Flight update… more mimosas and editing response to reviewers for our upcoming manuscript. Not a bad way to spend a morning!

When the first class upgrade is only $25 more than it would cost to fly economy with a checked bag. Mimosas to celebrate a little Christmas break were definitely in order!

Spent my afternoon rage eating pie through that mess of an NSF webinar. 10/10 recommend this coping mechanism. Now back to trying to be productive in this hellscape

Also please note that 1) that is not our camp chair and 2) no one put him in it. He just invited himself to that seat when the owner got up for a moment. (He spent the night stealing spots on any comfy camp chair he could find before settling in this one)

Lab Christmas party last night had a surprising star… Motsenbocker was the life of the party. Made sure to supervise the white elephant exchange as well.

Adding “fought for a Tokyo Disney vacation package” to my list of great wars along with the great Eras Tour fight of 2022..

Also if anyone knows of a good review/opinion piece to cite to refute this claim please LMK. The interesting part is we discuss probably 100 genes and they picked one set they wanted “validated”. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Good morning to everyone except reviewers who, in the year of our lord 2025, are STILL finding it necessary to ask for qPCR/western blot validation of RNAseq results

Playing fishbowl with a bunch of college kids… you know I had to cause chaos by putting in the most dated nouns I could think of on the spot.. They handled “dial up” and “parachute pants” better than expected.. but “John Cusack”… pure chaos.

Crazy to think all my non-equestrian friends are out there just having a normal week while my horsey bubble is imploding over this. I honestly can’t overstate how bad it is. Maybe we’ll look back and think we’ve overreacted but I’d rather that than the alternative. www.kwtx.com/2025/11/19/e...

If anyone was still on the fence over whether American tipping culture has gotten out of hand… Went to grab takeout today, no one taking orders, just a kiosk.. but the tip options were still 20-30%. How about these companies just pay their cooks a working wage!?!?

Follow up: I still can’t get over the fact that this man sold out Dickies arena and then showed up looking like he belongs in a Progressive commercial. Fully embracing the “Dad rock” vibes and honestly, I’m here for it.

So I scrambled to submit my MIRA Oct 3rd for nothing and will now have to complete rethink my existing strategy for grant submissions over the next year…

Back in the town where I got my PhD tonight, seeing two of the musicians who defined that period of my life. One of them I haven’t seen live since I was a newly minted PhD, 4 days post defense and a week out from getting engaged. You could say I’m feeling just a little nostalgic

Dear SICB: charging postbac technicians for full price membership and registration is really really not cool. There is no reason this group of early career researcher should be paying over double what students pay for registration. Let’s fix this moving forward.

This was such a fun project and I’m so glad to see it out officially!!

Not the headline anyone wants to see but this hits particularly close to home… I lived through a cat 1 (Sandy) hit just outside of Kingston and that was rough.. I can’t even fathom this. Thinking of all the friends and colleagues I made during my time in Jamaica and hoping for safety for all.

Alright bioinformaticians of Blue Sky… I need your help. We’ve been aligning TagSeq data to a new reference genome using STAR. I get decent mapping rates to the gff3 file from STAR for unique mappers. But when I go to assemble a count matrix using feature counts it plummets (lots of multi mappers)

This feels appropriate

Reminder, we’re hiring 2 PhD students for next year!! I’m extending the deadline to Nov 1, but please get your app in soon if you’re interested in joining us! More info is on our webpage. 🦠🦑 Please share with ECRs you know as well and check out our other open positio. (Postdoc!)

It’s a wallow on the couch eating spicy noodles and binge watching ER kind of night. Have a feeling many of my colleagues are doing similar things. #IYKYK

In person guests are also more than welcome if you’re in the central TX area. Reach out if you need any info!

Science friends and collaborators!! This week I will be giving my tenure review seminar! It will be available via zoom to accommodate some folks travel schedules. So, if you’d like to hear more about what the labs been up to over the past five years please reach out and I will give you the link

5 years of hard work on this guys brain at shows has really paid off. He’s starting to feel like an old pro. Did he try to kill himself in the trailer on the way over? Yeah. But did that bother him when he got there? Nope. Set a first level PB & exceeded our 2nd level debut goal by 4 points!

Guess I need to go through and swap genetic diversity for genetic variation in my proposal… ugh

One year ago today I pretty dramatically broke my wrist… and unofficially dislocated my elbow. I still can’t fully lock that elbow; nor can I touch my thumb to my shoulder on that side… but 95% functionality gets you pretty far day to day and I’m lifting heavier than ever so I’ll take it!

Super behind on this but so excited to see this preprint out. Dan did an excellent job summarizing the science; I won’t duplicate efforts. But on a personal note- I set out this summer with a goal to get my last postdoc MS done before submitting my tenure packet… mission accomplished!!

