Today is my last Friday before I become #faculty 🤯 and I wanted to take a second to reflect a little on my #postdoc experience. Spoiler alert: yes I grew a lot and met amazing people but no, postdocing wasn’t fun and I wouldn’t want to do that again. #PostdocLife 1/n First the good - I learned and grew a lot during my postdoc and thanks to that, my career has shifted in exciting new directions. It also taught me not to be scared to try something new! Remember: PhD grads are really good at learning new stuff. #PostdocLife 2/n

Today at lab meeting, I took a risk and instead of a regular research update, I ran a workshop (adapted from one I did w/ @BrianAguado) on how to present your research in under 3 mins. I didn’t give them a heads up and I was nervous but it was a HUGE success! #SciComm 1/n I thought a lot about how to design it so it was interactive and practical. I borrowed a LOT of tips from @echoechoR (she has a class out you can sign up for!) on virtual engagement including: live polliong (using @Mentimeter), chat interactions, and room breakouts #Scicomm 2/n

Up until 9 months ago (green card 🙏), I was on an F1 visa for 13 years. This last measure is unbelievably cruel but perhaps you don't realize how many other hurdles international students face. This is what it was like for me 👇 #StudentBan #InternationalStudents 1/n Step 1: Apply to college, get accepted. That's where it ends for US citizens & permanent residents. For undergrads and MS students, you first have to show the school that you already have the $$ to pay for tuition AND everything else for yr 1 - they issue an I-20 #StudentBan 2/n

I am so proud of my first paper as corresponding author! And on a topic I am SURE I'll work on for the rest of my life: the need to #SciComm in languages other than English! It was so fun working with @mcmsharksxx on this! 👇 #ComunicaCiencia 1/n
frontiersin.org/articles/10.33… Before I start on this thread, I want to thank the team @FrontiersIn, our editor @mufferaw, and our reviewers @sabahzero and Rakeb Tesfaye for helping us turn an honestly mediocre manuscript into a much more thoughtful opinion. I love it when #PeerReview works! #SciComm 2/n

My first (review) paper from my postdoc with @ilanabrito123 is out! We discuss the need to truly internationalize human #microbiome research, which has been mostly centered around American/European populations (1/6th of the world's population). 1/n

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 2 key issues we think should drive this conversation: (1) The human #microbiome has been associated with a variety of diseases; how many of these effects are truly 'global'? (2) We need more efforts centered around the health concerns of populations in the rest of the world. 2/n