Keeping busy

Scientists do lots of things! Here's a little bit about what I've been up to lately:

The Nielsen lab had our second annual retreat. At this meeting we all gave short "chalk talks" about current research we're working on, discussing challenges how to collaborate.

Sept 26: Nielsen lab retreat at Bodega Marine Laboratory 

On Saturday October 5, 2013 Berkeley hosted the Bay Area Population Genomics meeting (it was my turn to organize it this time around). The tweets from the conference are Storified here, and photos are on Flickr.

Oct 5: Introducing Keynote Speaker, Hideki Innan at BAPG IX

The very next day we drove down to San Jose, joined by my dad, where the adults completed the San Jose Rock & Roll Half-Marathon (a first for all three of us!)

Oct 6: Preparing for the San Jose Rock & Roll Half-marathon

The daycare that Little Bear attends was closed for Columbus Indigenous People's Day, so we took the opportunity for a family visit to the Oakland Zoo.

Oct 14: Oakland Zoo

Last week I had my annual eye exam (I actually did better than last year, likely because we're all sleeping better), and got a lot of science done. I finalized revisions and resubmitted my manuscript on human Y diversity, finished peer-reviewing a manuscript, finalized most of my job applications, and met with my current research students to form plans for wrapping up projects by the end of the semester. We also took a family trip to a park down the street after work/daycare.

Oct 16: Playground time. The similarity between their smiles is striking here.

Oh, and on Friday we had a field trip instead of lab meeting; we toured the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, guided by Jim Patton (more pictures here).

Oct 18: I got to feel platypus fur!!!!

Last weekend we ran some more. I ran 10K (6.2 miles) in the Berkeley 510 race starting at Golden Gate Fields, while Scott completed 8 miles (!!) around town afterwards.

Oct 19: Berkeley 510 10K race

This week is turning out to be another busy one. Today I accepted an invitation to review another manuscript, and attended a session with a panel discussion about the academic job process. Tonight I was very flattered to accept an invitation to attend the "Scholar's Dinner" hosted by an undergraduate student researching with me, Michelle Senar, and her sorority. I had a wonderful time talking with the students about science, life, and future plans.

Oct 21: Scientists before dinner

Tomorrow I give my "finishing talk" for the Miller Institute (am I really in my third year already?!), then need to pack and enjoy the afternoon with my family before getting on a plane to fly to Boston for the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, where I'll be tweeting (@mwilsonsayres; #ASHG2013).

At the conference I am co-moderating a session on Wednesday:

Wednesday, October 232:00 PM–4:15 PMConcurrent Platform (abstract-driven) Session A (10-18)
SESSION 10 – Which Comes First: The Sequence or the Biology?Hall B2, Level 0 (Lower Level), Convention Center

Moderators:	Maja Bucan, Univ. of Pennsylvania
	Melissa Wilson Sayres, Univ. of California, Berkeley

I will be presenting a poster on Friday. I've uploaded it to FigShare, and it already has over 200 views, which I'm pretty sure is more than the number of people who will stop by and see it on Friday (though I'm not counting that out yet).


Then, catching a flight back to California.

Whew!!