Posts

Celebrating my billionth - with a B!!

Yes, you read that right. Today, I celebrate my 1,000,000,000th!! My 1 billionth what, you ask? My 1 billionth second of being on this planet! Humans are fantastically bad at comprehending large numbers.
Sep 29, 2020 Blog Post

A Strange Reality

Today has placed me in a strange reality, yet it is also a fairly common one across much of the academic world. Just over 3 months ago, I defended my doctoral research.
Jul 20, 2020 Blog Post

Don't Worry, I'm a Doctor!

Yesterday, April 20, 2020, I successfully defended my doctoral research! In the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, the defense was completely virtual (other than one of my co-advisors being in the room).
Apr 21, 2020 Project Update

Summer Shenanigans

So, my final summer as a PhD student just wrapped up and I have to say I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. This summer led to a wide range of new experiences, projects, and results.
Aug 20, 2019 Project Update

Spring Semester Wrap-up!

As the spring semester wraps up and the 2018-19 school year comes to a close. I am currently prepping for the LAST field season of my doctoral work! I am slated to graduate in May 2020, which means I will be defending my dissertation in February or March, most likely.
May 9, 2019 Project Update

Catalpa Creek Tributaries - A Preliminary Investigation

You can download a PDF copy of a recent presentation on the topic of this post here At this point, we have completed the lab work-up of nearly all of the 2018 macroinvertebrate coarse samples from the two Catalpa Creek tributaries that we are investigating.
Apr 23, 2019 Blog Post

Preparing for Prelims!

Well, the time has officially arrived! Next week, I will begin my preliminary exams to fulfill my requirements to move from a Ph.D student to a Ph.D candidate! This means that starting on Monday, I will start a week of written exams, one from each of my dissertation committee members.
Jan 23, 2019 Project Update

Haplotype Shuffle

As mentioned in the project description of my Aeromonas work, we are currently working with two different strains/genotypes of virulent Aeromonas hydrophila. Dealing with multiple strains of a bacteria can prove difficult with creating vaccines or administering antibiotics so we wanted to see how the temporal distribution of these two strains compared.
Jan 14, 2019 Project Update

Pens to Fight Fears

Stop teaching students that they need to remove or hide all of their mistakes! This instills a fear of making mistakes that will also reduce the student’s willingness to try new things!
Dec 7, 2017 Blog Post

You Should Go Outside More

Maybe we should teach topics about nature…mixed with a little nature?! Go outside! Get muddy, scrape a knee, step in a puddle, pull a leaf off of a tree (sparingly, of course)!
Nov 30, 2017 Blog Post