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early career

How to Foster Passion for Quantitative Methods in Life Sciences: A Step-by-Step Guide

by Norma Rocio Forero Muñoz (norma.rocio.forero.munoz@nullumontrea.ca) My dream of becoming a disease ecologist took me through the journey of exploring quantitative methods. However, this adventure required the resilience to transform frustration into enjoyment. I am a Colombian DVM pursuing a Ph.D. in computational ecology at Université de Montréal. During my training at the veterinary school, I was convinced that I…

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Meet an Early Career Ecologist: Christine Sit!

by Christine Sit Hi! I’m Christine, I am a post-baccalaureate intern at Archbold Biological Station. I am able to be here because of a generous grant from the Vaughn-Jordan Foundation, who support research internships at Archbold’s Plant Ecology Program. I began my internship four months ago and am now in the middle of my project! My project focuses on plant…

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A woman scuba diving in sea grass and bare ocean floor.

The Long Way Around: the struggles of reentering ecology research

by Hayley Henderson By the time I was about to graduate high school, I was too busy trying to live until tomorrow to think of a future for myself. Many of my classmates had careers already in mind – intelligence security, computer engineering, veterinarian science. They’d talk about them openly, about summer internships, the best schools to apply to, the…

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Differential Gene Expression: successful parenting strategies for Caribbean coral

by Krti Tallam Note from the Author: Nia Symone Walker is a 4th year PhD Candidate at Stanford University. Nia received her degree in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 2016.  Prior to her graduate studies, Nia conducted research as a Science Educator for the Maritime Aquarium’s classrooms, supported by NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Grants Program. Nia primarily uses…

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Three elephants walking across a sandy road, with forest in the background. On the left is the biggest elephant, and to her right is a baby. The third elephant is on the baby elephant's right side. All three are looking at the photographer.

Conflict Mitigation or Coexistence?

Krti Tallam At the age of 13, my eagerness to make real-world impact, coupled with a thirst for environmental conservation and human wellbeing, fueled me to create an internship with an international conservation organization and then travel there to fill that spot. A day after final exams, I found myself in the remote Western Ghats of south India, studying Asian…

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Research site networks

USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests & Ranges and Research Natural Areas As an early career ecologist, securing funds for new, field-based studies can be challenging.  One strategy is to collaborate on existing studies.  This type of collaboration is cost efficient because study establishment is already completed, allowing collaboration to focus on continuing the original objectives (e.g., re-measuring) or developing new…

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Team science techniques for highly effective teams

Ecology is becoming an increasingly collaborative science, as seen in part by the increasing number of authors on ecology publications. As an early career ecologist, you’ve probably already worked in at least a few, and maybe many, collaborative research teams, whether your collaborators came from within your lab group, or institutions around the world. You’ve probably also already realized that…

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Teaching as training for scientific communication

It is clear that the role of scientists in society has shifted over the past few decades. With the explosion of communication methods and accessible information/disinformation at one’s fingertips, dissemination of science is falling more and more on the shoulders of the scientists themselves. There is no longer one way for the public to acquire scientific findings (science journalists) and…

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Tips for striving toward work-life balance

Striving for Work-life Balance Being an early career ecologist is tough. Launching an ecology career requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice as you seek to set a research agenda, build collaborations, write grants, and publish, publish, publish. This is all the more challenging if you want to have a life outside of your career. I went to graduate…

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Photo by C. Kern

Get more from data & share!

Data and publishing Data publication has been a new endeavor for me and was not addressed during my training in graduate school.  I have my first data publication out (Roberts et al. 2016) and have more in-progress.  Given my recent look into this, I thought it would be worth posting this topic to prompt further discussion within early career ecologist…

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Early Career Mentoring Program at #ESA2016

We’re running a targeted Early Career Mentoring program again this year! Conferences provide unique opportunities for biologists to interact with others in their field; however, these opportunities are rarely structured to promote meaningful interactions between the next generation ecologists and more senior scientists. Access to strong mentors both within and outside of their main institution is critical to support early…

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ESA 2016: Early Career Section Events

The Early Career Ecologist Section has been busy proposing, organizing, and collaborating to offer many events and resources in the near future. See our page for ESA 2016 for more details on these and other events! They include: An Early Career Section Booth – Come and visit! We’ve worked to make this a Parent-Friendly meeting. See our Blog Post. Our…

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