#gsa2016

Adam Boyd

this skeleboi right here

like yaaaaaaaaas i’m realy excited we’re going to wear flower crowns and throw glitter and shit

Full day of talks to attend on Monday but I made a strong effort to not overwhelm myself.

I went to several good paleo talks and also sat in on a session on understanding digital data and how museum collection utilize various programs to keep organized and attempt to promote their collections online. It was a really cool session and I got to see some of my favorite people! Susan, the Yale collections manager, gave a great talk on iDigPaleo and the work she has been doing to upload fossil insects to the web.

For lunch, I went out with Johnny and Imran to a pretty good restaurant! We talked about Johnny's presentation and we went through some new work Imran wants to do with us on exploring an old idea of echinoderms in a new light. I'm very fortunate to have such amazing friends and colleagues. This was my first GSA that also included discussing future collaboration, does this make me a 'real' scientist???

*Edit* I completely forgot that I had a poster presentation on Monday! It went really well but that’s about it. I can post a picture of it when I get back to the office and can downsize the file. It was very visually appealing **

Sunday was a particularly important day for my paleo family. There is a special award for individuals under 40 years of age that perform exceptional research. Alycia was this year’s recipient of that award and it was to be announced at the annual Paleo Society dinner Sunday evening.

The morning was rather uneventful, I barely slept a wink because I was in a new place and it was distracting. Naturally, I had several talks right at 8 AM that I rushed around to see. Roy Plotnick, my undergraduate advisor and mentor, kicked off a biogeography session at 8:05 AM! It was great to see him in action again. I ran from there to see my friend and collaborator, Bonnie, speak about her work on computational fluid flow with some beloved blastoids. She completely nailed her talk and even got a question from the O.G. Jim Sprinkle himself (Colin’s PhD advisor).

I went to a few more biogeography talks that morning, including Alycia’s - she was the first invited speaker of the session and had a full house! It was phenomenal, She discussed the recent work we did on characterizing biodiversity accumulation in deep time. It was really cool to see figures I made (outside of my MS project) up on the big screen.

I met up with most of the roommates, Kyle, and Jenni (YAY) for lunch. We went to a place called Which Wich (get it?) - very clever. Jenni’s talk was after lunch, she was nervous but did very well. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a session on understanding development of organisms through time and with modern genetic understanding as well. Cheers to Jeff & his advisor for hosting a really interesting session. I stayed for several talks including Jeff’s on understanding early development of echinoids, Colin’s talk on the oral and ambulacral plating of early crinoids, and Imran’s talk on understanding symmetry through strange echinoderm forms.

Michael (undergrad working with me) had his poster that evening and we tracked down several people that helped us with species identification! His project involved collecting 5 gallon buckets of sediment and sieving out all the cool organisms. The idea was to compare faunal elements between environments during a time of transition in both organisms and sedimentation. It was fun getting to wander around to the booths, see new and old friends, and try out the new GSA beer.

The Paleo Society dinner started around 6:30 PM, we got a table RIGHT in front (thanks, Adriane). There was an entire table of Alycia’s students and we were so excited to begin the celebration! There was a dinner and a semi-open bar. The food was very good and the beer was flowing. The dinner started out with formalities and several other awards. Alycia gave the acceptance speech of the meeting - it was extraordinary. She touched on the advances of women in science and how we are making great strides in acceptance and understanding of ALL amazing scientists.

Although this award was primarily for research advancements, she deserves the same (if not more) for her exceptional abilities to mentor students. She has created a new generation of super scientists that have weird obsessions with Ordovician brachiopods and other early forms. We are all incredibly capable individuals because of her. She trained us to be organized, question everything, be confident in our abilities, and to fight for what you believe in.

We left incredibly late and were all a little tipsy, but the event showcased her admiration for us and we were all right there supporting her great achievement. We were all very full of warmth and love for our special paleo-family.  

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