Cats who travel for science

First two weeks on the science with friends tour = fun, productive, & exhausting! In the words of Dr. Derek Sawyer – it has felt like an AGU week.

Week 1: Ohio State

Spent the week hosted by Audrey Sawyer – hydrologist extraordinaire and collaborator on all things involving changing flow conditions and nitrogen. Spent the week working with her group on our project in the tidal freshwater zone (with the Skype assist from my awesome undergrad Delaney Tight) and planning summer experiments for Wax Lake Delta with our new collaborator Alex Kolker (LUMCON/Tulane).*

I also got to visit with Rachel Gabor – longtime science friend who is also a professor at OSU. Rachel took me to the experimental wetlands – so cool to see a place I have read so much about.

Met so many great scientists – Joel Barker, Mike Wilkins, Tom Darrah during my visit & got to catch up with many of the students who i have helped out on our TFZ project. In exchange for all this science fun, on Tuesday a ran a brownbag lunch on Mapping your Mentoring Network and was the Earth Science Seminar speaker on Friday afternoon.

 

 

Week 2: Modeling, Filming, & the Mini-Move

Back in COS, I was reminded of how awesome my students are. Delaney is building a numerical biogeochemical box model for her senior thesis – she is modeling the N dynamics in the riparian aquifer. Emily Komie is making a short documentary on our work in the TFZ and did the last bit of filming this week. Fiona is trying to make sense of shifting N deposition patterns across the western U.S.

PLUS… Lynne Gratz and I hosted a pizza lunch for our PROGRESS mentees. We had a great time catching up with Alana, Maggie, Fai, Daryn, Savanna, Ali. Everyone is planning for next steps with Alana, Savanna, and Maggie graduating this May. Whew! So much lady science prowess!

Kitties and I headed north at the end of the week. I am excited to be back in Boulder (I was a postdoc at the USGS from 2008-10) to work with Eve Hinckley and others at INSTAAR.

On deck: (1) writing and more writing, (2) optimizing my mentoring-via-skype skills, and (3) ADVANCEGeo

*Alex and I went to (& later worked at) the same summer camp and both fell in love with the outdoors at Burgundy Center for Wildlife Studies.