught how to teach... ----------------------- Mueller: Semi-new and definitely improved ----------------------- Sully’s Top Three Teaching Tips ----------------------- Sylly Week & Survey ----------------------- www.online-resources-i-use-when-teaching.com ----------------------- Journal Club ----------------------- Oral Presentations ----------------------- Teaching --> Sci Comm ----------------------- PA Junior Academy of Science ----------------------- Making Things Easier for Yourself: Research Edition ----------------------- Neandertal R Stuffs ----------------------- I submitted a grant proposal that was only 140 characters long… ----------------------- Perry Lab Meeting Up Goer 5 ----------------------- Preparing for Fieldwork [Panama, Part 2] ----------------------- STRI Tupper Seminar - Panama [Part 5] ----------------------- COMPS! 2/3 of the way to Ph.D. ----------------------- Research Opportunity for PSU Undergraduate Student ----------------------- Sci Comm Spotlight: Skype A Scientist ----------------------- Sci Comm Spotlight: March Mammal Madness ----------------------- PostDoc Appreciation ----------------------- All Life
Updates 1st Rugelach Attempt ----------------------- Vacation, bread, and new-ish cat tree ----------------------- New Year, New Blog Goals ----------------------- New Year, New Blog Goals [Take 2] ----------------------- How I Decided Where to Go for My Education – High School, Undergrad, and Grad School ----------------------- Lab Meeting Bakes ----------------------- Not Your Typical International Women’s Day Post ----------------------- Yeast is Beast: Microbiology in Your Kitchen ----------------------- Work & Play in New Orleans ----------------------- Dan’s Improved Eyes ----------------------- The Saga of Poopy Moo ----------------------- We’re Shipping Up to Boston, Woah-oh-oh ----------------------- Reducing Our Waste-Line ----------------------- What Do You Want to Eat This Week? ----------------------- Panama! [Part 1] ----------------------- Mini Vacation with Momma - Panama [Part 4] ----------------------- Let Them Eat Cake [Part 1] ----------------------- 2017 Fall Break ----------------------- Why I Never Liked The Color Pink ----------------------- Let Them Eat Cake [Part 2] ----------------------- Vermicomposting ----------------------- I'm Going To France! ----------------------- Recent Recipes: BA's Best, Some Standbys, and French Macaron ----------------------- Applying to Grad School - Q&A ----------------------- Hello 2019! ----------------------- Cookbook Review: The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, Ina Garten ----------------------- Recent Recipes: Misfit Produce, Valentine's Traditions, And New Favorites ----------------------- Struggles Of Being A Scientist As A Woman/Person With Lady Bits ----------------------- My Dad's Melanoma: Biopsies and Surgeries ----------------------- Happy Birthday To Me / Q&A-A-Day ----------------------- Recent Recipes: Our Favorite Fries ----------------------- Dry Lab
Antananarivo – Week 1 ----------------------- My latest publication :D Let's talk about SNPs ----------------------- Making Things Easier for Yourself: Research Edition ----------------------- Neandertal R Stuffs ----------------------- MorphoSource Lemur Surface Scan Repository ----------------------- Making a Species Range Map in R ----------------------- Education
Penn State University
Applying to Grad School - Q&A ----------------------- Mueller: Semi-new and Definitely Improved ----------------------- COMPS! 2/3 of the way to Ph.D. ----------------------- Family
Vacation, bread, and new-ish cat tree ----------------------- Not Your Typical International Women’s Day Post ----------------------- Work & Play in New Orleans ----------------------- Dan’s Improved Eyes ----------------------- The Saga of Poopy Moo ----------------------- We’re Shipping Up to Boston, Woah-oh-oh ----------------------- Reducing Our Waste-line ----------------------- Mini Vacation with Momma - Panama [Part 4] ----------------------- Let Them Eat Cake [Part 1] ----------------------- 2017 Fall Break ----------------------- Let Them Eat Cake [Part 2] ----------------------- Recent Recipes: BA's Best, Some Standbys, and French Macaron ----------------------- Food
1st Rugelach Attempt ----------------------- Vacation, bread, and new-ish cat tree ----------------------- Lab Meeting Bakes ----------------------- Yeast is Beast: Microbiology in Your Kitchen ----------------------- Work & Play in New Orleans ----------------------- Dan’s Improved Eyes ----------------------- Reducing Our Waste-Line ----------------------- What do You Want to Eat This Week? ----------------------- Mini Vacation with Momma – Panama [Part 4] ----------------------- Let Them Eat Cake [Part 1] ----------------------- 2017 Fall Break ----------------------- Let Them Eat Cake [Part 2] ----------------------- Vermicomposting ----------------------- Recent Recipes: BA's Best, Some Standbys, and French Macaron ----------------------- Friends
