So, I thought in a change of pace, it might be nice to instead reflect on the things that I have achieved in the year. And I'd love to see other scientists do the same, especially those who share my worries about not doing/achieving/being enough and who hate the feeling that they are bragging.
So, what have I done in 2015?
I spoke at three conferences and a workshop, sharing the award for Best Student Talk at the AMOS conference in Brisbane and giving an invited speech at Greenhouse in Hobart. And while I typically downplay it (“it's just a special ARCCSS session, they just needed some students”), that's actually kinda cool.
I followed through on my resolution for the year of getting into Twitter, Linkedin, Researchgate and the rest, as well as taking over managing the CCRC facebook page. I didn't necessarily use any of them consistently, this blog as one example, but I managed to write a blog post that got picked up at The Conversation and read by over 15,000 people, so that's pretty cool! I also did my first media interviews where I had to represent myself/my research instead of the Bureau, which was scary, and was in a video promoting the ESCCI project I've been part of.
I participated in the broader academic community by reviewing three journal articles, and I also helped supervise a student who joined us for a couple of months this winter.
I had two first-author papers published, as well as one finally getting volume/page numbers after online publication last year. I also have one first-author paper accepted and in copy-editing, two first-author papers in review, and one being drafted (based on that winter project). Not all are PhD-related, but that's okay. I was also a co-author on one published paper and another in review, both of which I feel like I really contributed to, which is nice.
And on top of all that, I continued to work at my part-time job at the Bureau, was approached about a potential postdoc for the first time, and got married. Not bad, really.
For 2016, my academic resolution is to finish & submit my PhD. Fun times ahead!