– September 8, 2018
Summer is over. It was a busy Summer - full of interesting work, trips, and a lot of writing. Looking back, I’m happy to share a few highlights.
A couple of months ago I’ve been offered to serve as a Subject Editor for the Journal of Orthoptera Research. It was super exciting! I served as a reviewer for this journal before for about 2 years, and I really enjoyed it. I also constantly refer to this journal in my research since it is the only journal we have so far where you can find everything about grasshoppers in one place! My editing work is in a full mode now - I’ve been editing the manuscripts in the areas of Biodiversity & Conservation, General Ecology, and Molecular Biology.
I was also very happy to be featured in our departmental newsletter!
During the past summer, I served on the planning committee for the first (ever!) UMD Postdoctoral Research Symposium. The symposium is almost here (on Sep 17), we’ve planned several interesting workshops (getting grants, designing a new course, etc.) - should be fun!
I’m very happy to be back to the PlantingScience program, this time as a member of the Master Plant Science Team! I will serve as a liaison for one class of high school students and as a scientist mentor for 2-3 teams. I had incredibly rewarding experience participating in the Digging Deeper project last year and I’ve decided to stay with PlantingScience forever! I’m very much looking forward to continuing my work with teachers and students this academic year and together with them enjoy science!
And last but not least was that one of our two lanternfly proposals has been funded by The Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, McIntire Stennis Forestry Research Program. These news came as a wonderful surprise on Friday, Aug 31 late afternoon (the last possible day for such notifications) with the starting date Sep 1. This is super exciting, my work on the spotted lanternfly began a few months ago, now we have some preserved specimens, and I don’t have to wait anymore to ‘officially’ start exploring them. More details to come!
