I love my PhD. It can have its ups and downs, but the ups are really, really good.
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| A heart-shaped reef in Queensland. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons. |
I just got back from Cairns, where I went for Behaviour 2015 - a conference of epic proportions that was equally epic amounts of fun. I was able to give a talk about my research on movement decisions in the Antechinus in Escape and Avoidance. I also listened to dozens of fascinating talks from researchers from all over the world. I learned that spiders can count, that shy elephant shrews get more parasites, and that duels may have a hand in the evolution of exaggerated weaponry. I saw a colony of spectacled flying foxes, and new species of dove for my bird list. I met a bunch of awesome people who do awesome things, and got to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef.
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| Spectacled flying foxes. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons. |
If that wasn't enough excitement for one week – right at the start of the conference, my first PhD paper (and first ever first author paper) was published online in Integrative and Comparative Biology. I'm ridiculously excited about this, and this week I was lucky enough to get to write an article about it in The Conversation.
I'm really grateful for all the opportunities I've been given, and it definitely wouldn't happen without the support of my fantastic supervisory team, collaborators and lab group. Thanks, guys!
