Outreach, press and presentations

Outreach and Service

The Molecular Ecologist

Since 2014, I have been a regular contributor to The Molecular Ecologist. If you are interested in reading my posts, visit the blog here. For example, the post I wrote about the R package poppr resulted in a spike of downloads (see the arrow below; figure from rdocumentation.org).

I also wrote an edited piece on why zoos matter to ecologists, see it here.

In 2016, I developed and taught a science communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I'll be posting more about this course as it develops and as we expand our network of #scicomm'rs. Here are related posts written by me and my students for The Molecular Ecologist:

Aida, V (2017) Mapping genomes and navigating behavior for wildlife conservation.
Hayes, M (2017) Like turtles, terrapin research moves a little slow.
Latimer, M (2017) Small Molecules, Big Differences.
Roegner, M (2017) Molting on the molecular level: how blue crabs become soft-shell crabs.
Adkins, S (2017) Dishing out art: 'Soiling' our microbiology curriculum.
Heifer, S (2017) Have we got the power?
Krueger-Hadfield, SA (2017) I think we're NOT alone now.

Phycological Society of America Gerald W. Prescott Award

Beginning as a student member in 2010, I have served as a member of the Prescott Award Committee. The Prescott Award recognizes scholarly work in English in the form of a published book or monograph devoted to phycology. See a list of past winners here.

Cultivate

Cultivate started amongst a group of scientists and artists as way to share our passion with others. I led a Cultivate Workshop to get the public interested in seaweeds. I served as the scientist/artist for the evening on "Seduced by Seaweeds in the 21st Century" in which I traced the history of seaweed pressing from Victorian times until the present. I also talked about how important seaweeds are, both ecologically and economically. Afterwards, I taught workshop participants how to press seaweeds.

Press

‘Stylish’ worm studied for the company it keeps, The Post and Courier 20 September 2015 - article about research ongoing in the Sotka lab on the tube building polychaete, Diopatra cuprea

Mystery in the mudflats, The College Today 21 November 2014 - article highlighting my collaborations with researchers at CofC

Invasive seaweed may have come from Japanese oysters, The Post and Courier 19 February 2014 - article highlighting my collaborations with researchers at CofC

Invasive seaweed escapes the farm, The College Today 11 February 2014 - article highlighting my collaborations with researchers at CofC

Presentations

Invited seminars

2017

Science Center for Marine Fisheries (MS; November 2017)
Plant Pathology Department, University of Nebraska (October 2017)
Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University (September 2017)
Biological Sciences, University of British Columbia
EDGE seminar, University of Georgia

2016

Sigma Xi, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham

2015

Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, France
Université de la Rochelle, France
Station Biologique de Roscoff, France
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel
Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
Fukui Prefectural University, Obama, Japan
University of Tennessee Knoxville, NIMBioS

2014

University of South Carolina Beaufort

2013

College of Charleston, Fort Johnson Seminar Series
Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
Plymouth University, Marine Biology and Ecology Research Center
Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom

2012

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Ciencias Biologicas
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel
California State University Northridge, Department of Biology
Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, Short Talk Series
Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, Molecular Group

Natural History Museum, London: Botany Department

2011

Universidade do Algarve, Portugal

2010

Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile, Department of Marine Biology
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Ciencias Biologicas

2007

Station Biologique de Roscoff, France

Universität zu Köln, Germany, Botanisches Institut

Invited symposia

2017

Evolution Meetings, Portland, OR: Spotlight Session Speaker in Genetic Transmission at the Population Level - From haploid to diploid, from diploid to haploid, complex life cycles are everywhere
International Phycological Congress, Szczecin, Poland: Invited Symposium Speaker in Evolutionary Genetics of Algae - La vie en algue rouge: the genetics and evolutionary ecology of the colonization of novel habitats in haploid–diploid seaweeds

Conference presentations

* Undergraduate student co-author; ** Graduate student co-author
2017

Benthic Ecology Meeting: oral (presenter), oral (2nd author)**, oral (last author), poster (shared first author)*
British Phycological Society: oral (last author)
College of Charleston School of Science and Math Poster Day: poster (shared first author)* (won Honorable Mention!)

Phycological Society of America: oral (sole author; pending)