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Tag Archives: scientist

Turning Students Into Scientists with Professor Vigdis Vandvik

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Sam Perrin Leave a comment

Ask any two researchers what separates a student from a scientist and you’ll likely get two completely different answers. Often I hear people writing their PhD thesis being referred to (and even referring to themselves) as scientists-to-be, which is surely ridiculous, considering the amount of time they spend creating data and publishing research (NO I’M NOT BITTER). But even below that level, I know plenty of Master’s students who have put together singularly impressive datasets or papers that must qualify them for the seemingly subjective title of scientist.

The Forefront

Letters to a Pre-Scientist: Promoting Scientific Careers to Kids

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Vanessa Bieker Leave a comment

If you are a scientist, what made you become one? Did you know a scientist before you started to study? Did you know what life as a scientist would be like? Answering these questions for aspiring kids is the goal of the Letters to a Pre-Scientist program, which I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of for the last six months.

Opinions

How You Can Help Out Ecology for the Masses

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Sam Perrin One comment

Here at Ecology for the Masses, we’re quite happy with the blog we’ve built up over the last year and a half. We’ve been able to publish three articles a week on an almost constant basis on what we think is pretty interesting content, and we’ve been rewarded with a decent readership and some great feedback from our audience.

Opinions

Explaining Evolution: Lessons from Friends

Posted on September 26, 2019 by Sam Perrin One comment

Image Credit: Friends, 1995

Yes, I watched Friends as a kid. Yes, I know it’s a comedy show. Yes, I loved it. Yes, I know it had serious problems in it’s depiction of a few minorities. Yes, I know Phoebe is a ball of whimsy and Ross is a condescending jerk. But I run a podcast called Cinematica Animalia and I’m an avid science communicator, so I want to talk about this scene, and what it potentially teaches us about how to talk about science.

Opinions

Modernising Ecological Data Management: Reflections from the Living Norway Seminar

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Sam Perrin Leave a comment

Ecological data is constantly being collected worldwide, but how accessible is it?

Ecological data is constantly being collected worldwide, but how accessible is it? (Image Credit: GBIF, CC BY 4.0, Image Cropped)

This week Trondheim played host to Living Norway, a Norwegian collective that aims to promote FAIR data use and management. It might sound dry from an ecological perspective, but I was told I’d see my supervisor wearing a suit jacket, an opportunity too preposterous to miss. While the latter opportunity was certainly a highlight, the seminar itself proved fascinating, and underlined just how important FAIR data is for ecology, and science in general. So why is it so important, what can we do to help, and why do I keep capitalising FAIR?

Conference Reviews

Shannon McCauley: The Role of Gender in Authorship Bias

Posted on January 24, 2019 by Adam Hasik Leave a comment

Image Credit: Breakingpic, Pexels licence, Image Cropped

Who gets the credit in scientific articles is a pressing question (covered in a previous opinion piece), and deciding how to award authorship is especially relevant given the impact that papers in high-impact journals can have on the trajectory of a scientist early in their career.

With this in mind, I spoke with Dr. Shannon McCauley of the University of Toronto-Mississauga during her November visit to the University of Arkansas (more about Shannon can be found in our previous interview). In addition to giving a talk on some of her research, Shannon also led a workshop on authorship in science. I sat down with her afterwards to talk more about the subject.

The Forefront