First post time! :) I figured this would be an easy way to keep people up-to-date on my life in grad school (especially since so many of you are so far away!).
Let's start with the acronyms. I am starting my first year of graduate school at the University of Illinois, as part of the PEEC graduate department. PEEC stands for "Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Conservation Biology", and is essentially a conglomeration of a lot of different professors with a lot of different biological interests. I'm here to get my Ph.D., and I'll be here for the next 5-6 years. I am also an IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) scholar, which is an interdisciplinary program sponsored by the NSF. More on that in a minute!
I am going to be working with a professor who does genetic anthropology work - using DNA to learn more about our history as humans. The goal of genetic anthropology, essentially, is to figure out where a group came from, how they got here (geographically speaking), and what other groups they encountered on the way. It's a field I'm really interested in, so I'm excited to be working in his lab!
Due to my IGERT status, I also have another focus. The program is called Vertically Integrated Training in Genomics, and it's essentially teaching us how to look at an organism from the ground up: from their DNA to anatomy and even to higher-level functions like behavior and social organization. Working with DNA, you don't always get the chance to see the "big picture" of an organism, so that will be a new and cool experience for me. The best part, though, is I get to spend my spring semester in Panama, working with scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute! I don't know much about it beyond that, but I'm looking forward to living somewhere new for a while and getting some more research experience!
I moved up to Champaign almost 3 weeks ago (we're not going to talk about the moving experience!), and I really like the town so far! In some ways, it feels a lot like College Station, because it's so small and everyone is so friendly. I already found a phenomenal Thai place and a Sunday night Pub Quiz and have been to the library more than once (and it's fantastic!), so I'd say I'm adjusting nicely. And the weather is amazing right now - it's 84 degrees right now, which is the high for the day. There are definitely things I miss about Dallas and College Station, though.
There's not too much going on yet; I start training in lab tomorrow and classes start Monday. I think I'm ready to get going! It's just another school year...right?
