Tales of a Graduate Student in Biology

So I'm not entirely sure why I am doing this. Perhaps because coming to graduate school has been a legitimate roller coaster? At any rate, I felt compelled to start this.

I am a first year graduate student in the biological sciences. What am I interested in? Biology, obviously. Genetics, genomics, how gene expression works, especially in embryonic development. I'm also extremely interested in evolutionary biology and studying evolution through genomics and gene expression, especially macro patterns of evolution.

I also have an amateur's interest in paleontology for similar reasons as my interest in macroevolution. 

Beyond scientific topics, some of my major career interests include research, education, and scientific communication. I believe having people well trained in all three topics will lead to a better era of scientific understanding in our society. The internet has created new tools with which to teach science to the public, and to show the public new scientific discoveries. I believe it should be utilized. I believe that it's important people like myself - people who are interested in research - should also be able to communicate about their discoveries to other scientists and laypeople alike. This includes both at large scientific communication, and education. It's the difference between a good professor and a bad one that leads to someone understanding such important concepts as evolution and climate change.

It's time we take every single avenue we have to better enlighten our society.

I run a popular dinosaur blog called A Dinosaur A Day on Tumblr, and it's one of the accomplishments I have I am most proud of. However, Tumblr apparently appears to be going off the deep end.

So what will I use this blog for?

Discussing topics in science, for one. I will probably put up some of my more popular rants about paleontology and dinosaurs here. Furthermore, I'll talk about science in general, as scientific communication is extremely important, as I said above.

I'll also probably talk about my own life, be it adventures in graduate school, and personal musing. I have a unique position in life, and I have had a wide variety of experiences. I believe they are, potentially, worth sharing. At least, writing may help me process better than anything ever has.

So here goes it. If tumblr eventually becomes completely unusable for how I run ADAD, I'll also move over here. Hopefully such drastic measures won't have to be taken.

~ Meg