Greetings from the University of Rhode Island! We’ve had an exciting year here in the Ocean State. After electing three new chairs in December (and getting lots of help from the previous chairs!), we had a spring semester packed with great events. We thought it would be fun to share them with all of you! Hearing about the different activities happening in SWMS chapters around the country (and around the world!) is one of our favorite things about behind a part of this community.
None of our events would have been possible without all of our wonderful members! We also had help and support from other groups at URI, such as the Marine Biology Department, the URI Marine Science Society, the Graduate Student Association, and the Graduate School of Oceanography, for which we are eternally grateful. Here’s a brief recap of our events:
– Beyond the Reef Post-Grad Panel: stories and discussions about life after undergrad, from people who’ve been there and survived (and snacks, of course)
– Undergraduate Opportunities Panel: great ideas from professors, alumni, and current students on how to get involved in research as an undergrad
– Just Keep Swimming Mental Health Day: awesome crafting and talking about stress management with Dr. Penny Rosenthal of the URI Women’s Center
– URI SMILE: local elementary school students got to visit campus and do hands-on activities about marine science
– URI Welcome Days: we got to tell prospective students all about SWMS!
– Racing Extinction Screening: the URI Marine Science Society showed this fascinating documentary, and afterward hosted a discussion with experts in the field
As we move into summer, we have more ideas on the horizon. We’re already thinking about hosting some informal networking and community building events, and we want to highlight all the cool summer research, jobs, and internships that our members are doing. In the fall, we’re hoping to host an informative panel aimed at graduate students, and maybe bring back Just Keep Swimming Day. We’re setting our sights on hosting a SWMS Symposium at URI in Spring 2020, so stay tuned!
Huge thank you to all of URI SWMS for their hard work, enthusiasm, and for just plain showing up. We couldn’t do anything without all of you!
Congratulations to all graduating seniors, and happy summer, everyone!
The Brazilian chapter came out of our numerous conversations about science and its challenges. Since our first years of undergrad in Oceanography at the Center of Marine Studies (CEM) at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil, we worked in research laboratories and dreamed about being scientists. However, we knew that it wouldn’t be an easy task. Science and technology are not generally valued in Brazil, much less marine science. The pressure to develop creative, innovative and reliable research considering financial instability and uncertainties have been present throughout our academic life.
Center of Marine Studies (CEM) – Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
Currently, most of us are working toward an academic career. Some of us are masters students and others pursue a PhD. We have noticed that the same challenges we used to discuss during our first year in college are still present. When one of us discovered SWMS, we saw it as an opportunity to help us improve marine science visibility in Brazil. Our aim is to highlight the high quality research produced by Brazilian women in science and technology. We also strive to share experiences and difficulties in academic life, promote inclusion, and strengthen ties between society and marine science. We shared our idea with two professors from CEM and one from the Federal University of Santa Catarina who helped us to create the SWMS Brazil Chapter.
In contrast to other chapters which fall under one university, we choose to be a national chapter. Although we are now separated into three different universities and states, we never stopped having those conversations about science, and we support one another whenever we face similar problems. Now we are able to maintain our dialogue and finally spread our ideas. As this is a national chapter, we hope to integrate more voices and gather a representative group of women in marine sciences throughout Brazil to inspire young students to become scientists.
Portuguese
A SWMS Brasil nasceu em uma de nossas inúmeras conversas sobre ciência e seus desafios. Desde nossos primeiros anos de graduação em Oceanografia no Centro de Estudos do Mar (CEM), Universidade Federal do Paraná, sempre estivemos inseridas em laboratórios de pesquisa e já sonhávamos em ser cientistas. No entanto, sabíamos que não seria uma tarefa fácil. No Brasil, a ciência e o desenvolvimento tecnológico são pouco valorizados e as ciências marinhas sofrem muito com a falta de investimento. A pressão para desenvolver pesquisa científicos inovadoras e relevantes, a instabilidade financeira e as incertezas sobre o futuro sempre estiveram presentes em nossa vida acadêmica.
