Wow. It’s been over a year since my last blog post. A lot has happened since then, though not a lot scientifically which is why I haven’t posted much. Not a lot of updates for me other than lots of (failed) applications, lack of publishing, and that little global pandemic throwing everything into disarray… One … More Working as a lab manager
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, primarily because I have been extraordinarily busy, and also because I haven’t felt like I’ve had much interesting to say lately. I’ll have some more science-related posts soon (I hope), but for now, I wanted to talk about something that’s been bugging me a lot lately: my reasoning … More Now a British-Canadian palaeontologist! Why I chose to get citizenship
Seems like yet another year is drawing to a close. How do they keep passing so quickly? Stop that! Since it’s the end of the year again, I guess it’s time for another year in review about what I’ve been up to. 2018 was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Nothing particularly bad, … More 2018 – Year in Review
Recently, Nature published an article titled ‘Why you should move country‘, about the advantages of moving countries as academics. A study has shown that those who are more mobile get more citations, better collaborations, etc. This article sparked a discussion on Twitter about advantages and disadvantages of moving for academia, and there were many opinions … More Why I don’t want to move country
Well, I’ve managed to fail at my scicomm resolution for the year, which was to write at least one blog post a month. I missed out on September, but I’m back on it in October with an update on what I’ve been up to in the past few months. As some of you know, I’ve … More Early tetrapod feeding
I’ve just returned from a 2 week stint in California, where I had a bit of holiday visiting some family, and also attended Flugsaurier 2018, the semi-annual pterosaur conference. Held every 2-3 years, Flugsaurier focuses on the up-and-coming pterosaur research from around the world. It’s a small, specialist conference with 40-70 people typically who work … More Flugsaurier 2018 – Los Angeles
Since I’m currently without a full-time academic job, last week I was doing something a little bit different, as part of the company I own with my husband. We were participating in Quantum Start Up Week, part of a programme put on by the University of Bristol and Spin Up Science. The main point of … More Quantum Start-up Week
I’ve been a little bit busy and haven’t had a chance to blog about the most recent paper I was involved with, on pterosaur jaw disparity! This paper has been a long time coming, and was my lead by my first ever Master’s student, Charlie Navarro. This project came out of his MSc thesis at … More Pterosaur jaw shape – what does it mean?
As many of you may know from my random musings, you’ll know that I am a supporter of the idea of Open Access publishing. I strongly believe that research should be open to everyone, and think it’s unfair that universities have to shell out millions to get access to material, especially when it’s government funded. … More My Green OA experience
Recently, information about a “new” species of pterosaur has been making the rounds. This is not a new phenomenon – stories like this often make the news. This animal has been touted as the largest pterosaur ever, and was reportedly flightless, both things making this an extremely significant animal in terms of understanding pterosaur diversity … More Don’t do PR before the paper’s out
Last night, I had a chance to see the wonderful documentary Dream, Girl, all about female entrepreneurs. It was great to see these stories of successful female businesswomen, now CEO’s of their own companies, who had a dream, and made it happen, regardless of the risks. A few things resonated with me – stories of … More I’m an entrepreneur?
…and that’s ok! I think it’s important to talk about what happens when we do make mistakes, and the importance of it. Sometimes you misinterpret data, or do the wrong analysis, or get something wrong. Normally these things are caught in peer review, but sometimes the mistake is so difficult to catch, that it even … More Sometimes scientists make mistakes…
Anyone who’s followed my blog or twitter might have read that after my PhD I managed to get a temporary part-time job as a research assistant in an osteoarthritis lab after I finished. I was extremely lucky to get this position. A week before my viva, the lab PI emailed my PhD supervisor based in … More A palaeontologist turns arthritis researcher
Anyone that knows me and readers of this blog may know that my PhD did not exactly go according to plan. This started basically exactly half way through my PhD, at the beginning of my 3rd year when my supervisor left, initially temporarily, and then a few months later that turned permanent. I will not … More Things I learned during my PhD – Do’s and don’t’s for students to staff
As 2017 comes to a close, I am doing my usual reflections on the last year, and it turns out there’s a lot for me to reflect on this year. 2017 was probably the biggest year for me in terms of life-changing events and things going on in my life, and there are a few … More 2017 – A big year
Musings of a Clumsy Palaeontologist 