Is anyone else overwhelmed by updating their many webpages, blogs, streams etc? Jason Priem described the shift from a paper-native academia to a web-native academia, in an excellent article last year in Nature, a shift well beyond the traditional peer-reviewed journal to more diverse outlets of information, interaction and discussion. I am part of the first generation of researchers who are excit ...[Read More]
How I start good supervisory relationships with graduate students
Many professors are confused about why a certain graduate student is happy or unhappy, under performing or performing well. I am far from a perfect supervisor, but I try to avoid this confusion by getting to know my graduate students on a relatively deep but professional level as quickly as possible, by doing the following in our first meeting: sharing results of a personality test; discussing our ...[Read More]
1200 words to make sense of chaos: The Selker Scheme
This is an inspiring article by John Selker (Oregon State University) that was first published in the latest AGU Hydrology Section Newsletter (July 2014). John graciously offered to re-post it here… make sure you make it to his rules and a secret at the bottom. Being elected a fellow of the AGU was an amazing honor, and I thank those who so kindly nominated me, somehow crafting a silk purse ...[Read More]
The home of our hearts day 5: The Sydney Tar Ponds and keeping the spark alive
[part six of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Here is the prologue to this series.] The fifth and final day of the workshop started off with a tour of the Sydney ...[Read More]
The home of our hearts day 4: the water-energy nexus & deep thoughts on salty water
[part five of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Here is the prologue to this series.] The focus of the fourth day of the workshop was the relationship between ene ...[Read More]
The home of our hearts day 3: The coal story – mines and mine water remediation
[part four of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Here is the prologue to this series.] Coal mining is an essential part of the history of Cape Breton Island, and t ...[Read More]
The home of our hearts day 2: The Unama’ki Institute for Natural Resources and a medicine walk to Glooskap’s cave
[part three of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Here is the prologue to this series.] After an emotional and inspirational first night together, we had the great ...[Read More]
The home of our hearts, Cape Breton – A transformative professional experience with the Canadian Water Network (Part 1 of 6: prologue)
Prologue [part one of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia] Let me start this series off by expressing how life changing this event was for me. I am very much a techn ...[Read More]