My year in 2013

Inspired by Martin Eve (link), I decided to make a documentation of academic-related stuff I’ve achieved in 2013. The last year was mostly occupado by the first year of my PhD, but other academic-ish stuff too as complimentary activities to research. This is kinda like a personal diary of ‘achievements’, as well as a documentation of the extent of work-procrastination. As such, please feel free not to share this with my supervisor 😉

Primary Research

• Entered 369 papers into the Paleobiology Database, as part of developing the core data for my research
• Traveled to Munich, Berlin, Barcelona, Bucharest, Lyon, and New York for primary assessment of atoposaurid crocodylomorph fossils (see blog post here)
• Attended workshop in Bristol on quantitative palaeontology using PAST and R  (current skill ranking: eejit)
• Have first paper on ruminant snouts ready for submission (see below), as well as others on: 1) reviewing the Jurassic/Cretaceous (J/K) interval (near-completion); 2) crocodylomorph diversity dynamics at the J/K boundary (about two-thirds done); 3) extrinsic and intrinsic trait evolution of crocs at the J/K boundary (about one-third done); 4) phylogeny of Atoposauridae (about half done); 5) re-description and taxonomic revision of Alligatorellus species (near-complete)

Social Media

• Surpassed 3000 followers on Twitter (current: 3901). Apologies to each of them.
• Began blogging for Nature’s Scitable network (Earthbound)
• Wrote 56 blog posts for the current EGU blog
• Helped with production of the Palaeocast podcast (winner of best podcast in 2013 Science Seeker award)

Presentations (non-academic)

• Social media for academics, European Geosciences Union, Vienna, (approx. 100 attendees, invited speaker)
• Social media for academics, Oxford Biotech Roundtable, London (approx. 50 attendees)
• Two talks for Imperial College London Library about the uses of social media for academics (spot the trend anyone?)
• Blogging and your academic profile, annual INTECOL event
• Co-co-ordinated session on communicating science in an open access world at this years SPOTON London conference

Presentations (academic)

• Presented poster at 73rd meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology
• Oral presentation at Progressive Palaeontology – Getting geometric with ruminant rostra

Publications (academic)

• PeerJ pre-print for FIRST EVER PUBLICATION (to be) – submission to PLoS One impending 🙂
• 9 month PhD report
• MEarthSci thesis submitted to Arxiv, with original drawings all on Figshare

Publications (non-academic)

• Response to the ‘open access sting’ via Matt Shipman and SciLogs
• Case study on social media for scientists for Nature
• Two articles for Discover Magazine on dinosaur flesh wounds and the dinosaur Aurornis xui
• Guest article for Things We Don’t Know Yet on biodiversity and mass extinctions
• Three articles for Conversation UK on turtles, crocodiles, and dinosaurs

Other (e.g., policy-related)

• Represented the geological community in Parliament at the Voice of the Future event
• Attended several open access-related events at the Royal Society, Parliament, and elsewhere in London to informally discuss the impact and role of early-career researchers
• Successfully procured two grants for Palaeocast from the Palaeontological Society and Palaeontological Association
• Became an F1000 specialist
• Graduate Teaching Assistant for two modules at Imperial College London (Palaeontology, and Life and Earth History)
• Co-organised event at Imperial College discussing opening up research data (with the Science Communication Forum)

That’s about all I can remember for now, so Happy New Year! 🙂