Atualmente a maioria de nós continua na carreira acadêmica, algumas estão no mestrado, outras são recém mestres e buscam um doutorado, e notamos que os desafios que discutíamos nos nossos primeiros anos de graduação ainda são os mesmos. Quando uma de nós descobriu a SWMS, vimos uma oportunidade que poderia nos ajudar a melhorar a visibilidade da ciência marinha no Brasil. Nosso objetivo é evidenciar a pesquisa de alta qualidade produzida por brasileiras, compartilhar experiências e dificuldades da vida acadêmica, promover a inclusão e fortalecer os laços entre a sociedade e as ciências marinhas. Essa ideia foi compartilhada com duas professoras do Centro de Estudos do Mar da Universidade Federal do Paraná e uma professora da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina que nos incentivaram e nos ajudaram a criar o SWMS Brasil.
Diferente dos outros capítulos que levam o nome de apenas uma universidade, escolhemos ser um capítulo nacional, pois aquelas amigas que um dia estudaram juntas agora estão separados em três universidades e estados diferentes, mas não poderiam deixar de discutir sobre ciência e apoiar umas às outras. A ciência sempre foi o nosso assunto favorito e a distância foi uma das razões que nos motivou a criar o SWMS Brasil. Agora somos capazes de manter nosso diálogo e finalmente espalhar nossas ideias. Como este é um capítulo nacional, esperamos integrar mais vozes e reunir um grupo representativo de mulheres nas ciências marinhas de todo o Brasil e inspirar jovens estudantes a se tornarem cientistas.
I really wanted to read this book because, as someone staring down my last year before defending my thesis, burnout is a very real risk in my life. Like many other graduate students and academics, I struggle with anxiety and depression. While these issues are partly determined by my genetic makeup and my life experiences thus far, they also ebb and flow with the tides of immediate external stressors in my life (#sorrynotsorry for the ocean imagery). I was hoping that Burnout would give me strategies to decrease my anxiety and be less susceptible to burnout, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Burnout is absolutely fantastic. It reads similarly to Come as You Are, with an abundance of pop culture references and tl;dr (internet speak for “too long; didn’t read”) lists at the ends of chapters to highlight the main points. It also employs a fantastic device that Emily Nagoski debuted in Come as You Are: stories from real women combined into composite characters that help the reader to connect emotionally with the science. These passages show us how the series of stressors we experience can combine to create a life that leads to burnout, and how the strategies in the book might actually be implemented, speed bumps and all. These composite characters are presented as friends of Emily and Amelia, and the narrative passages about them are complete with dialogue, jokes, and the very real way that friends tease one another. In a book about complex neuroscience, this composite character device goes a long way towards making the book easy to digest.
The series of stressors we experience can combine to create a life that leads to burnout
The book also contains plenty of worksheets to help you implement the strategies of the book in your own life. The first helps you decide if you should quit something (their examples include a job, a relationship, a diet, and substance use), there is another for identifying what is within your own control in your life, and the final one encourages you to take stock of how you spend your time—in order to find the time to get sufficient rest.
I have to admit that I didn’t take the time to stop and write out my answers to all these worksheets, but there was one activity that grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. In the chapter on “Meaning,” the Nagoski twins ask the reader to remember times in their life that they have faced hardships, and identify the inner characteristics and the external support systems that allowed them to overcome those hardships. They ask us, as readers, to tell ourselves our origin story, and to frame the narrative around our strength and resilience. In my own life, I’ve faced a number of upheavals in my living situation and my close relationships. In nearly all of these periods, I’ve turned to reading. This prompt to write my story to myself inspired me to journal about how important reading has been to me throughout my life. It was an emotional and cathartic experience.
The authors’ approach to reframing failure is an extremely useful tool for early career scientists. They introduce the concept of a “little monitor” in our brain that has expectations about how long something should take or how rapidly we should move towards a goal. This brain system keeps us chomping at the bit to reach our goals, but can also derail us into a bottomless pit of frustration and despair when our progress isn’t fast enough. Their approach to overcoming this is to deal with the uncontrollable things in your life with “positive reappraisal.” They explain that “Positive reappraisal…means deciding that the effort, the discomfort, the frustration, the unanticipated obstacles, and even the repeated failure have value—not because they are steps toward a worthwhile goal, but because you reframe difficulties as opportunities for growth and learning.” So when you don’t get the fellowship/grant/job, or all your experimental creatures die, or your paper needs major revisions, you can see those challenges as roadblocks, or you can see them as difficult circumstances that simultaneously provide opportunities for deeper learning. To revise an old adage, many things worth doing are really, really hard.
