 Sunset over Moorea, taken from Tahiti. Happy New Year! It's officially 2018 now and it's time for an update on how I ended 2017 and what I'm looking forward to in 2018. The last part of 2017 was especially kind to Prosanta and I, as we were able to attend the 10th Indo-Pacific Fish Conference in Tahiti, French Polynesia. On our way out to Tahiti, we had a long layover in Los Angeles and so we decided to get a cab over to the LA County Museum and meet up with Rick Feeney who showed us around the collection. It's always fun to visit that collection, so a big thanks to Rick for the great hospitality. From LA it was just one more flight to Tahiti. The IPFC only occurs every four years, and the last one we attended was in Okinawa, Japan right after I joined Prosanta's lab. It is always a great time, and the venue could not have been more beautiful. Tahiti and Moorea provided the perfect setting for a relaxed, fun meeting, with plenty of excursions to do in your free time. Highlights for me include diving with three large tiger sharks, making new collaborations, and seeing old friends. The next meeting will be in 2021, and will be in Auckland, New Zealand, and I really hope that I'll be able to attend.
But now that it's the new year, here are some things I'm looking forward to for 2018: First, I have several long-standing projects that are finally coming to fruition and that will hopefully be submitted soon. Second, I'm looking forward to starting new collaborations with several scientists that I met at meetings this last year. Third, I'm excited to see the directions that some of our newer projects will go. We have several exciting projects that are just gaining momentum, from large-scale ordinal level studies, to whole genome sequencing studies (a first for me). Watching these projects develop and seeing the directions they take is very exciting. Last, but certainly not leasat,I look forward to finishing my PhD this year, and hope to find a lab to join as a post-doc. 2017 was an interesting year, but now it's time to move on. Here's to 2018! |