Currently unclaimed taxa (mostly inverts): - ctenophores or sponges - platyhelminths - annelids - crustaceans - insects/arachnids - chitons/gastropods/bivalves - cephalopods - amphioxus - tunicates - jawless fish - birds

🚨🚨We’re hiring graduate students!🚨🚨 We are hiring 1-2 PhD students to start sometime in 2026 (Fall start dates preferred). Opportunities to work on a diversity of eco-evo-immuno and symbiosis projects! Deadline Oct 15! Please share broadly! Info here: tinyurl.com/y2abjsem

Been thinking a lot about the many grant programs with institutional gate keeping (HHMI, Packard, etc). In a world of reduced funding opportunities, those of us at “lesser than” unis will be increasingly boxed out. This plan would not help… Good science can be done at all kinds of places!

Yall some company is making equestrian jumpsuits and I can’t even….. who in their right mind??? 🤮🤮🤮

Hey wild immunologists of blue sky… do you work on a non-model taxa??? Would you have 15 min to spare to zoom in and share your research with my comparative immunology class? I’m looking to spotlight real research this semester. Please spread the word and reach out if you’re interested!

🚨🚨We’re hiring a postdoc!🚨🚨 Min two year contract; start in 2026 (flexible) & contribute to this project focused on understanding the link between bleaching recovery and disease in cnidarians!! Opportunities to work on side projects too! Deadline Nov 1! Info here: tinyurl.com/y2abjsem

Anyone else absolutely drowning in review requests this summer? I’ve been getting multiple a day. Meanwhile we’ve been waiting FIFTEEN weeks and still no reviews on a MS submitted at the end of May. Last news was they were “waiting on a reviewer”… that was a month ago.

Full ad and application info coming soon, but putting it out into the social media-verse that we will be hiring 1 postdoc and 1-2 graduate students in 2026 to work on this or another ongoing project in lab (super flexible). Reach out or check out our webpage for more info: fuesslab.wp.txstate.edu

Teaching this fall? Here is a handy webpage that will help you generate a list of the days your course(s) meet: wcaleb.rice.edu/syllabusmake...

The Parker Lab at UNC Biology is hiring a postdoc to work on insect–microbe interactions. Support available for multiple years from startup; we are open to a range of project ideas. Come join us to study symbiosis in a supportive, collaborative environment! unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/303...

🚨 I’m hiring a postdoc for Fall 2025 with experience in microbial ‘omics data analysis and phylogenetics/genomics. Projects will be centered around ancient microbial ecology & evolution. Click here for more information: bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/wp.txstate.e... Please share, thank you 🙏🏻

Still processing what an incredibly special place Denali National Park truly is. I’ve never been anywhere like it… when I first read that the park was mostly trail-less I was so intimidated, but after visiting and experiencing I am already plotting a proper trip back for some true off-trail hiking.

Yall I opened up a job talk from 5 years ago (yikes…) looking for something random, but the future directions caught my eye… Five years later we’re wrapping up NSF funding to do exactly this, and the concept is basically the foundation of my funded CAREER. 🤯🤯 #promisesmadepromiseskept

Nothing like a good weight lifting session in the morning to get those creative juices flowing. Went from total writers block on a MS intro last night to cranking the last bit out in about 5 minutes post workout (need refs, but it’s all there). 💪🏻💪🏻

Celebrating this Friday evening!! After 7 long months I can finally share that I have received an NSF CAREER award to study the link between bleaching and disease in cnidarians!! Stay tuned for more info about postdoc and graduate student positions!

Spending the 4th watching Hamilton cause with everything going on it felt most appropriate. Been a few years since I last watched and man it hits different in this season…

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, or Marvel.

Things are rough, but I’m out here crying happy tears over kind grant reviews… not the first time I’ve cried over reviews, but definitely the first happy time. It’s the little things.

Boat day for our summer undergraduate trip as part of our NSF funded project. A nice break after a busy day of infection trials yesterday. Love bringing together all the students on team Astrangia for some great science and cohorting!

Reasons I was meant to be a PI: I LOVE conceptualizing experiments, I HATE running experiments. The chaos is just too much for my anxious brain (especially now that I’m out of the habit).

A perfect New England summer weekend to recover between conference week and field work week…

Fresh data, a Downeast cider, and some New England summer porch time.. couldn’t ask for a better Friday night

This week was pure joy at the Animal-Microbe Symbiosis GRC. Felt like a wonderful science summer camp. First conference in some time where I’ve met more new people than I can count. I’m leaving feeling so reinvigorated by this amazing community and looking forward to the next meeting.