As far as real goals go, my overarching goal is to continue to convince people to pay me to do ecology research. My ideal scenario is to work for an N.G.O. (e.g., The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Smithsonian, etc.) or a government agency (e.g., E.P.A., U.S.D.A., etc.). If necessary, I'd also work in academia, but it's not my first choice because I tend to find a lot of the university system to be distracting. As far as what’s next, in between my Ph.D. and an eventual career, I expect I will do a few post-docs at those types of institutions.
What are some typical day-to-day responsibilities you have, or decisions you make?
This is something that changes depending on the time of year and the stage where I find myself on my current project. During the semester, I deal a lot with teaching responsibilities which involve grading, meeting with the instructor of the course, leading lab for the students and attending lectures. Besides teaching responsibilities, I deal with a lot of emails (more than I would like), many meetings, writing grant applications for funding, getting necessary supplies, coordinating sampling efforts, doing data analysis, writing manuscripts for publication and putting together presentations.
Summertime is field season (my favorite part of this job), so you’re out there collecting samples or data. Summer is also when many ecologists go to the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America to share work with each other. In the fall and early winter, you’re recovering from the chaos of summer, getting everything organized, filed away and labeled correctly.
