The next generation of fungal ecologists is looking sharp! My mentee is currently running an experiment testing if carbon availability drives Alternaria to switch from pathogen to mutualist in Sorghum. It is a nuanced, difficult question, and he is absolutely crushing it. Proud mentor moment!

I use AI to extract ecological data. Meanwhile, AI is out here extracting my actual face. 🤖😂 An organization recently ran my photo through an AI enhancer before publishing it. A fun(??) digital makeover? Original on the left, AI on the right. Spot the differences!

Trading the computer for the river! 🚣‍♀️🏜️ Heading into the Grand Canyon for a packrafting trip to celebrate my successful PhD defense. Completely off the grid for the next little bit. Wish me luck!

Officially a certified Carpentries Instructor! 💻✨ Data science shouldn't be gatekept. Really excited to run official workshops and help more ecologists wrangle their data. @carpentries.carpentries.org

It is officially Dr. Bea Bock! 🎓🍄 Today I successfully defended my PhD dissertation on plant-fungal symbioses, common networks, and computational ecology. Huge thanks to my advisors, my lab mates, my pratner Kyle, and our two sweet little cat-children for getting me across the finish line.

I am officially defending my PhD this Thursday, March 5th! If you want to hear about AI literature mining, cottonwood drought survival, and the "dark web" of fungal networks, come by! Check the poster for the time. DM me for the Zoom link so we can keep the internet trolls out of the meeting!

Very excited to share that I am heading to CU Boulder this May for the 2026 ESIIL Innovation Summit! 🏔️💻 We will be spending the week focused on AI for Sustainability, Earth embeddings, and open environmental data. Can't wait to collaborate with this community.

Finally gave my digital home a renovation! 🛠️ I moved away from just listing dissertation chapters to sharing actual resources. You can now find my open-source R packages (nanodRop), wet lab protocols, and NLP workflows all in one place. Open science or bust! 🧬💻 beabockm.wixsite.com/bea-bock

People often assume Arizona is just saguaros and heat. Meanwhile, Flagstaff is doing this. ❄️ The roads are messy, but the coding productivity is high today. Hunkering down with data pipelines now (and dreaming of thawing out in there later). Stay warm, friends!

Press release by @binghamtonu.bsky.social about our @frontiersin.bsky.social in #Ecology & #Evolution rev: “Abundant empirical evidence of multilevel selection revealed by a bibliometric review”. Natural selection operates from molecules to ecosystems. #MLS www.binghamton.edu/news/story/6...

Returning to Van Nuland et al. (2023) this morning. 🍄 It’s one of those papers that stays relevant because the continental-scale dataset on Populus fungal associations is just that good.

📢 A new publication from our team is now out in the @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social BULLETIN! 👉 doi.org/10.1002/bes2... It shows how community, collaboration, & multilingual science are not extras—they are essential for equity in ecology. 🌎 📢Please share to amplify Latin American voices!

UW–Madison scientists have published new research about the makeup of death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) after learning that its spread across continents has changed the chemistry of the species. 🍄‍🟫

Dissertation: SUBMITTED to my committee! 🥂🧬 It’s a strange feeling to finally hand over the document I’ve been living with for so long. Huge thanks to everyone who helped me get to this point. Next stop: PhD Defense! 🦋 #ScienceSky #PhDLife #BiologicalSciences #GradSchool

So excited to announce I've received the ECR Award from the International Mycorrhiza Society! I’ll be heading to Cairns, Australia this summer for ICOM as the North American travel award recipient.

I loved hosting this interview with Dr. Pedro M. Antunes for the South American Mycorrhizal Research Network! We dove into the fluid mechanics of mycorrhizal networks and why biological sciences need more interdisciplinary physics thinking. Watch here: youtu.be/zqaS6ZBimYA

So glad to finally be doing @carpentries.org Instructor Training! The focus on mental models and live coding feedback is a total game changer for how I approach technical workshops in the biosciences. Highly recommend for any researcher! 🧪✨ #Carpentries #ScienceSky #OpenScience

Link to original study: doi.org/10.3897/rio....

A new study led by Northern Arizona University's @beabock.bsky.social demonstrates how a specialised language model called 𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓 can scan decades of research in minutes to identify fungi, with almost 90% accuracy. Read more about it on our blog: blog.pensoft.net/2026/02/05/u...

🌱 IMS Early Career Researcher Travel Award 🍄 Congrats to Beatrice M. Bock USA 🏆 North America awardee Supported by The New Phytologist Foundation @newphyt.bsky.social This award supports her participation with oral presentation at #ICOM2026 #Mycorrhiza

In our review of CMNs, water stood out as a resource that might be transferred between plants via fungal connections. This new study provides further support (and in DSEs!). Nice expt by Bea Bock et al 👍 Great to see new research. doi.org/10.1038/s420...