The Post-PhD Conversation

My PhD graduation.

This is the conversation you have with your partner, your PhD supervisor, your peers, mentors, sponsors, or those who have long ago finished their PhD.

 

It’s that conversation where you go in with the obvious question –

what do I want to do after my PhD?

– and come out with a plan.

Let’s look at what your conversation might be. Here are 5 options.

The ecological gift

Using a handlens to observe a bryophyte (moss). Image copyright: Fiona Walsh ‘Gumboots Photography’ https://gumboots.carbonmade.com/

A knots book and long rope

Plant press (18cmX18cm)

Check out Paperbarkwriter for this beautiful book

Searching for children’s STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) based gifts isn’t hard. A google search will turn up items like building blocks, Lego, electronic/snap circuit sets, robotic kits, electronic toys, K’NEX, telescope, test-tube kits, science in a box kits etc. etc.

While these choices are great, why not instead buy something different – like the younger versions of the toys – tools, I mean tools- that ecologists use?

Despite much searching I couldn’t find any useful lists on the web to refer you to. So I’ve made my own based on my childhood, presents we have been given, suggestions given to me and from the experience of having four children of my own.

This list is sorted from least to more expensive; these gifts will keep on giving and fuel the ecologist in any child.

Moss Lady

 

“Hellooooo”

I looked around. I swore I heard someone calling out. The silver wattle swayed. The mountain ash towered. No. I must have been dreaming. I was tired. I reckoned I still had enough daylight to do one more site but maybe the three I had done would do. I was stuffed. I shook my head and refocused.

“Helloooo? Moss Lady. Are you there?”

I wasn’t dreaming. The Melbourne Water crew thought it amusing that I would spend my days looking for moss. ‘Moss Lady’. It was novel and easier to say than my real name, so it stuck. I doubt they actually remembered my real name.

How a childhood outdoors shaped my ecological career

 

As a child, getting out in the Australian ‘bush’ was a regular event (image taken ~1982)

My father scanned all the family photos and it has been interesting to compare the places we visited back in the 1970’s and 1980’s with what they look like now. But what also struck me was the importance of our holidays, from my childhood to now.

Filing the photos made me realise that for me, my childhood camping trips with my family in the Australian bush are what I would class as my first and most significant childhood introduction to ecology. I also believe it influenced why I chose to become an ecologist.

What was your first significant encounter with the environment as a child?  Do you believe it influenced your subsequent career choice?

The majestic Pencil Pine: pushed to the brink

On Jan 13^th 2016, approximately 70 lightning strikes hit the west of Tasmania.

About 20 of those strikes started fires.

So many lightning strikes. There were more than usual. However, fire caused by dry lightning in this area is totally expected. What was not expected is the devastation that followed.

Pencil Pine at Lake McKenzie, post-fire, 2016. © Rob Blakers

Ecology detectives: species on the move on Heard Island

It was the 25^th November 1853. Captain John Heard sighted land*. Heard’s wife, who was on board, called the land “a frigid looking place”.

 

How right she was, and so wrong too. 

 

Heard Island. The view from aboard the Southern Supporter. © Robb Clifton

Research involving historical data can turn up many a query and solve many a mystery. So can investing in scientific research and monitoring. The following scientific expedition involved much detective work including historical literature which informed monitoring and research.

Heard Island 2003-2004 expeditioners (source Australian Antarctic Magazine Issue 7 Spring 2004)

On Heard Island, one hundred and fifty years after it was first sighted, 28 scientists and support crew landed. I went ashore with 12 people to ‘Try Pot Beach’ otherwise known as ‘The Spit’, as part of the Terrestrial Ecologist crew. So started two and a half months on subantarctic Heard Island.

The Dos and Don’ts in an interview

(or, Why a music performance is similar to an interview)

The first position in my field that I applied for was before handing in my Hons. thesis, and I had started working before giving my defence. The first position I applied for after my PhD I was accepted into without an interview. The next applied for position I didn’t get, after that I gave a 70% performance in a post-doc interview and got the position, and recently I was knocked back.

Getting knocked back can take the wind out of your sails but learning from your mistakes and moving forward with positivity is much more productive. And today I tried again.

Writing an academic book review

A few titles recently sent out for review

For a previous blog, I wrote about what it was like to be a book review editor for two ecological journals. I am constantly asked questions like: What is the process for writing an academic book review?  How does one choose a book to review? Which journal should it be published in? How does one write a book review?

The following three Parts give some answers to these questions. Whilst the reviews I commission and edit have an ecological flavour, the answers below can apply to all academic book reviews.

Part 1. Choosing the book.

Part 2. Selecting the journal.

Part 3. Writing the review.

Because this post is long, I have split it so you can skip sections. Read each Part, or select one to answer your question. Bookmark this blog and come back to it later. Overall, I hope you find what you read useful and/or stimulating for your next book review.

The Ecological Book Review Editor

A few titles recently sent out for review

Late one Friday, in November 2008, I hit send. I knew it was poorly worded but my email was gone.

“Not sure where I put your last email – but just wondering if you still needed applicants for this position?”

I began as the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) Book Review Editor for the journals Austral Ecology (AE), and Ecological Management and Restoration (EMR), in March.  My third child was ~4 weeks old. Was I insane? Perhaps. Thanks to the previous editor, Ian Lunt, I was well equipped – his description of the role was detailed and methodical. I still use his guidelines and what few questions I had were quickly responded to.  I was ready.

My reasons for wanting the role were partly selfish. My post-doc had wound up, and given we were still collecting data, there were few papers on the radar (>20 have generated from the project since). I’d gone back to work 5 months after my eldest was born, so it wasn’t as if I couldn’t work. However, finding work in ecology was getting harder, and moving wasn’t an option. How many women do you know in ecology who work part-time/full-time with 3 or more children? I realised I now walked around with a label on my forehead – “she has three children”. I needed my career label to cover the label that now says “OMG now she has 4 children – she definitely can’t do it!” I needed to keep ‘in the loop’ and this was one way.

Living in the line of fire

“Dense human settlements in eastern Australia are located in perhaps the biggest pile of flammable vegetation fuel on the planet.”

Prof. William Bond wrote this in a review of Flammable Australia. Fire Regimes, Biodiversity and Ecosystems in a Changing World. It was rather poignant that our correspondence regarding his book review was only a week after the Tasman Peninsula fires at Dunalley. The fires were burning 20 kms from our property, as the crow flies. The images below were taken from our house:

The Tasman Peninsula Fire, 4th January 2013. Images a,b,c and d show the progression of the fire with time shown. The arrow (image b) shows the height of the convection column. The height of this column demonstrates the strong winds and the direction the passage of embers which created spotting well in front of the firefront.

Fire wasn’t once the big topic it is now. Bond describes this in his review, citing that the subject, once in the ‘ghettos’ is now mainstream and now global: vegetation modelling; satellite imagery; historical accounts (we can include social media here); paleoecology; weather modelling; and fire behaviour science. Indeed with all these things fire ecology is bigger than it once was. But for me, the crux of the matter is in the words quoted above.