Many things worth doing are really, really hard.
I was excited to read this book and wanted to write a book review of it for the SWMS blog, but somehow along the way, reading the book and writing the review became one more thing on my extremely long to-do list. As the seasons started to turn in Massachusetts in late March, my stress about the passage of time and how much I was getting done for my science was ticking up. My mental health was declining, so I wondered how I could even be qualified to write this book review. Well, lucky for me, I caught a nasty spring cold and was bedridden for two days. This little local maximum of burnout helped me to see the places I needed to scale back, or to simply give myself permission not to be perfect.
I stayed in bed for two days with that cold. During the first, I slept a lot and took a lot of cold medicine. During the second day, I worked from home and napped—I was completely amazed that I could get just as much done while sick as I would on a normal day at the office. And then I realized that I hadn’t gone to any meetings, and I hadn’t spent hours on email, and I felt somehow both productive and rested. Since then, I’ve struggled to find ways to preserve my energy, but I’m starting to see how important it is to take care of myself so that I can stay in this game for a long time. And now I’ve got a trusty guidebook that I can turn to for advice.
What better place to meet up with fellow scientists supporting women in marine science than at an international conference? This past winter, that very opportunity presented itself. Over 50 SWMS members attended a meet up at the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO)’s biennial Aquatic Sciences Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Attendees presented their research through oral talks, poster sessions, and workshops, but we made time for networking and socializing, too!
We held a SWMS meeting during the conference to bring current and new members together. It started off with an introduction to the organization’s inception in 2014 at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from two of its founding members, Dr. Sophie Chu and Dr. Bethanie Edwards. Alexa Sterling, who started the first SWMS chapter at the University of Rhode Island, brought everyone up to speed on SWMS’s current goals and activities. Members discussed the diverse roles that SWMS plays in their communities and institutions. The organizers also solicited suggestions for directions in which to grow the SWMS network and to increase the impact of SWMS in the marine science field. Unlike chapter meetings and regional symposia, this international meeting allowed for cross-disciplinary discussion with members from all around the world.
One of our members shared her experience about the meeting, saying, “The SWMS meet up helped me realize the full potential of a female support network, and further encouraged me to become more involved with SWMS.”
Following the more formal meeting, some members continued their conversations at a nearby restaurant. They fueled their networking and discussions about their experiences in marine science with appetizers sponsored by the SWMS Steering Committee, including fried plantains. There were many new friendships formed, job opportunities shared, old friendships re-connected, and advice given across career levels. The SWMS member pool includes undergraduates, grad students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty members, as well as people working in industry, non-profit, and government positions. This variety of perspectives allows for valuable discussions about marine science.
Hannah Morrissette, one of the leaders of the Horn Point chapter, said, “I truly enjoy being the co-chair of the UMCES Horn Point Lab chapter… SWMS is an incredible organization that fosters a supportive and encouraging environment. This group of women will no doubt change the attitude and prevalence of female researchers.”
SWMS is an incredible organization that fosters a supportive and encouraging environment.
It was great seeing so many scientists at this SWMS meet up and hearing their stories, experiences, and ideas, as well as learning about current marine science research being pioneered by women. We look forward to future international conferences and SWMS meet ups! If you are interested in seeing a SWMS meet up at a conference you’re attending or if you are a SWMS member interested in facilitating a meet up, please email us at swms.general.contact@gmail.com.
“Six Questions with SWMS” is a series of interviews with women across marine science with a wide range of career paths, degrees, and experiences.
Sonia Ahrabi-Nejad
What is your current job, and how did you end up there?
