Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  Marine Biological Laboratory

  
  
• Employment Status

  (not set)

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  photosynthesis, respiration, climate change, arctic biology, ecosystem ecology

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  When and why did you decide to go into a science career?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  When I was a junior in college, I realized I liked biology and teaching equally, and wanted to find a career that would allow me to merge these interests. I taught Biology at a high school for two years after college, and then was interested in pursuing a higher degree that would allow me to do active research, so I went to get my PhD. Since then, I have been working as a post-doc and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, and hope to get employment as a professor.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is tough about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  So many things! I would say it is hardest to get used to rejection, which is a very normal and very common part of the job. As a scientist, you need to write a lot of papers and proposals that are often met with criticism, so I've learned to develop a very tough skin!

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is best about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  The best thing about being a scientist is that every day is a little different. You might be in the field, in the lab, writing a paper, reviewing a paper of a colleague, presenting your research to other scientists, teaching in a classroom, teaching in the field, making graphs and figures, talking with non-scientists about your work and how it applies to the world, or any number of other pursuits. The variety keeps work very interesting!

  
  
• Availability

  I am NOT available, please temporarily remove me from the available mentor list

  
  
• In addition to English, I am comfortable communicating with students in the following languages:

  (not set)

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

bchsoreillyfall2017project2 Mary A Heskel Dec 18, 2017

Hi Mauve, 

Last week I was at this HUGE conference called the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting. It was in New Orleans, and hosted over 20,000 researchers of all kinds of earth and environmental science - including A LOT of plant…

more

Hi Mauve, 

Last week I was at this HUGE conference called the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting. It was in New Orleans, and hosted over 20,000 researchers of all kinds of earth and environmental science - including A LOT of plant biologists! 

I am glad you were able to examine the sources of variation in heat and light - these are likely the reasons. See - experiments make you into little methods detectives, where you have to discover all these other issues in addition to your original idea! 

bchsoreillyfall2017project2 Mary A Heskel Dec 6, 2017

Oh that is very interesting. That is not what we expected to happen...which is often what happens in experiments! Now we need to think about why...
I think if you have a way to measure the light intensity across the plants to compare? If you have a…

more

Oh that is very interesting. That is not what we expected to happen...which is often what happens in experiments! Now we need to think about why...
I think if you have a way to measure the light intensity across the plants to compare? If you have a higher intensity, and enough of the necessary wavelengths, that might be why you see faster growth under the green light. 
An alternative reason might be about the plant sensing poor light quality and growing faster and taller to find better light. Plants have hormones that let them grow towards light, but stems can elongate when they are in shade, etc. 

Heat is another variable that can be very important. Testing the temperature is a good next step as well! 

bchsoreillyfall2017project2 Mary A Heskel Dec 6, 2017

Oh that is very interesting. That is not what we expected to happen...which is often what happens in experiments! Now we need to think about why...
I think if you have a way to measure the light intensity across the plants to compare? If you have a…

more

Oh that is very interesting. That is not what we expected to happen...which is often what happens in experiments! Now we need to think about why...
I think if you have a way to measure the light intensity across the plants to compare? If you have a higher intensity, and enough of the necessary wavelengths, that might be why you see faster growth under the green light. 
An alternative reason might be about the plant sensing poor light quality and growing faster and taller to find better light. Plants have hormones that let them grow towards light, but stems can elongate when they are in shade, etc. 

Heat is another variable that can be very important. Testing the temperature is a good next step as well!