Congratulations to Dr. Amy Hagen (@spicegirl.bsky.social), who just successfully defended her dissertation this afternoon! Amy's dissertation is entitled Geochemical, paleontological and sedimentological exploration of the co-evolution of life and environment during the Cambrian Period.

Excited to share that last night I was honored as Virginia Tech’s PhD student of the year!! Couldn’t ask for a more perfect way to cap off my grad school experience😊

It’s been a big week! Another new paper out in Palaios describing some awesome silicified cyanobacteria fossils and their taphonomic history. #fossils #cyanobacteria #cambrian doi.org/10.2110/palo...

Excited to share our new paper detailing key strategies we’ve used to run a science outreach program here in rural VA for 8 years! Definitely an adventure publishing in a new field but I had an awesome team behind me the whole way. #scicomm #outreach #science jces.ua.edu/articles/10....

New paper out today assigning a cnidarian affinity to the early Cambrian small shelly fossils Salterella and Volborthella! Fun work to be a part of, AND I get to add ‘paleoartist’ to my CV😉 doi.org/10.1017/jpa....

Last week I sat down with my colleague Rose to recap my 2024 paper for the VT Geos department podcast! youtu.be/nZQExNop_ZI

Turns out putting a school-sanctioned golf course right next to a school-sanctioned student parking lot is a really bad idea! Thanks VT🫡

It’s really great to see programs like this out here, but they’re missing a critical group: postdocs! We need to be investing in the next generation so that we continue to have a solid pipeline from PhD to faculty. We’re at risk of falling through the cracks. Not that I’m biased or anything…

Goodbye to one of my two opportunities to get a federally funded postdoc fellowship. I’m trying to carry on as normal but it seems like each day things get more hopeless…

I’m going to be very busy the rest of the week. Taylor Swift needs my manuscript by Friday!

Got to check Kīlauea off my geology bucket list this weekend! Had a wonderful time despite the eruption being paused.

Microbes were going crazy after Snowball Earth. Very cool to see the Rasthof Fm cap carbonate in Namibia!

It’s dark times, but here’s a small victory: I won a Schlanger Fellowship for 2025-26! 🎉 In a fun coincidence, my dad sailed with Dr. Schlanger in the 1980s. We talk about it in this episode of the Tales from the Deep podcast: archive.storycorps.org/interviews/i...

This is beyond devastating. I can’t believe this is our reality right now… 0 geoscience postdocs for 2026? Seriously, wtf am I supposed to do???

Just booked tickets to my #1 fieldwork bucket list location: Namibia!!! 🇳🇦

After my grant was cancelled last week, I spoke with NPR about how science cuts are hurting US scientists: www.npr.org/2025/05/02/n...

Yesterday I was awarded $10k in research funds, today the grant was terminated by NSF. Would love someone to explain how this is making America great again…

Really excited to participate in this virtual panel as part of #ScienceTalk 2025! The VT SciComm ecosystem has been one of my favorite parts of my time at Virginia Tech😊

My interpretation of Pokemon x fossil organisms! First up: Anomalocaris, colored hot pink because why not. Who should I do next? #paleoart

Probably the only time I will get to say this in my life: My paper came back from review and one reviewer said it should be accepted AS IS (!!!)

Bighorn sheep skull from the Pahranagat Mountains, Nevada! The horns can weigh up to 30lbs (they sure felt heavy to me!)

Merry Fieldmas! Recently returned from some chilly fieldwork in western MD. We finally finished the section I’ve been working since 2020 — over 2000 meters measured!

Fossils **in outcrop** in Calvert County, MD! Most of the time we find these Miocene shells in loose sediments, but this bed in my local park preserves them as internal molds.

Only a few more days left to access my new paper for free! Iron speciation, archaeocyaths, and more in the December issue of Chemical Geology: authors.elsevier.com/a/1jxxO26gan...

Big news: I’m headed to Australia in just over a month to participate in the ANZIC (Australia & NZ’s IODP branch) Marine Geoscience Masterclass in Queensland, fully funded thanks to the USSSP!! I can’t even express how freaking excited I am!!! 🪸🌞🌊

Photo really doesn’t do it justice, but this is my tribute to phosphorus speciation, the scariest of all geochem lab procedures. 👻

Hi! 👋 If you’re heading to GSA next weekend please consider checking out my talk on Sunday morning! Should be a fun discussion of the weird & wonderful Harkless Fm and the Fe speciation proxy😊