Summer 2020 is…. here. This year has been unpredictable at best, but some things have stayed the same. For example, summer is one of my favorite seasons in which to work in science, because things calm down when the university is not in full session and I’m not facing a deluge of emails, meetings, and myriad small interactions that accumulate to eat up the day. I’ve been taking the time to prepare my laboratory, dive deep into scientific writing, and prepare for the increased teaching load I will have starting this fall.
Manuscripts
You might think that the pandemic causing months of delayed or reduced labwork would have lightened my research load, but I’ve had more than enough to keep me occupied over this spring. Not only have I been submitting a few manuscripts for peer review at scientific journals from my time at the University of Oregon and Montana State University, but I have been working on some unanticipated manuscripts that coalesced this spring. This has included a project with a previous collaborator on diet and health, another based on soil microbial ecology led by master’s student Tindall Ouverson at MSU, and three more which were generated during my DNA sequence data analysis course that I taught this spring! Of these, I am lead author on two and contributing to the others at a variety of depths. Some require a great deal of my time, while others require only editing and review.
Students
And then there were 10! I now have three University of Maine master’s students and 4 undergraduate students performing research in my lab, as well as three other graduate students from other labs who are affiliated with us (as in, I am on their committee). In addition to training them on scientific research theory, laboratory protocols, and data management and analysis, they are getting general training in scientific literature review and critique, scientific writing and presentation, and laboratory management.
Lab space renovations
I am preparing the second of two laboratory spaces for my research, and this space hasn’t been fully renovated in years. While still very functional, there have been a number of remodeling, refinishing, and reorganization steps which needed to be taken to get it in line for biosafety level II microbiology work.
I have been doing much of this work personally, because it’s cheaper, and I have experience in basic home renovations. And, I enjoy the opportunity to put my email inbox away and let my thoughts wander to scientific theory while I use power tools.
When it is ready, I’ll be starting the wet-lab research into gut microbiology and doing more culture work to supplement the genomics work. To aid in that research, I’ve been acquiring more nifty bits of equipment.
Course materials development
Over the spring, I piloted a new course as a special topics version, and I have just been approved to teach that as an official course starting in spring 2021! This summer, I have and will continue to revise my teaching materials from the spring version to prepare them for AVS 454-554 next year.
I’ll be teaching two courses starting in fall 2020, one on animal microbiomes and one on undergraduate research for animal science students. AVS 254, on animal microbiomes, is material I have taught at other institutions with a different course focus. For that course, I will be updating the course material, adding new lectures from scratch, and revising the formatting of powerpoints. I’ll also need to make some of it more accessible for asynchronous online learning, depending on how the semester is organized this fall. This means pre-recording the lectures, and putting more effort into the online learning software I have available.
The other course I am teaching is new to me, AVS 401 (and 402 each spring), the AVS Capstone experience. I’ll be teaching students how to write scientific proposals, research papers, and give scientific presentations, as well as guiding them through participation in research along with faculty mentors. For many students, it’ll be their first experience participating in research. This year, since many students are unable to participate in in-person research and labs have been closed, it’ll be extra challenging to come up with projects, but I have some creative ideas in mind.
Works in development
In addition the above objectives, I have a number of things in development which are not yet ready to be shared in detail. These includes new research collaborations, leading a team to organize a journal special collection, and leading a team to organize and host a (virtual) mini conference meeting in the fall!
Faculty positions and summer work
Now, as an assistant professor at the University of Maine, I’m on a 9-month contract. During the academic year, I devote 50% of my time to research-related activities, and 50% to teaching/advising/mentoring– related activities. I have the option of working in the summer, or taking it off unpaid. However, my summer salary is contingent on me being awarded research funds which will pay for the work, something which is not guaranteed in this funding climate. It is generally not advisable for pre-tenure faculty to spend summers idle, and in any case, I would inevitably have to perform work of some kind over the summer to keep pace with my workload.
I am lucky enough to have start-up funding which can pay up to 2 months of summer salary per year during my first 3 years; however, I am expensive: one month of my summer salary is the equivalent of 1 full-time undergraduate researcher for 3 months, or a sizable chunk of a research project. On the one hand, I want to value my time and effort, and being paid for summer research helps close the gender pay gap for salary and retirement contributions. On the other hand, I am also forced to consider how to get work done on a reduced budget, should federal funding not come through. After all, being awarded tenure is contingent on productivity.
In May, I was adamant about taking the entire month of July off, as 2019 and 2020 have been incredulously busy and stressful and I haven’t had a vacation since Feb 2019. Now, at the end of June, I’m not sure I could take off a full summer month and still output all of the above, plus be prepared for the challenges of teaching this fall. At least my working-from-home view is more or less a vacation-scape, and some surprise home renovations will at least keep me away from electronic screens for some of it.
The Ishaq Lab 