Four years to the day post-PhD defense, I’m NASA HQ starting my Postdoctoral Management Program Fellowship in NASAAstrobio with Dr Lindsay Hays and David Grinspoon. Excited for this opportunity to gain programmatic experience and embrace business casual!

The #Hydractinia genome paper is out! Congrats to all team members and collaborators who contributed to this major effort! Very happy to see this published. This paper lays the groundwork for better understanding this amazing marine invertebrate at a genomic level!

Egg-Alert from somewhere over Illinois:

A passenger with an albumin allergy just freaked out about the rogue eggs so a flight attendant, wearing black disposable gloves, picked them up and yelled out “coast is clear!”.

The first class passengers applauded. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Thus ends

McLane is Woman and AAPI owned company!

Happy to report that I was just promoted to Full Professor!!! 😀

Egg-Alert from 30,000 feet over Albany:

Both hard boiled eggs are now in the aisle, covered in floor lint.

People are stepping around them like they are land mines.

The folks in line for the lavatory are uneasy as these eggs pitch and roll around their feet.

I’m having a

I’m on board a flight to Cincinnati to visit colleagues and present our lab’s research at Miami University.

I had the opportunity to upgrade to first class using some miles I forgot about.

The person sitting in front of me just dropped two peeled, hard boiled eggs in my lap.

Many many congratulations to my colleague and friend Dr. Ann Pearson on being inducted into the National Academy of Sciences! Truly deserved but in classic Ann form she didn’t say peep about it all last week!

I’m so happy for you, my friend. Well done.

A happy event a few years ago. Thank you, Peter Girguis

Celebrating Dr Andy Knoll’s career was amazing. Seeing Dr. Robin Kodner and Dr. Phoebe Cohen again after many years was a major bonus!

Thanks for chatting over dinner Robin and Phoebe. Here’s hoping we catch up before another 17 years passes by.

Robin Kodner

Many congratulations Dr. Drennan! You are everything an NAS academy member should be, including a tiny bit nerdy (I’m talking about your tee-shirt !). I hope you had a wonderful time at your induction.

Congratulations Cathy, and thanks for being such an inspiration!

Congratulations Catherine Drennan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and @HHMINews, newly inducted #NASmember ! #NAS161 #biochemistry

It is mulch season in Massachusetts. That means, at any given moment, the air can smell of freshly chipped bark or teen boys’ gym socks.

Congratulations Naomi! This is very well deserved. You’ve always pushed the envelope with your brilliant insights and boundless enthusiasm. I’m so proud to be your colleague.
Harvard Organismic & Evolutionary Biology
#NAS161

Congratulations Naomi Pierce of Museum of Comparative Zoology, newly inducted #NASmember ! #NAS161 #evolutionarybiology #zoology

This has been an amazing day so far! I'm on deck to moderate the next session, and I'm a bit anxious. This is a who's whom of paleo-earth folk.

Stocked for a day full of talks and colleagues celebrating the illustrious career of Andy Knoll Harvard Organismic & Evolutionary Biology 🤩 this get together is truly a who’s who gathering of Precambrian / Cambrian paleobiologists and geobiologists in North America 🪨⚒️🦠

Glad to see this in The New York Times and glad this scientist found a solution that works for her. The dilemma is real, and unfortunately taking kids into the field is not an option for many of us. We need to keep thinking creatively about how to support (and retain) moms in the field.

Expeditions can be hard to maneuver as a mother & scientist.

Intense & exciting to have my essay published in The New York Times exploring how Expeditions can be an Academic Act of Defiance

Mapping fungi w/family SPUN New York Times Opinion: tinyurl.com/5adc5cwf
(photo 2011, Kenya)

And happy birthday to the North Star in the constellations within the firmament of #MicrobialHeroes , Elio Schaechter. Elio is the Platonic ideal of a microbiologist, so far as I am concerned. I wish you the very best of days. Univ. of Puget Sound ASM Small Things Considered