Meyer-Kaiser lab

'Twas the day before vacation; alone in the lab,  Kirstin was working, with no free time to gab The students had long ago left for their homes Leaving their senior advisor at work all alone.  Kirstin sat at the microscope, pipet in hand To sort animals the size of grains of sand She sorted for two hours, painstakingly  'Til her lower back and hands spoke up achingly.  With a sample complete, it was time to move on Kirstin moved to her desk, which her laptop was on.  A proposal was waiting for polishing words To round out the message, which was written by nerds Proposals must make a sound, solid case For money to fund the great science race The proposal was finished and sent to review Kirstin breathed out and relaxed for seconds two.  Next task was a paper, which she had to submit To a journal, where hopefully it would fit She uploaded the text, plus figures, plus a letter A round of review will no doubt make it better. With three major tasks done, Kirstin p...

DeepZoo in a test tank at AVAST. Photo by Johanna Weston. I love seeing members of my lab succeed . Johanna, my postdoc, has recently been working at WHOI's engineering hub, AVAST, to finalize her full-ocean-depth zooplankton sampler. She calls it DeepZoo . This week, DeepZoo had a major milestone: the first in-water test! Johanna sent an update to every member of the lab, complete with a photo of DeepZoo in action. "DeepZoo's first full working dunk," she wrote. "Over 10 minutes, it logged data and battery voltage, opened the door, spun the thruster, closed the door, and stopped log...Feels like I just hit a view after a lot of switchbacks."  I am proud of Johanna's accomplishment. DeepZoo started as an idea, but she has turned the sampler into a reality. What's more, the relatively small sampler pumps an immense amount of water. With it, Johanna should be able to collect new specimens from the deep sea - she even has an opportunity to do so coming...

Years ago, I vented to my husband, Carl , about a project that I had wanted to do but couldn't get funded. The proposal fell through at the last minute, and I was sad. Now, Carl is 8 years older than me and has plenty of life experience to show for it. He has been not just a partner but also a guide and a sounding board for me over the years. When I expressed my frustration over the failed proposal, he just shrugged.  "It's a funnel," he said. A career in academia means constantly watching your work get filtered, sifted, and funneled, until only the your very best work remains. You have 100 ideas, but only 50 of them turn into actual proposals. Of those 50, statistically speaking, only about 5 will get funded. Based on my experience , only one will work how it's supposed to, but if you're lucky, you can squeak out a few published papers anyway. It's a funnel. I'm right in the middle of the funnel right now. This week, I have worked on 3 different pro...