The human animal

I've been a little lax about posts lately.
But, to be fair, I'm in the middle of a field season, so cut me some slack.
I generally use this blog to talk about general issues that face field biologist, rather a forum to talk about my own research, leaving that topic for my website.

But, in lieu of a post, here's a link to a recent article in a popular science blog that focuses on animal behavior, The Scorpion and the Frog.
The article uses some of my research on female competition in birds as a jumping off point for discussing female competition in humans.

A great example of how we can gain insight into ourselves by studying animals.

Unknown unknowns

New field site

When preparing to begin a remodeling project the usual advice is that the project will take three times as long and cost twice as much money as any estimate you calculate. This sounds a bit pessimistic but if you've ever done a big remodeling project you probably recognize the truth of that statement. It's accurate because there are a lot of unknown variables, even unknown unknowns, which are really fun. Generally speaking these things gum up the works, complicating, delaying and increasing headaches.

A similar statement can be applied to any new project, and the reasons are the same. Unknown variables. These variables include things like learning the quirks of new equipment, using new software, or optimizing a new assay. When you are working in the field this is amplified a bit because you have to deal with things you have 0 control over, things like weather, predation, forest fires and finding your animals.

When you've been working at a particular site or with a particular species for awhile you have a pretty good grip on how things are going to go and can plan accordingly. However, if you have a new site, new species, or new technique your introducing some unknown variable and things might be a little rough at the start.

I happened to design a particularly ambitious project for my postdoc research. I'm using a new species, in a new country, with new equipment and techniques. These things are combining to make the learning curve for this project a little bit steep. Consequently, progress has been a little slower that I had planned.

However, the data are finally rolling in, and that makes it all worth it.

Playing catch-up

It's not unusual to feel behind. In fact it is part and parcel of the job. There are just too many hats to wear, too many tasks to attend to. If you don't feel a little bit swamped you're probably not doing enough, or you figured something out and should let me know the secret. One of the many things I need to play catch-up on is this blog.

Here's the quick and dirty summary of events since the last entry. I received multiple post-docs offers, made the very difficult (and also very easy) decision to take the offer  in Australia, I wrote a dissertation, defended said dissertation, move to Virginia to teach for the summer, packed up my life, traveled the US visiting friends and family, and moved my immediate family to the literal opposite side of the world.

We've been here for 2 months now, which doesn't sound like a long time but we've packed it in. In those 2 months I've been busy as a bee trying to keep all the balls I'm juggling in the air. I am simultaneously working on getting some manuscripts from my dissertation work published, writing a book chapter over some of that research, completing all the paper work and jumping through all the usual hoops necessary to start a new project plus a few added hoops because I'm new in this country, learning the new skills I'm using for this project, writing proposals to get some money for this project, and starting the actual data collection for the project.

But don't think I am complaining. I've always been a better at multitasking than single-tasking. Plus, I really do enjoy what I do and I'm hard at work ticking things off the to-do list  one-by-one. So, on that note, here's an inspirational light switch cover we saw on our US travels.

Next steps

So far in my academic career, the path forward has a well-marked trail. That doesn't mean the hike is easy. Sometimes is often quite steep or rocky, and people are falling off the side of the mountain all the time. But, the way forward is usually pretty clearly marked.

But now, the end is getting close and the way forward is murky. This is partially driven by the fact that all students are striving to get their degree, but once the degree is in hand our goals suddenly diverge in many directions. Freshly minted PhDs in my field get jobs in industry, government, non-profit conservation agencies, private consulting groups or even writing for the popular press. Each of these paths require their own path forward. However, most of us are gunning for a academic tenure-track faculty position. But that single destination can be approached from many directions. Some biologist go straight to the job, they don't pass go or collect $200. However, most would-be faculty members spend some time as a post-doc, which is like a medical doctor residency. Your a real doctor, but your still in training and still answer to an adviser, though hopefully you have a little more latitude than you did as a grad student.
But all post-docs are not equal and the ways that you get a post-doc are varied and diverse. There are research post-docs, there are teaching post-docs and there are combination post-docs. There are the big, glamorous, national agency fellowships (National Science Foundation or National Institute of Health), there are university fellowships, there are private organization fellowships, and there are research institutions fellowships. Some provide funding for 5 years, others for 6 months. Another option is to write a grant with a adviser of your choice and hope it is funded. Or, if they already have funding, you can apply for the position like you would a more typical job. Some advisers will treat you as a colleague and collaborator, allowing you to be involved in the design and planning of the research. Others will use you as a glorified lab technician and manager.