Protocol Optimization: How to Grind Up Lice ----------------------- We’re Shipping Up to Boston, Woah-oh-oh ----------------------- Bocas del Toro – Panama [Part 3] ----------------------- All About Aye-ayes ----------------------- Evolution - Montpellier 2018 ----------------------- Me
New Year, New Blog Goals and [Take 2] ----------------------- How I Decided Where to Go for My Education - High School, Undergrad, and Grad School ----------------------- Why I Never Liked The Color Pink ----------------------- Applying to Grad School - Q&A ----------------------- Hello 2019! ----------------------- Perry Lab
Ancient DNA Lab ----------------------- Protocol Optimization: How to Grind Up Lice ----------------------- Protocol Optimization: I am Attracted to Good Magnets ----------------------- MorphoSource Lemur Surface Scan Repository ----------------------- Making a Species Range Map in R ----------------------- Perry Lab Meeting Up Goer 5 ----------------------- Dirty Jobs: Science Edition ----------------------- Training My Undergrad Volunteer Research Assistants ----------------------- Preparing Pretty Poster Presentations ----------------------- All About Aye-ayes ----------------------- Publications
My Very First First-Author Publication!!! ----------------------- My Latest Publication :D Let’s Talk about SNPs ----------------------- Neandertal R Stuffs ----------------------- All About Aye-ayes ----------------------- Sci Comm
Journal Club ----------------------- Oral Presentations ----------------------- Teaching --> Sci Comm ----------------------- PA Junior Academy of Science ----------------------- Making Things Easier for Yourself: Research Edition ----------------------- AAPA 2017 + Up Goer Five Symposium ----------------------- Perry Lab Meeting Up Goer 5 ----------------------- I submitted a grant proposal that was only 140 characters long… ----------------------- STRI Tupper Seminar - Panama [Part 5] ----------------------- COMPS! 2/3 of the way to Ph.D. ----------------------- Preparing Pretty Poster Presentations ----------------------- Sci Comm Spotlight: Skype A Scientist ----------------------- Evolution - Montpellier 2018 ----------------------- Sully Asks A Scientist
Undergrads Audrey Arner Grad Students Daniel T. Schussheim Margarita Hernandez Catherine Herzog Tina Lasisi Kate M. Lesciotto Lily Doershuk Julie D. White Post Docs Stephanie Marciniak Kathleen Grogan Kathryn G. Turner PIs Technicians Teaching
It begins with being taught how to teach... ----------------------- Sully’s Top Three Teaching Tips ----------------------- Sylly Week & Survey ----------------------- Online Resources I Use When Teaching ----------------------- Training My Undergrad Volunteer Research Assistants ----------------------- Travels
Vacation, bread, and new-ish cat tree ----------------------- Visit to the Duke Lemur Center - July 2015 [Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] ----------------------- “Mada-hoo-ah?” “No, not hoo-ah. As-car.” ----------------------- Antananarivo - Week 1 ----------------------- Beza Mahafaly - Week 2.5-3 ----------------------- AAPA 2017 + Up Goer Five Symposium ----------------------- Work & Play in New Orleans ----------------------- We’re Shipping Up to Boston, Woah-oh-oh ----------------------- Panama! [Part 1] ----------------------- Preparing for Fieldwork - Panama [Part 2] ----------------------- Bocas del Toro - Panama [Part 3] ----------------------- Mini Vacation with Momma - Panama [Part 4] ----------------------- STRI Tupper Seminar - Panama [Part 5] ----------------------- 2017 Fall Break ----------------------- I'm Going To France! ----------------------- Evolution - Montpellier 2018 ----------------------- Wet Lab
Ancient DNA Lab ----------------------- Making Things Easier for Yourself: Research Edition ----------------------- Protocol Optimization: How to Grind Up Lice ----------------------- Protocol Optimization: I am Attracted to Good Magnets ----------------------- Garage Lab ----------------------- Training My Undergrad Volunteer Research Assistants ----------------------- Evolution - Montpellier 2018 ----------------------- Wildlife
Visit to the Duke Lemur Center - July 2015 [Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] ----------------------- Beza Mahafaly - Week 2.5-3 ----------------------- Protocol Optimization: How to Grind Up Lice ----------------------- MorphoSource Lemur Surface Scan Repository ----------------------- Making a Species Range Map in R ----------------------- Panama! [Part 1] ----------------------- Bocas del Toro – Panama [Part 3] ----------------------- Mini Vacation with Momma – Panama [Part 4] ----------------------- STRI Tupper Seminar – Panama [Part 5] ----------------------- Garage Lab ----------------------- All About Aye-ayes ----------------------- Evolution - Montpellier 2018 ----------------------- Archives
October 2019
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