To date, I’ve driven just over 7,000 miles to work at academic postings in 4 states. It’s not uncommon to travel long distances to match with the right academic program or job posting, in fact, it can be critical to help you acquire new skills. Almost every researcher I know has made at least one move, and many have traveled transcontinentally or internationally. This highlights the need for moving assistance (without which I could not have afforded to move to a job) as well as immigration policy which is not based on intimidation or discrimination.

For my part, I have effectively moved laterally across North America twice, going nearly coast to coast to coast. Beginning with my bachelor’s and doctorate at the University of Vermont, I moved to Burlington back in 2003 and stayed for 12 years, long enough to catch the travel bug. With my defense impending, I accepted a position at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, a drive of roughly 2,600 miles, and lived there for two years with my now-husband, Lee, acquiring a dog in the process.

While the move to Montana was motivated by my interest in the work and in living out west, my move to the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon just two years later was a bit more tinged with financial necessity: in early 2017, it seemed unlikely that my work into the effect of climate change on soil microbes in agricultural fields would continue to be funded by the federal government. Although, they have since funded a project I’m collaborating on, but it took nearly a year to confirm there was actually federal funding available, long after I had left Bozeman.

The actual move from Bozeman to Eugene was a comedy of errors; it was extremely difficult to find affordable housing in Eugene which would allow a dog > 35 lbs, was configured to support our lifestyle, and was located reasonably close to campus (I ended up biking 12 miles a day round trip). By the time we confirmed an apartment just 5 day before our move (which required significant time and financial investment to secure), the larger moving trailers were no longer available and Lee and I ended up each driving a 16 ft truck (mine without air conditioning) for two extremely long days and about 860 miles.

While we weren’t planning on being done with the west coast so soon, after just two years in Oregon, financial need was spurring a move yet again. In February of 2019, I was notified that there was no longer financial support for my research faculty position and that my contract was being terminated at the end of the month. This, too, is not uncommon in academia. Unless you are academic faculty, chances are that you are soft-money funded, and your salary and the majority of your benefits are paid through grant funding. There is usually a clause in your appointment letter or university policy regarding the minimum amount of time required between notification and termination, but sometimes it can be same day!

Through a combination of research money I had brought in, ad hoc summer teaching, and industry project money, I was able to knit together five months worth of half-time salary. I spent those five months working more than full-time in an effort to look for a new job (a time-intensive effort in academia) and push as many old projects to publication as possible. If I was going to have down time, at least I would use it efficiently to improve my prospects of getting a new job, and ensure that my obligations were met in case it was necessary to take a non-academic job to make ends meet and I no longer had much time for research in my spare time.

While financial need might have put me on the job market, pure serendipity connected me to the University of Maine: an old friend forwarded me the job posting, which I had missed despite all my internet-scouring. The position, the university, and the location were all perfect for me and my family, an alignment which is somewhat rare in academia.

Over 9 days, we drove roughly 3,600 miles on the scenic route along the Transcontinental Highway spanning Canada. We took ferries to an from Victoria Island, walked a beach near Vancouver, drove through the impressive Canadian Glacier National Park to Banff, cruised through grass seas in the Canadian wheat belt, dipped our paws in the Great Lakes region, and drove through the forests and undulating hills of Quebec and western Maine. We are spending the week acclimating on the Maine coast with family, after which we will formally move to Orono with no plans to move back out.

Despite all the mileage that Lee and I have accrued, Izzy has traveled farther! We adopted her in Bozeman, but she was born in a different part of Montana and had moved to Wisconsin and back before she was 2 years old, accruing an estimated 7,100 miles.