I work as a School and Youth Programs Educator at Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, Louisiana.With School Programs I lead and help develop lessons for visiting school groups coming on field trips to the aquarium. These lessons cover a range of topics from frogs, to rainforests, to shark dissections. With different schools visiting each day, I have a new experience each time. I also train and supervise the youth volunteers that come to the aquarium on the weekends. Over the summer, I led a month-long training for a group of 20 middle schoolers to teach them about the aquarium as well as how to talk about climate change and its impact on ocean habitats. During the school year these volunteers interact with visiting guests, passing on their knowledge and climate change solutions.
I went to Northeastern University for my undergraduate degree and participated in their cooperative education program. I knew I wanted to work in informal education when I got my first internship at the Northeastern University Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts. While there I worked with classes teaching kids to do biological surveys in the intertidal zone. I loved connecting kids to real science methods. Since then I have worked as an educator in the Everglades and at fishing camps, and when I moved to New Orleans I was lucky to continue working as an informal science educator.
What is your favorite thing about marine science, or your research field more specifically?
My graduate research focused on two small tuna species commonly caught by recreational anglers in southeastern Florida. Working with non-scientists, especially children, and helping them understand their connection to the ocean and their impact on it is my favorite thing. Even though I am not currently doing research, I love to translate active science to the general public to foster a better connection between scientists and the community.
What is your greatest professional/educational accomplishment?
All of my accomplishments, including graduating with a bachelor’s in biology and a master’s in marine biology, have gotten me to this point in my life, so collectively those are all my greatest accomplishments. Through all of this I have grown and I am glad for all of my experiences.
What are your goals for the next six years?
I want to continue to grow in my ability as an informal science educator and develop programs that engage audiences about the ocean. It is becoming more important that people not only talk about climate change and its impact on the world, but also about how collectively we can make changes to our lifestyles that will help reduce this impact.
What advice would you give the six-years-ago version of yourself?
Six years ago at this time I was in the fall semester of my senior year of undergrad and working at my Marine Science Center internship. I had just come back from a year-long marine biology program called the Three Seas Program run by Northeastern University. During this year my class traveled and researched marine biology in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Pacific Ocean. I was trying to decide what I should do after graduation and if I should pursue a graduate degree or start applying for jobs. My advice to myself would be to work towards your goals but be flexible in the path you take to get there. Find out what makes the most sense for you, what makes you the happiest, or what gives you the skills you want to develop.
Our theme for our 4th annual fall symposium is “Swimming in Confidence: Declaring your Scientific Authority.” How do you increase your self-confidence?
I am lucky that I have a strong group of women to whom I can look for guidance and assistance, both professionally and personally. By talking and brainstorming with these women I am able to increase my self-confidence and see my accomplishments through others’ eyes. Sometimes I need to take a step back to appreciate how far I have come.
What is your current job, and how did you end up there?
I’m an assistant professor in the biology department at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. I teach bioinformatics, introductory biology, a course on the origin of life, and I’m hoping to develop a study abroad program with a focus on oceanography and the history of oceanography. Carleton is a 4-year small liberal arts college, so I teach small classes of undergraduates, and during the school year and over the summers I have undergraduates working in my lab to help conduct research.
I’ve wanted to be a professor at a small liberal arts college ever since I graduated from a small liberal arts college (Carleton, coincidentally!). So throughout graduate school I made a point of telling my advisors and my graduate committee that this was my long-term goal, and I sought out teaching opportunities as a graduate student. I TA-ed more classes than was required by my program, and I found ways to act as a co-instructor for classes in the oceanography department at the University of Washington, which is where I got my PhD. I wanted to develop my skills in pedagogy, so I participated in the Biology Education Research Group at UW to learn about the latest research on effective teaching practices. I knew that I needed to get teaching experience under my belt if I wanted to be competitive on the job market for a small liberal arts college, but I knew that I also needed a good postdoc. So I spent one quarter teaching oceanography at The Evergreen State College before starting a NASA postdoc. I went on the job market immediately during the first year of my postdoc (I saw it as a good way to practice, and it was!) and the next year I got my current position at Carleton.
What is your favorite thing about marine science, or your research field more specifically?
