The winter holidays are a typical for everyone to make a balance of the year that just went by. Scientists are, last time I checked, people, so we make balances as anyone. And, at least professionally (but almost always also personally) we make them in terms of scientific accomplishments that we achieved in this past year.
What drives me to write the achievements of this year in a public blog? At least two things. The first is my compulsory need to do something to deal with my ever-lasting impostor syndrome. Someone might not believe this, but every year I renew my license as lifeguard just in case I will have to look for another job unexpectedly. You can make a decent summertime salary being a lifeguard for a private beach in Italy, so that is my safety net. The second is the difficulty I have to deal with the inevitable questions that arise from family and friends back home during the many dinners that characterize this period. They all know what I do, but there is always that feeling of weirdness when someone asks what did I really do this past year. Sometimes I wish I could answer that I worked in a restaurant, and that I am happy to have earned enough money this year to get that flat screen ultra-high-tech TV for Christmas. But I can’t do that, so here we go. I am also putting a google translate button, so there are no excuses: folks, if you really mean it when you ask me “what is it that you are doing?”, just read on and your curiosity will be fulfilled. First of all, I need to write a few words about my world. Scientists are often evaluated against the scientific papers they publish, and where they publish them. There are thousands of scientific journals, probably hundreds in my field, but many aim (either openly or secretly) for the top-tier ones, such as Nature and Science. Then, there are some excellent generalist journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or Nature Communications, and many field-specific ones that present great science, that is sometimes too specific for a general audience. Another key benchmark against which we are evaluated is the funding we get to get our research going. Then there is all the rest, which is equally important: teaching, mentoring postdocs and PhD students, going to meetings to see what’s up with our peers and to keep our ideas flowing. Many scientists (including myself) try to squeeze all this into the attempt to have a quasi-normal personal life, and do everything while trying to secure a permanent position. It is not a secret that having to cope with all this for several years can cause serious mental problems. This is why there are, at present, many attempts to make academic environments more relaxed and the ‘publish or perish’ logic less compelling. Many scientists and publishing houses are, for example, trying to move away from the journal ranking system I briefly outlined above, evaluating more the scientific articles by their own merits rather than by where they are published. But there is still a long way before the system gets better, let’s hope 2018 will bring better news on this.
So, back to my year. For which concerns papers, I think it was a good one. In total, I co-authored seven papers, all of them in journals I like for their content and all of them presenting some cool ideas (well, on this I am not objective, but this is my blog, so be it). The major hype of the year is surely a paper we published in PNAS (one of the high-ranking generalist journals I cited above). The paper deals with hurricane waves that hit the Bahamas 125.000 years ago, and supposedly moved giant boulders on a 15-meters high cliff. The reason why this is important from a climate perspective was explained nicely in a news report by the Washington Post and in another one by phys.org. But to me personally, the value of this paper is another one: to do all the data collection and analysis, I had to use all the skills that I built up patiently since I started my master degree, from mapping to wave modeling. In choosing my research topics, I always followed my interests, and I was starting to think that this approach was too dispersive. But, thanks to this paper, I now see that there was a pattern in all this, which I did not really realize until this year. Even better, part of the sponsoring for this research came from a World Surf League initiative, called P.U.R.E. As I entered this domain of science thanks to my passion for surfing, and I literally watched every surf competition since I was 14 years old, this was for me a big highlight that probably went unnoticed to most. I also managed to catch a few waves one day in Eleuthera, and that was a blessing.
Another highlight came from a paper we published in the journal Coral Reefs. This is one of the specialist journals I like to read, there is plenty of great science there if your focus are, as the title says, corals. This paper is really a short note, where we show that it is technically possible to use drones and normal photo cameras to make bathymetric maps in shallow water reefs. The news of this paper was picked up by many outlets, among which ArteTV, a French-German TV. It was cool that they came to Bremen to interview me and members of my research group, so probably few million people saw the place where I sit everyday. Needless to say, it was the first time I was on TV (!).
We are following up some of the drone research with another project, that brought us to Fiji in August to see how drones can be used to map mangrove ecosystems, that are important to stabilize the coast from erosion among many other things. Besides getting all the data we needed to keep our research going, the trip to Fiji was special to me as I managed to detach from work duties one day and go surfing in one of the seven wonders of the world of surfing: cloudbreak. I stayed in the water for hours, I managed to catch two waves. Not the greatest wave count, also considering that on one I just felt on the reef. But the second wave I got, I will remember until I die: 10-something seconds of liquid perfection. As a surfer for 15+ years, with discontinuous activity due to being land-locked in Northern Germany, it is cool to know that I can manage to stay in the lineup in one of the most challenging waves in the world and come back to tell the story.
Towards the end of the year, another first time for me arrived. Thomas Lorscheid, the first PhD student I fully supervised, graduated with an excellent thesis, also putting in some exciting papers in the process. One of them was published in the journal Scientific Reports, another journal that I always read with interest. Thomas managed to use some field data and modeling to investigate changes in tides in the Last Interglacial, again 125.000 years ago. It was very cool to see that our paper came out almost simoultaneously with a paper from another research group that, in the conclusions, indicates the need for studies such as ours. The interesting thing about this is that there weren’t any contacts between the two groups while the papers were being prepared, and the results are two highly complementary pieces of work. Science at its best, I guess.
Throughout the year, I also managed to attend some very interesting meetings. It was great to go back to Columbia University in July for the Sea Level Conference. I must admit that it took me a while to digest all the new science that I saw there. Clearly, my field is moving forward at a very fast pace and there is plenty of young brilliant minds bringing new approaches in the game. In October I flew again overseas to Mexico for the PALSEA annual conference, and I met again lots of colleagues and friends working on past climates and sea levels. The highlight in this case is that I agreed to coordinate the efforts to organize the next meetings, taking over from some of the best scientists I personally know. It is a bit of a hard task, luckily I am not alone, but flanked by some of those brilliant minds I just mentioned. More news on this will come in the new year.
So, all in all, my 2017 wasn’t too bad. But when making such balances, I always tend to overlook what it took to achieve the results I just mentioned. I had to spend several weekends and nights working hard to meet deadlines, and days trying to do too many things at once. In Germany we are allowed to 30-something holiday days, I think I took maximum five or six, just because I could not disconnect from my work. I flew around a lot, and besides feeling guilty for the carbon emissions, I also re-developed an old back injury, which is now giving me a hard time every time I do not sleep in a decent bed (or every time I surf, which is worst for my pride). I spent a lot of time worrying about my future and that of the members of my group, and for this reason I spent a lot of time writing grants that I hope will be successful to keep us going further. I had to deal with failure with papers and proposals, luckily this year less than I dealt with success (but failure burns quite a bit). Some days I wondered if I am sacrificing too much (the answer was almost always ‘yes’) and if it is really worth it (again, ‘yes’). I think I am now paying the toll of my intense year: I came back home in Italy, I relaxed for one day and I immediately got sick. It is 4 days (and counting) that I am basically in bed with a pretty bad flu that won’t go away. I think it is the way my body tells me something along these lines ‘Hey you idiot, take it easier in 2018’. Due to this, I also lost the last swell of the year in my home spot, and having to see your friends come back home with a big smile on their face after a good winter surfing sucks a lot. I don’t have any good intent for 2018, for me good intents never really worked because I tend to forget them after one week into the new year. But for myself, I do hope to find a better work-life balance, and I wish that I will be able to keep doing what I like.
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AuthorTrying to keep up with sea level changes, yesterday, today and tomorrow Archives
February 2019
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