Looking up

This blog is turning one year old today, and I haven’t posted much in recent months. Not that the the whole project is falling apart, quite the opposite actually: I am really busy running things in parallel, and am prioritizing science developments ! But, after a perfect rejuvinating autumnal week-end in Pyrenean nature thinking about all of this in the background, I think a short transition update is now in order.

I currently still have a whole academic year of group responsability/duties in astro, and am winding down various astro projects, conferences and seminars this year, so still not working full-time in ecology. This, and a seemingly endless stream of new things to read and learn in the field largely explain why things are taking time to take off (18 months since first contacts). Research is hard, and one doesn’t become an expert in a new field by snapping a finger. For any one tempted by a similar controlled and gradual transition between very different research fields , I would argue that this is an entirely normal and expected timescale. As a reminder, I gave myself three years to complete this transition, my metric being publishing a first decent [by my own taste and satisfaction] paper in the field. I currently picture myself as a little mole slowly but surely digging its underground networks and home, and occasionally popping up at the surface.

I expect the scales of the time I spend working in each field will tip in favour of ecology quite soon now. As a matter of fact, I have spent a majority of the last two months doing ecology, and started a joint PhD supervision with a Moulis colleague in October. I have notably made some very significant technical progress with the development of computation and analysis tools, and presented some first dev results in a small-scale numerical workshop in September…On top of that, I have just finished setting-up a modest GPU server at the SETE for my upcoming projects. So the foundations are in place, and a few projects are finally taking off.

The most advanced one so far, which started last spring as an opportunity to get something done in the short-term in finite time, is a small marine ecology problem blending ecological community dynamics and fluid dynamics. Indeed, to make my transition work, part of my initial plan has been to complement long-term developments with simple, hands-on, short-term “bridge” projects that can help to set things in motion and to develop useful tools that can then serve more ambitious projects. And this little project fits the bill almost perfectly…I hope I will be in a position to share more about it early next year.

In other recent news, I finally gave a seminar at the SETE last week to introduce myself more formally to the lab, talk about some nascent projects, and seek opportunities for future collaborations. One type of work I have really been eager to get into, but did not yet have the opportunity to do so is conservation ecology/biology, so this seminar was a good opportunity to make a call for collaboration/discussion with local colleagues working on such matters. We will see how it goes!

So, overall, things are happening and going well — at their own little pace while I am still wrapping things up in astro — and the future looks good (well, except for you know what with an orange wig in the US). My main concern for the time being is a rich man’s problem that nevertheless comes with a very real risk. I now have way too many new research opportunities and possible projects on my plate, each of which comes with its own territory of existing results and specialized literature to become acquainted with. The risk is that by exploring all these directions at once I am going to spread myself too thin, and will not achieve anything satisfying, ending up exhausted, discouraged and frustrated. ‘been there, done that in other areas. So I am really going to have to make strong choices and set some priorities. I am spending a week in Paris at the end of November to meet oceanographers, computer scientists, community and evolutionary ecologists to pitch some of my ideas, plans and projects, and to weigh with them the relevance of different possible routes and collaborations for the next years. What will come out of these meetings ? Will they lead to more certainty/determination to focus on a few specific problems, or to even more browsing in different directions? Anyways, discussions with people who know more than you do are always and instructive, so I am really looking forward to them.

Similarly, my seminar in Moulis has started an interesting exchange with an evolutionary biologist there, and I increasingly feel one of the big choices I am going to have to make is whether I want to get into serious eco-evo modelling, or stick to community/landscape ecology research themes, which are definitely closer methodologically and scientifically to what I am familiar with as a physicist. One part of me knows it wants to get into evolutionary science for the fun and challenge of doing something radically different, but the other part has alarms bells ringing about this idea. This may be the bridge too far and too big of a gamble to make midcareer, considering my lack of experience in biological and genetics modelling — a likely recipe to end up achieving nothing at all. So, if I end up diving into this rabbit hole, it will have to be with the certainty that I can directly benefit from the experience, insights and tools of colleagues experts in this field. Making up my mind on this will be on of the goals of the upcoming discussions.

I am sure many ecologists colleagues reading this blog will smile at this, as you probably all faced this dilemna at the time your started a PhD, or applied to a specific postdoc, or dived into new ambitious projects. Well, as I said in my seminar last week, I still feel like a 1st-year PhD student in ecology! And, while it still brings some discomfort and challenges to this researcher’s ego to navigate new muddy scientifics waters, overall I couldn’t be more excited at this advanced stage of my career to still be in a position to ask myself newbie questions, to feel like a beginner, and to talk to new people from different backgrounds to decide what kind of project and science suits me best and I should prioritize.