I study microbial evolution and ecology in deep-sea hydrothermal vent systems, so I dabble across astrobiology and oceanography. I love how interdisciplinary my field is, and I love the fact that we ask big-picture questions. I get to talk to oceanographers, geologists, biologists, chemists, atmospheric scientists, and astronomers as part of my job, which keeps things interesting and stretches my brain in new and fascinating ways. We ask questions related to the origin and early evolution of life, the fundamentals of evolution, how climate change might affect marine ecology, and more. Students love these kinds of big-picture questions, so it’s a powerful tool to attract students to STEM disciplines at all ages.
What is your greatest professional/educational accomplishment?
I always think of my students as my greatest accomplishments. Whenever I see a student go on to do great things, or even when I see a student’s eyes light up in response to something they’ve learned in class or in doing research with me, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. That’s why I love teaching. What are your goals for the next six years?
Well, I’ve just started here, so my main goal is to keep my head screwed on straight, enjoy myself, and establish myself here at Carleton! I’m hoping to get my research program off the ground and publish some papers with my students, and thanks to some absolutely amazing students I had working with me this summer, we’ve made great progress on that. I’m also really looking forward to developing a study abroad program that focuses on a combination of science and society through the lens of oceanography, marine ecology, marine policy, and the history of oceanography and maritime exploration.
What advice would you give the six-years-ago version of yourself?
Six years ago was 2011, and I was deep in the throes of graduate school. I’d say it’s important to identify your goals and work towards them, but at the same time take time for yourself. Go on those backpacking trips, take the time to spend time with friends and family. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by things like qualifying exams or generals in graduate school, or to feel like you aren’t accomplishing anything. Take the long view and keep the important things in mind: your long-term goals, and taking time for yourself.
Dr. Rika Anderson (center) and colleagues in the DSV Alvin ~7 years ago.
Our theme for our 4th annual fall symposium is “Swimming in Confidence: Declaring your Scientific Authority.” How do you increase your self-confidence?
I’ve been told that I have a problem with confidence, and I think I’m not alone among women in academia! I find that teaching and mentoring is actually a huge confidence-booster. When I’m mentoring or teaching students, I can so often see myself in those students, reminding me of what it felt like to be in their shoes just 5 or 10 years ago, often asking the same questions they were asking me. It reminds me how far I’ve come, and helps me feel that I have, in fact, learned useful skills and become wiser (I think!) since I was a student in college.
I think an important distinction to draw is that it’s possible to be self-confident while also possessing a strong sense of self-awareness and humility. I place high value in being confident in my own skills and my knowledge while also recognizing the skills of others and understanding the limits of my knowledge. It can be difficult to admit to a class full of students that you don’t know something, but ultimately I’ve found that students’ respect for me increases if I tell them (confidently) that I don’t know something, but that there’s nothing wrong with that and that we can learn something new together.
For the past few years, the SWMS Steering Committee has been comprised primarily of students and postdocs based at WHOI and MIT. Despite our close geographical locations, we have all of our meetings via Skype. This has made it easy to transition to having Steering Committee members in more far-flung locations. When Femke DeJong was wrapping up her postdoc and spending more time at home in the Netherlands, she continued to participate in our meetings and with website upkeep. And this past year, after Ellie Bors and Sophie Chu defended their theses at WHOI, they moved on to exciting postdoctoral fellowships but have continued to support us back ‘home’ as we work to grow SWMS. Ellie is currently a Knauss fellow in DC, and Sophie is in Seattle, splitting her time between NOAA and the University of Washington.
The 2016 Symposium was planned entirely over Skype! Annie, Sophie, Femke, Gabi, Ellie, and Chrissy (clockwise from top left) are used to e-meetings, but we are excited to add two new members to our crew.
As exciting as it is that our experienced Steering Committee members are staying on to help guide our organization through some growing pains, it’s an even bigger deal to bring in some fresh blood! Alexa Sterling and Anna Robuck, students at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, have generously volunteered to help plan and run the 2017 SWMS Symposium. These ladies are already doing an amazing job with the URI Chapter of SWMS, which you can read about here. Their participation in planning the 2017 Symposium will be invaluable because they add a perspective that is outside of WHOI, and because they’re bringing all kinds of great ideas about what has worked well for SWMS at URI!
