I am really pleased to have just joined the British Ecological Society Returners to Science mentoring scheme - as a senior mentor. This is going to be a fantastic opportunity to share my experience of being out of academia (in my case for an extended period) and - being lucky enough - to come back to it.
Mentoring has a crucial role to play in this - and you'll see featured heavily on this website. We lack a range of role models which encourage people from different ethnicities, cultural backgrounds and with a wider range of experiences to take up, or continue a career in academia, and more generally, in science. There are a lot of people writing on this topic at present, Athene Donald's co-hosted blog - Occam's Typewriter, gives great insight into the challenges that women face in academia. I also wrote a post on the topic for Rapid Ecology. If you have suggestions or tips for returners to science, please contact me.
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In search of micropylesWhen I arrived at the University of Lincoln in 2015, I started a project on a topic I had not worked on before: micropyles. These intriguing structures found on insect eggs (but analogous structures are also found in ovules of seeds in plants and on the eggs of fishes, among other organisms), are the point of sperm entry. Literally micropyle (from the Greek mikro- pule) means small gate: what a wonderful word!
My model species was the Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella, which proved rather difficult because of the size of its eggs, about half a millimetre long, or about the size of a dot on this page! It followed a year and a half of trying to image Plodia's micropyles with a variety of imaging techniques, to no avail. Recently, however, I have started collaborating with Professor Johanna Mappes on her model species, the wood tiger moth, Arctia plantaginis, an aposematic moth with larger eggs. Thanks to new Alicona 3D imaging microscope, just installed at our department, Sarah Aldridge (also a new collaborator) has captured this amazing image of a micropylar plate on A. plantaginis. Enjoy. In August I attended the International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE) 18th congress in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was one of the best conferences I have ever attended. Not just because of the great science I expect to find, but because this is one of the most child-friendly conferences in my field. There were fewer participants than usual, which meant I could interact with people more easily. The range of topics covered and the plenaries were inspiring - which is exactly what you want a conference to be. It was set in the beautiful and friendly city of Minneapolis. Above all though, ISBE provided free childcare and travel grants for early career researchers. As an early career researcher, part postdoc part lecturer, and with a young family (I have a brood of three), this is an amazing opportunity to present my work, meet colleagues and travel with my family. I submitted a poster and a travel grant and was lucky enough to secure both. As I started preparing my poster, the children were interested in what I was doing. It seemed fitting that they should prepare their posters too. And so they did. We went along to the conference with all posters rolled up in my tube (even managed to retrieve it after forgetting it during the security checks!) and the two eldest and I (the youngest wasn't so keen in preparing his), attended the poster session. Needless to say, their posters were far more popular than mine! The children loved the evening sharing their work with other conference participants, it was the highlight of our stay. After the conference, we took some time to explore the green and blue state of Minnesota, which is just about perfect for a family of nature addicts. Below is a selection of our favourite nature shots. If you ever get the chance, Minnesota is gorgeous. In September (9th-15th) I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina to participate to a UK-Argentina collaborative programme on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed getting to know the UK delegation as well as the Argentinian partners. It was the beginning of spring in the southern hemisphere, and as we toured Buenos Aires and local farms, it was amazing to see local wildlife we great ease as soon as we left the city. We started the workshop by exploring AMR from a variety of angles, then for the next two days, we visited pig, cattle and chicken farms. On Thursday we narrowed down the type of research questions that we will be able to tackle and on Friday finally, we had the opportunity to visit the Argentinian capital. I hope that this workshop will be the beginning of new collaborations and encourage greater integration of evolutionary ecology with other disciplines more versed to dealing with this public health threat. |
AuthorGraziella Iossa Archives
August 2023
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