Working with big data requires a diverse skillset.
I have spent the past decade harnessing techniques and approaches from a variety of disciplines, including geography, ecology, human history, biology, computer science, art, and conservation. This unique blend of techniques and approaches has allowed me to cultivate a unique style of research that relies on five primary skills:
01.
Directing large-scale and long-term laboratory microcosm experiments
02 .
Building bespoke spatial models in the age of big data
03.
Designing Data visualization and digital science communication
04.
Teaching and mentorship
05.
Speaking and public engagement
Spatial microcosm experiments
I spent 7 years directing a large-scale and long-term Tribolium castaneum landscape experiment split between two universities. At full capacity, the experiment required 28 full-time undergraduate assistants that counted approximately 50,000 beetles per week, by hand.
Publications from this experiment include
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I am currently designing a new C. elegans system that allows for further testing of these complex spatial ideas.
Bespoke mathematical models
Spatial spread plus phylogenetic spread
Simulated the spread of agriculture on a network of cultures….
Relativistic map projections
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Moving stochastic Ricker model
When designing an experiment to test the efficacy of assisted migration, the question arose about the best location to place transplanted individuals. I modified a stochastic spatial Ricker model to include relativistic habitat movement and assisted migration and simulated possible experimental outcomes given different habitat speeds and sizes of transplant intervention.
Data visualization and digital science communication
Great visualizations can be a bridge to understanding for many people. When the written word fails to convey the complexity of an idea, visualization act as that vehicle.
Teaching and student mentorship
I have been teaching professionally since I was 13 years old. My parents were ski instructors at a local resort and they needed something for their kids to do while they worked all day. It is strange to have started working at such a young age, but I was allowed to do so because ski instruction was considered an agricultural job and I was working on the same “ranch” as my parents. Such was life in western Colorado. When I taught my first ecology lab at the age of 26, I had spent half of my life teaching in the outdoors and that colored the way I thought about the classroom and the way I planned lessons. I was struck by the differences between indoor and outdoor classrooms. Eventually, I found that both worlds were talking about designing experiences for students to discover concepts for themselves. Students retain more information when they discover something for themselves and their engagement grows over time if they start discovering connections between concepts. I practiced new ways of delivering material and fun ways to design discovery to my students. I still teach outdoors for the American Canoe Association training instructors in both Swiftwater rescue and whitewater kayaking and I still teach indoors classes at the university.
I want to see more math in everything we do!
While my teaching style is colored by my history of teaching in the outdoors, my teaching content is colored by my professional research interests and my perception of the current tech-driven competitive job market facing our students. I think that modern biologist should have more training in math and computer science and that students are asking us for tangible vocational skills that they can deploy in a professional workplace (e.g. computer programming literacy, GIS basics, and data visualization). Students should be building models and fitting them to data as daily exercises during class. Here is an example of one such lesson that I wrote as part of a curriculum overhaul for the introductory Ecology class at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2016 (https://tuff.shinyapps.io/Ecology_Stats_intro_application/).
Teaching in indoor classrooms
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Teaching in outdoor classrooms
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Teacher-scholar research model
I value a teacher-scholar model of incorporating students into my own research to give them vocational skills they can use in the job market while infusing my lab with fresh ways of seeing research problems and maintaining the flow of fresh ideas for solving hard questions. I have a history of designing student-centered research where undergraduate assistants manage animal husbandry, data collection, lab maintenance, and help with intellectual synthesis. These are experiments designed explicitly to rely on the active participation of student researchers and the experiments are better for it.
Public speaking and community engagement
Sharing my science with my community
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Efforts include:
CU's Evolution Outreach Committee:
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CU's Science Discovery:
Duo ei illud meliore mentitum. Qui et omnis quidam tractatos. Fugit quidam pertinax usu ut, est ea eripuit pericula scripserit, eu quo ignota vidisse noluisse. His debet disputando cu, ad munere iisque mei.
Sharing science with my colleagues
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Efforts include:
CU's Evolution Outreach Committee:
Duo ei illud meliore mentitum. Qui et omnis quidam tractatos. Fugit quidam pertinax usu ut, est ea eripuit pericula scripserit, eu quo ignota vidisse noluisse. His debet disputando cu, ad munere iisque mei.
CU's Science Discovery:
Duo ei illud meliore mentitum. Qui et omnis quidam tractatos. Fugit quidam pertinax usu ut, est ea eripuit pericula scripserit, eu quo ignota vidisse noluisse. His debet disputando cu, ad munere iisque mei.