I guess that in our highly-connected, social-media-filled society, it shouldn’t seem so weird to meet people and collaborate with them electronically…but it still does! Since Alexa was in Woods Hole last week for the Ocean Carbon Biogeochemistry (OCB) meeting, she and I made plans to meet up in person (for the first time ever!). When I realized that Sophie, Hilary, and Annie were also participating in OCB, I was so excited to have a get together!
Although I wasn’t participating in OCB this year (#fieldwork), I went to the Tuesday evening poster session and had the opportunity to hear about Hilary’s current research. We asked a kind stranger to take some photos of us, because this is the first time we’ve had this many Steering Committee members in one room (outside of the Symposium). After that, the 5 of us went to the Captain Kidd for a lively session of eating, drinking, talking, and being merry! It was a special treat to have Annie out with us for the evening (big thank you to her husband for watching their kids!), to have Sophie back in town, and to meet Alexa face-to-face! Of course, I also had fun hanging out with Hilary, but I get to see her most frequently outside of the group.
SWMS Steering Committee members Sophie, Alexa, Annie, Hilary, and Chrissy (L to R) got together at the OCB meeting.
After this brainstorming session, we’re ready to hit the ground running with planning the SWMS 2017 Fall Symposium. Our next priorities are to pick a theme and invite a keynote speaker. We’re also working on setting up registration forms and designing our program. If you have a scientist in mind that you would like to hear speak, on either their awesome science or the specific experience of being a woman in marine science, please email us at swms.general.contact@gmail.com!
We are so excited to see you on November 3rd in Woods Hole!
Megan (Meg) Frenkel, a PhD student at Columbia/LDEO, published her first paper! “Quantifying bamboo coral growth rate nonlinearity with the radiocarbon bomb spike: A new model for paleoceanographic chronology development” was published in Deep Sea Research I, and is based on her undergraduate honors thesis at Bowdoin College with Michèle LaVigne.
Meg Frenkel
Meg’s journey to publication was not exactly smooth: when she was almost ready to submit the paper, her computer crashed and she had to remake all her figures and reprocess part of the data — yikes! She is excited to have her first publication out and is now transitioning to working on dust flux at Lamont. You can read her paper here.
Bamboo coral with calcitic internodes (white) and organic gorgonin nodes (black). Image credit: NOAA
Did you know that there are over 6,000 species of red algae, and that the latest review published about this huge assemblage of species and their parasites was written by a grad student? Jillian Freese, a PhD student at the University of Rhode Island, recently published an invited review in Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology on parasitism in red algae. Her research in the Biological and Environmental Science department focuses on red algal parasite development. While researching for her paper, Jillian really enjoyed seeing how much each paper built off others from the past, even as far back as the 19th century. At that point, the most cutting edge research focused on the appearance and shape, or morphology, of red algae specimens.
This illustration of red algae was published in 1849. Image contributed to the Biodiversity Heritage Library by Museums Victoria.
Modern photograph of red algae. Image credit: University of Wisconsin Plant Teaching Collection, used with permission.
The most challenging part of getting the paper out was the actual writing. “There’s something about that blank document and blinking cursor that can be intimidating,” Jillian said. Read her paper here to learn all about the fascinating link between red algae species and their parasite friends.
Sophie Chu defended her thesis back in January, but she finally got to wear a funny hat and walk across the stage this month! Dr. Chu earned her PhD in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. She traded one joint program for another when she graduated and is now a postdoc with the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmospheres and Oceans (JISAO), where she is part of the NOAA PMEL carbon group.
Sophie and her boyfriend are loving the PNW life!
Sophie is a SWMS steering committee member and is working on starting a Seattle chapter of SWMS.
Written by Gabi Serrato Marks, PhD student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program and SWMS steering committee member.
The Society for Women in Marine Science would like to start posting about our members’ exciting news and accomplishments to highlight the excellent work being done by women marine scientists.
Is your first (or fiftieth) paper coming out? Are you graduating, or did you get tenure? Did you just get back from a two week cruise? Did you write an article for a public outlet?
We want to hear about it! Nothing is too small to celebrate.
Please fill out this form about your news, and then email us a picture at swms.general.contact@gmail.com to go along with it.We plan to write posts with a group of member updates, so look out for those in the future. We can’t wait to hear what you are all up to!
