Back in June, The Xereces Society held a #PicturePerfectPollinator photo contest. In honor of National Pollinator Week, I entered a photo accompanied by a pollinator fact each day. Just recently, it came to my attention that my photo of a male Puget blue butterfly getting a snack from oxeye daisy was selected as an honorable […]
Interview with a social insect scientist
Insectes Sociaux: What is your favourite social insect and why? “This question is so hard. As a beekeeper and someone who recently got their PhD studying honey bees, I feel like I should say honey bees. I do love honey bees, but my favourite social insect might be…” I was recently interviewed byInsectes Sociaux, a […]
Livin' on a Prairie
Just south of Olympia, WA, my new field site is a lively 180-acre prairie. There are queen bumble bees searching for nests, barn swallows doing acrobatics, and some of the strangest flowers I have ever seen. I half expect the Alice-in-Wonderland-esque flowers to break into song. This week, I had the opportunity to write my […]
Ant-caterpillar symbioses
Being a small, squishy, slow-moving caterpillar is tough. Caterpillars are a protein-packed snack for carnivorous insects such as wasps and spiders, some ants, and birds. For my post-doc, I’m studying an ant-caterpillar symbiosis. A “symbiosis” is an interaction between two organisms of different species. Insect pollinators and plants, clownfish and anemones, us and the microbes […]
National Pollinator Week
For National Pollinator Week, I shared a pollinator photo, accompanied with a pollinator fact, on social media each day. In case you’re not on Instagram or Twitter, here are my photos with their fact. I hope you learn something new! Day 1 Day 1 of #NationalPollinatorWeek! First up, this cute little mining bee foraging on […]
Stay curious
A few weeks ago, I was hooded! The history and tradition of academic regalia goes way back but essentially, I earned my wizarding robes. Since I earned my PhD, I now have: velour patches on my gown, a “hood” with the Tufts University colors and “PhD blue” velour (you can see it in the front), […]
Insect pollinators and real-world science
Last semester, I had the absolute honor (and pleasure) of being one of Tufts Experimental College’s Robyn Gittleman Graduate Teaching Fellows. Now, the ExCollege is looking for help to continue funding graduate students through this amazing program. To learn more about the program, check out this blog post I wrote for Tufts Graduate Admissions last […]
The hive was like Grand Central Station
“The hive was like Grand Central Station at rush hour. Commuters moving in every direction, purposeful, industrious, and functioning in organized chaos.” Such an eloquent and accurate description of a honey bee hive on a warm summer day. As 2017 comes to a close, there are countdowns and “best of” lists almost everywhere you look. […]
The Story Collider
All the way back in June, I had the opportunity to attend the 2017 Communicating Science National Workshop. As part of that conference, I participated in a Story Collider workshop (which was incredible). And now, I am honored to say that I told a story at a local Story Collider show and my story made […]
Gettin' buzzed with honey bees
Back in June, I attended the National Communicating Science Conference (#ComSciCon) in Cambridge, MA and one of the many awesome people I met was Sadie Witkowski! Sadie is the host of a podcast, PhDrinking, where she interviews a scientist about their research over a drink. I had the pleasure of being one of Sadie’s interview-ees […]
Providence Pollinator Lab 