The best part is that every one of these options have different application procedures, and all of them take substantial chucks of time. The due dates for applications are also all over the calendar and some applications will be evaluated in a single month, while other programs can take more than 6 months (cough-NSF-cough). Consequently, if you are lucky or brilliant and get multiple offers, you'll probably get them at all different times. This means you'll likely have to make decisions based on very incomplete data. I know people who have turned down positions hoping for something better, but never got another offer. And others who accepted a less than ideal position because it was a sure thing, only to find out too late that they also won a dream fellowships position that they had to turn down.

You would be foolish to put all your eggs in one basket. But each basket takes time to weave. And time spent weaving baskets is time taken away from writing the dissertation. Ahhh... trade-offs, my constant companion, where have you been? It's been at least 10 minutes since I saw you last. I think my next entry should be devoted to you and you alone.

Juggling, aka multitasking

There was a dark time in my life, after undergrad and before I got a job as a wildlife biologist (which was before grad school) when I took any job I could get in order to eat. Being the bright youngster that I was I figured if I needed to eat, might as well get a job in a restaurant. So I bluffed my way into a job as a cook at a 24 hour diner. There were many, many, things about this job that sucked. But, I got really good at juggling a lot of things at once. Not real juggling mine you, but multitasking. I worked the drunk shift (weekend nights 10pm- 6am) and it was a very popular diner so from the moment I got there until around 4:30am we were slammed. As the cook I had to make ALL of the food for the place and that meant simultaneously preparing hamburgers, eggs Benedict, enchiladas, pasta, fajitas, pancakes, etc. These things all take different skills and different amount of time to prepare. To do the job right I had to keep a lot of different things in my head and switch back and forth rapidly.
What the heck does this have to do with being a biologist you ask? Well, the pace of the work is, usually, a little slower. But, I am still constantly switching between assignments, and these switches normally involve not only switching subjects, but also switching skill sets. I'm endlessly switching from data entry, to statistics, to writing a paper on a study I finished 4 years ago to brainstorming about what study I want to do in 2 years (or 10), to preparing a presentation, to writing a blog entry about the adventure along the way. I am naturally a multitasker, which helps. But, I can't help but think my time as a diner cook helped.

Batting average

So, turns out science is hard. I know this, no one goes into research thinking it will be easy. We all know the stories of the great discoveries that were accidents or that took 3 gazillion attempts before things worked. But somehow it can still come as a shock whenever you start a new project, especially on that revolves around free-living birds that do things. Unfortunate things like not even showing up for the behavioral trial.
Part of the problem is that once something has been figured out, it's not exciting or novel anymore, so you can only get so much mileage out of it. We all know that replicating findings is important. But, if that is all you do... you are going nowhere fast.
So you try something new, something exciting, something that, if it works, would get you a paper in a nice, highly-ranked journal, or act as preliminary findings for a new grant. But whenever you try something new, you're taking a chance, rolling the dice, and hoping it doesn't come up craps.
A friend of mine compares research to baseball, if you are batting .300 you are doing pretty darn good. But if you think about it that means you are failing more times than not, more than twice as many times actually. So once again, success in science is as much about the willingness to persevere in the face of failure as it is about being able to succeed. Kind of like a lot of other things.

Rejection

One of the hardest things about being an academic is that we are constantly prostrating ourselves to our peers and asking for their approval. Not because we want a pat on the back or to feel good about ourselves but because our existence depends on it. Grants, papers, talks, they all are geared towards presenting our work so that others will give us the thumbs up and say that it is good. To be successful you have to get your colleagues to agree that your work is exciting and important.
To some extent this is no different than being in high school or college. You work on projects or write papers and submit them to the higher authority and hope they like your work. But, now instead of being given an assignment to work on for a week (or even 6 weeks), you come up with your own assignment. You develop an idea yourself (something you think is fascinating and important), you come up with the questions (and hope they are interesting to others), you design the research (and try to make it rigorous, powerful, and feasible), you analyze the data (and make every effort to use the right stats), you write the paper (and hope your ideas translate well). You spend months or sometimes years on one single paper, then you give it (your baby) to a journal editor and they send it out to some anonymous experts to review. And then you wait.
And you wait, and you wait to hear back. And then, finally, you get the verdict. More often than not, the answer is no. No, we don't think this is exciting enough, or novel enough or important enough. No, we don't think you did this, that and the other correctly. No, although you agonized over your word choice and whether to analyze the data this way or that way, the conclusion you came to is wrong. And there it is.
That baby, the one you labored on for so long, they don't like it and don't want it. It is not good enough for them. And for some people this easily translates into, you are not good enough. It can be challenging for the ego to say the least. And you do this over and over and over again. This is your entire career. Repeatedly handing an axe over to someone else, laying you head down on the chopping block and hoping you did enough hard work, and are lucky enough, that the axe won't fall.