The spring semester came and went. I was a teaching assistant for the Microbiology lecture which included grading weekly in-class assignments and holding office hours for students to ask questions. I did not take any courses and my primary goal was to make significant progress on two manuscripts for my dissertation work. I was able to get one submitted to a journal and went through the peer review process for the first time. I am still in the midst of peer review. The second paper is now in outline form, and I am looking forward to submitting it for peer review in a scientific journal by mid-summer.
I am now 1 year away from the end of my PhD. I am feeling ready to wrap up all of these biological soil crust projects and to continue working with my amazing collaborators along the way to the finish line. I already have an exit talk date (April 2024). Postdoc announcements and job advertisements are starting to catch my eye. This spring there were some interesting options - a teaching position at Western State and a field station manager in the Tetons. As I move steadily to May 2024, I will be thinking about how I want to spend my final year in the Front Range (May 2024-May 2025) and what may be coming after that. Everywhere I look there is interesting work to be done and fabulous people to do that work with. Now I need to decide where I am needed most.
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AuthorSierra is a graduate student in the Barger Lab at CU Boulder studying microbial ecology for dryland restoration. Archives
August 2023
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