Now, what was I doing?: Two marking gems

"Before farming, settlers had to defrost the land" [deforest]

"Beetles are made out of a very tough substance - cretin" [chitin]

Synonyms and pseudonyms

see below for a fuller list
"Beach Studies" - the very interdisciplinary discipline I work in
"Kleggich" - new role arising from Lemonade Stand taken on in 2015. necessary teaching design, coordination and delivery with added administrivia
"Lemonade Stand" - NorthernUni is undergoing a 'comprehensive refreshment programme' and I am on the working group in my department. It's about as stressful and paperworkful as it sounds...
"Shellology" - the new STEM programme recently launched within Beach Studies
"Sandcastles" - my own research area (STEM)
"Stationary Studies" - STEM discipline of my first degree; separate department in NorthernUni

The Cast

FAMILY
Parentals one parent of each gender, still happily married to each other and highly skilled at bickering, retired to parentville, a Place-Sister-And-I-Hated-Going-To-For-Holidays-When-We-Were-Kids
Sister younger, slim, blonde, has a much more normal life than me with hounds (three spaniels), neice and brother-in-law - still lives near BirthPlace
Furball: the cat who deigns to live in my house and does me the honour of walking on me when I'm asleep
COLLEAGUES
Incoming Current Head of Department, hired for that purpose from a 'better' university. Very nice person, not a great manager
WierdBugMan friend, research collaborator (C and F), indispensible. Retired summer 2009. I am so :-(. Will still be around in honourary position, occasionally, when the weather is bad...
FocusedWoman research collaborator (mainly theme E) at another UK university, friend - bossy, warm-hearted and demanding - and a new mother
NOTE: THESE NAMES ARE COMPOSITES - I USE THEM TO WRITE ABOUT RELEVANT ANTICS FROM ANY COLLEAGUE
Dr Chatterbox colleague who appears to spend most of his (they're all male) time wandering around gossipping and who is impervious to hints like 'I'm busy'
Golden Boy again, all male. Think they are marvellous, destined for glory, sometimes very annoyed that their glory is not rewarded as it should be, ambitious, competitive... tiring.
Dr Labrador bouncy, well meaning younger colleague who sometimes seems to have no idea what it was like to be a student
Dr Grumble Older colleague. Best source of amusing tea-room banter!
Dr Touchy academic in related area, friend and ally, but we do have different styles of working... (previously DrN)
DrX and other alphabeticals - a label temporarially borne by any individual academic colleague I want to quote or cite
RESEARCHERS
DrVisit - referred to earlier as ExoticCountryVisitor. Professor from ExoticCountry who has a one year fellowship to the UK and has chosen to spend it with my group. working on C, hoping to apply outputs to A
PostDocF aka PDF former graduate student in area A, stayed with the group as a post-doc on Project F
RESEARCH STUDENTS
LikesMaths PhD student from Exotic Country
StudentElsewhere PhD student at another local university - I'm second supervisor
KeenStudent enthusiastic student who finished PhD in 2014, still local & job hunting
OverseasStudent student I will be co-supervising for a PhD in her home country from September 2010 in topic C - still going!!!
BlockedStudent elusive graduate student who did all her lab work years ago and is supposedly writing up but doesn't get in touch. A worry. She has GREAT data - and is also a new mum. crossover between A & B
DissStu a multiple and annually changing cast of project students doing research projects as part of honours BSc or taught MSc degrees, part of the group for 6-12 months typically. Exceptional specimens get their own nicknames...

Current Projects

My pseudonym for my area of science is Beach Studies. The way I do it, it involves fieldwork, labwork, microscopy, statistics and computer modelling.
THEME A: the topic that drew me into this field originally
FavouriteIslands various activities around a beloved field area. PostDocF did her PhD on samples from there.
Commercial work I do a small amount of freelance sample analysis under this theme (or hand it off to lab members)
Problem Child: application of theme C software to theme A question. PDF worked on this for six months 2013-14. However, due to 'issues beyond our control' the work is barely started. PDF is now in another uni on another project at the other end of the country, and completing Problem Child is going to give me grey hairs...
THEME B: the only "original" idea I could come up with for post-doc money. Has a lot of potential but right now is a bit neglected
Overseas field area field area for my overseas post-doc. I still have a lot of data to write up from the post-doc and a subsequent project, and some ideas for future projects
THEME C: started as a "must do something" activity when my first post-doc field season went completely terribly. Through involvement with International Working Group, and work with WierdBugMan, this has grown and grown. But I'm not doing well at getting MONEY for it
Our Software WierdBugMan wrote it based on my concepts - he keeps me grounded, I send him off down lines of enquiry he'd never considered...
Data crunching something I do a lot under this theme. Current collaborations include DataCrunchingProject and working on data from Exotic Country with DrVisit's group (DrVisit is a professor from ExoticCountry had an 18 month fellowship/sabbatical with us a few years ago)
Parameterising the models involves the fun stuff like field and lab work. Project F involved quite a bit of this, and LikesMaths is working on this for their PhD
THEME E essentially about applications of my subject, and academia-practitioner interactions
Informal working group I lead this, it sort of... happened. It might be turning into something more structured. Or not! Lots of ideas here, struggling to get funded
PROJECT F: Funded by an atypical oneoff university source, employed PostDocF (PDF) for nearly four years, finished summer 2013. Masses to write up from it! It's partly Theme C, partly a new area linked to my undergrad degree discipline (a different science-label to the one I work in now)
THEME G: the parts of project F which aren't Theme C - involve some new-to-me techniques linking back to my original degree area
Remora: work using theme G skills, hanging off a (funded) StationaryStudies project with led by DynamicStationer, my work with Friend is currently unfunded. Friend and I ran a small pilot summer 2013. Summer 2014 we have a bigger and better pilot at DynamicStationer's nearby field site and some laboratory experiments planned. I co-supervise some PhD students in DynamicStationer's group, too.
GALLIMAUFRY Large international project (minimally funded). I coordinate a working group with a Theme C related mission.

Now, what was I doing?

Friday, January 27, 2017

Two marking gems

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Top Left Quadrant Group

Pure self-indulgence

About Me

Synonyms and pseudonyms

Popular Posts

The Cast

Current Projects

And again!

Victory! (something positive came from that stupid virus, at least)

I needed the escapism more than the sleep...

Did it again!

I did it!

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