Thread by @jessicablois

My #DayOfScience typically begins with writing and coffee. I try to spend a little time each morning working on research, before other meetings, teaching, and administration take over my day. #ScienceAThon @science_a_thon

@science_a_thon This picture was from earlier in the morning - I was being disciplined and not letting Twitter distract my time until I got my hour of writing in 😜. Coincidentally, #ScienceAThon coincides with Week 1 of a 14-day writing challenge from the @NCFDD.

@science_a_thon @NCFDD My #DayOfScience continues with a run! OK, this isn’t my own science, but getting some exercise helps me think about my morning research and prepare for the day ahead. It also burns out some energy from my border collie Tioga! #ScienceAThon

Today I’m running behind a little bit so I went on a short and fast run, then swung by my house to pick up my old guy Rocco for a cool down walk. #DayOfScience #ScienceAThon

My ideal #DayOfScience includes morning research while my body wakes up followed by exercise, followed by more science. Of course, I often don’t meet this ideal! Many days, I drink lots of coffee to help my fuzzy brain wake up & then have a wall of Zoom meetings. #ScienceAThon

My #DayOfScience continues in my lab (@blois_paleo_lab) at @ucmerced. Today, I’m preparing boxes of loaned specimens to return to their museums. Museum collections are valuable national treasures and the foundation for a lot of the science I do! #ScienceAThon

Most of the rest of my Tuesday #DayOfScience will be meetings with students to discuss and support their research. So it will be full of meetings, but energizing rather than draining ones! #ScienceAThon

First up is a meeting with Reina Warnert, a QSB PhD student @ucmerced. Reina just submitted an @nsf GRFP proposal! She’s interested in conservation paleobiology - using the fossil record to understand which species are at risk of extinction and why. #DayOfScience #ScienceAThon

Reina is also a talented artist and painted a super cool woodrat on this pumpkin! Next week, my department @ucmerced is having a pumpkin carving/painting Spooky Science competition and I think the @blois_paleo_lab will be strong contenders this year. #DayOfScience #ScienceAThon

My #DayOfScience continues - lunch with new colleague @mindyfindlater. Mindy is a TT teaching faculty at @ucmerced. It is awesome to have skilled teachers in our community to learn from! We chatted about growing up in CA, solo vs collab research, & growth mindsets. #ScienceAThon

OK, the next meeting in my #DayOfScience is w/ MS student @PaleoCorCor. Corey loves paleoclimate & geochemistry. She’s using woodrat fossils from N. CA to understand whether their stable isotope ecology reflects paleoclimatic changes over the last 20k yrs. #ScienceAThon

Whew, my next meeting in my #DayOfScience was cancelled, so I have a bit of a break to close my office door, take my mask off, and sit down at my computer to work (or just work on these #ScienceAThon tweets 😏).

My cancelled meeting was w/ @blois_paleo_lab QSB grad student, Laura Van Vranken. Laura is a spatial ecologist interested in animal behavior and movement, esp. for T&E species. Laura is working w/ colleagues at @YosemiteNPS on turtles & frogs & bears! #DayOfScience #ScienceAThon

Also, apparently morning, pre-coffee Jessica can’t take a clear photo. I’m generally terrible at selfies, so that doesn’t help either :)

My #DayOfScience ends with lab meeting! For the last few years, the @blois_paleo_lab and the @snacktavish lab have joined forces for combined lab mtgs. It’s great to learn about the breadth of biology research & get semi-outside feedback on our own work. #ScienceAThon

@blois_paleo_lab @snacktavish Today we’re doing a ‘figure rodeo’ where we all bring a draft figure to present & workshop. Here’s my figure, which I drafted during yesterday’s @NCFDD writing time - showing rank abundance of different fossil small mammals at the @labreatarpits. #DayOfScience #ScienceAThon

We’re near the end of my #DayOfScience. I’m back home & burning off more border collie energy 🙂. I didn’t really check email during the day and so I’ll probably dip into that later tonight before it builds up to an unmanageable volume, but my brain needs a break. #ScienceAThon

It was great sharing my #DayOfScience for the #ScienceAThon with you all! One thing I want to note is that you’re seeing the highlights and not so much the behind-the-scenes stuff: all the mundane work associated with managing/administering a lab, …

… the work I do for a small campus-level admin role, occasional / frequent despair about getting everything done, general life management stuff. So yes, today was a good day! But also, I’m weary 🙂. Both are often true most days. #DayOfScience #ScienceAThon