Social distancing
Well, friends, I don't know about you, but I feel like the world has drastically changed over the last week. I've been instructed to socially distance myself from others to avoid spreading coronavirus, and it looks like one of my upcoming research trips might be cancelled. It's sad and disorienting, but it's also an opportunity.
You see, this is not the first time I've been stuck somewhere, forced to work under unusual circumstances.
In 2013, I was on a 6-week research cruise off the coast of New Zealand. It took us 2 weeks to even get the ROV working, and then we only got about another 10 days of sampling before the ROV was lost. I was just a PhD student at the time with no leadership role in the project, so I was stuck on the ship with little to do. But instead of wasting time, I analyzed a data set that turned into the cornerstone of my dissertation, and I wrote a string quartet. It's the most productive cruise I've ever had!
In 2015, I was in Svalbard for 2 weeks as part of a larger project, but my sampling only took two days. One of those sampling days completely failed, so I got only 2/3 the data I was expecting and had a lot of spare time. I spent it analyzing the data I did have, networking with my fellow scientists, and learning more about the study sites. That trip was actually a turning point for my Arctic work, which paid off when I returned to Svalbard earlier this year.
In 2017, I was on an Arctic cruise for 5 weeks and had to wait until the very end to get my samples. I spent almost a month at sea with nothing to work on, but I was far from idle. I analyzed a data set from an earlier experiment and collected animals opportunistically.
Now that social distancing is the new norm, I find myself isolated and forced to improvise. But this feeling is nothing new. I'm seizing the opportunity in two ways. First, I'm working on a proposal to continue my research in the Arctic and get a handle on the larval biology of Arctic deep-sea species for the first time. Writing and budgeting require quiet anyway, so it's the perfect chance to work on the proposal.
Second, I'm going through all the ROV footage my team collected last summer from shipwrecks in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. I had started this process a couple months ago, but there is a lot of material! I'm watching the video, pausing anytime there's a good view of the animals living on the wreck, and taking a frame grab. I'll use the frame grabs to count each of the organisms and conduct a quantitative analysis of how the wreck communities have changed over time.
I'm making the most of social distancing, and I hope you are too. Stay safe, healthy, and sane, my friends!
You see, this is not the first time I've been stuck somewhere, forced to work under unusual circumstances.
In 2013, I was on a 6-week research cruise off the coast of New Zealand. It took us 2 weeks to even get the ROV working, and then we only got about another 10 days of sampling before the ROV was lost. I was just a PhD student at the time with no leadership role in the project, so I was stuck on the ship with little to do. But instead of wasting time, I analyzed a data set that turned into the cornerstone of my dissertation, and I wrote a string quartet. It's the most productive cruise I've ever had!
In 2015, I was in Svalbard for 2 weeks as part of a larger project, but my sampling only took two days. One of those sampling days completely failed, so I got only 2/3 the data I was expecting and had a lot of spare time. I spent it analyzing the data I did have, networking with my fellow scientists, and learning more about the study sites. That trip was actually a turning point for my Arctic work, which paid off when I returned to Svalbard earlier this year.
In 2017, I was on an Arctic cruise for 5 weeks and had to wait until the very end to get my samples. I spent almost a month at sea with nothing to work on, but I was far from idle. I analyzed a data set from an earlier experiment and collected animals opportunistically.
Now that social distancing is the new norm, I find myself isolated and forced to improvise. But this feeling is nothing new. I'm seizing the opportunity in two ways. First, I'm working on a proposal to continue my research in the Arctic and get a handle on the larval biology of Arctic deep-sea species for the first time. Writing and budgeting require quiet anyway, so it's the perfect chance to work on the proposal.
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| Sponges on the Palmer/Crary wreck |
I'm making the most of social distancing, and I hope you are too. Stay safe, healthy, and sane, my friends!
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