2024 goals

A slightly less regular series in the “year end/new year” stable of posts, you can read past attempts at setting professional goals here: 2023, 2020, 2019, and 2018. Actually do some professional developmentIt’s on everyone’s work plan every year, and it always seems to fall off the bottom (followed quickly by research and actual specimen curation). I’ve a...

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2023 by the numbers

You can find previous “By The Numbers” posts here: 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. I didn’t do one in 2021. Wow, that’s a lot of numbers. 5988The number of emails sent, professionally, this year. Second lowest since I started tracking! Hopefully it’ll stay below the 6k mark in 2024. 1043This year’s citation count. I wouldn’t normally include something like...

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2023 goals

In January 2018, I started noting down some goals I had for the year ahead, both professional and personal. My last post in this category was January 2020, and we all know how well the intervening years went in terms of long-term planning. Ooft. You can read the 2020, 2019, and 2018 editions. So with...

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2022 by the numbers

You can find previous “By The Numbers” posts here: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. I didn’t do one in 2021. 5 Years I’ve been in this job as the curator in charge of birds at the Natural History Museum. It’s going well! Though to be honest, I still feel like the “new kid” sometimes. 9 Papers published this...

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2020 by the numbers

Read previous years’ By the Numbers: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 Top posts by views Amusing bird names explained: Fluffy-backed Tit-babbler (2016) Personal academic websites for faculty & grad students: the why, what, and how (2013) Free project ideas in ecology & conservation (2020) What’s in an affiliation? (2016) Overseas field courses and equity, diversity & inclusion (2020) How did we learn that birds migrate (and not to the moon)? A stab in the dark (2013) The advantages…

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Science, people, and surviving in the time of a global pandemic

Well, it’s certainly been a year. Looking back at the last 12 months, it seems unfathomable that anything close to normality could persist, and yet despite lockdowns, a global pandemic, massive curtailing of international travel, and a massive shift in how we work, we try to carry on. Which may not have been the best solution, to be honest. It’s a bit of square peg/round hole. And that is likely to be the source of…

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Queer in STEM ask me anything – another LGBTQ&A

About 2 years ago, I opened up my inbox for you to ask quite literally anything about being LGBTQ+ in science. Since then, some things have changed in the world, and I’ve had a chance to engage with lots of new folks around equity, diversity, inclusion & access both in science, in the museum, and more broadly. Pride Month this past June was also exhausting, and I know from speaking with a few people that…

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