One of the often frustrating things about the scientific process is finally getting the manuscripts published. This is true of reports, theses, journal articles, white papers, and more. Anything that undergoes any mechanism of external review where a response is needed. Journal manuscripts are the most common in my line of work, so that’s where I’ll focus, though this applies elsewhere, too. When scientists submit manuscripts to a journal, journal editors who think the submission…

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Everyone has those “remember where you were when you heard X” moments in their life. One of the prominent ones in my life was 20 years ago today. I was sitting in my bedroom eating dinner and watching TV. It was October 7th, 1998 and I was 15. 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die, which he did 5 days later. And if you want to watch the iconic…

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As I was cooking dinner tonight, it dawned upon me that 13 years ago I made a decision that would would have a profound impact on my personal and professional life: I came out. Or, more accurately, I came out for the first time. I wrote a bit about it earlier this summer: On September 15th, 2005 after getting home from the lab, I realised I had to tell someone, so I called up one of…

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Last week, I put a call out for things that LGBTQ+ folk in STEM wished their straight friends & colleagues could instantly understand. I had previously put together a list of “required reading/viewing“, and was drawing up my own list for a future talk on the hidden diversity in science. The dozen responses I had were all incredibly useful, and things that I had thought about (though perhaps not articulated as well as the respondents).…

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Whenever I’m asked to give a research seminar, I always include a little queer content. Most of the time, this is a shout out at the end when I show my last slide with contact info, website, and Twitter handle, where I give a shout out to LGBTQ+ STEM, which I help run. But lately I’ve started developing a different kind of seminar, aimed at telling the story of my journey as a gay/queer man…

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Its July. Pride month has wrapped, though some parades will continue through the summer. It was a fairly busy month, blog-wise, for me, largely because The Lab and Field had been so quiet in the last few years (apologies). But one post from June stood out as the one that garnered more feedback than most – my LGBT STEM Q&A / Ask Me Anything. And I’ve had a couple of people say they had wished they…

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Thanks to everyone who sent in a question. I know there are a quite a few more who were also interested in the responses. While the Google form is now closed, you can always leave questions anonymously in the comments below, or find me by email or twitter. Like I mentioned originally, my reason for doing this is because it’s something *I* wish someone had done for me, so I assume that at least one…

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Continuing the Pride month series, a short announcement – I’m doing a “Queer in STEM” AMA (Ask Me Anything). If you have questions, queries, quandaries, conundrums or dilemmas around the topic of being an out gay/queer scientist, or just being gay/queer I will have a go at providing an answer. You can submit your question using this (anonymous) Google form, in the comments below, or by email (thelabandfield@gmail.com). The only data collected on the form…

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For this next in a series of Pride month posts, I’ll touch on a subject that I have often found frustrating, not only in terms of queerness, but many other complex ideas — how to quickly get a large volume of information, and convey the significance of that information, to someone new in a short time. In the context of this post, what would I like to instantly convey to straight colleagues so they could…

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There are many topics that I often find myself explaining to my straight colleagues. Mostly it’s out of their desire to know more, or better understand my experiences as an out gay scientist. But in the 13 years or so since I’ve come out (and in fact for several years before then, too) the one thing that I’ve consistently had the most reactions of surprise from straight colleagues is that there are places in the…

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