by Lorenzo Ricolfi

As a PhD student working on a computer-based project, I spend countless hours sitting at my desk. It’s a common trap: we think that the more time we dedicate to our research, the more progress we make. But in reality, extended periods of physical inactivity can reduce productivity and harm both mental and physical health.
Physical activity isn’t just about staying in shape; it’s a crucial part of maintaining mental sharpness and energy levels. Regular exercise triggers the release of endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine, key hormones that boost mood and cognitive function. Physical activity combats stress, reducing the likelihood of burnout, which is all too common in long academic journeys. On top of that, [a study from north american universities](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3041121/#:~:text=Exercise training increased hippocampal volume,neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus.) and published on the journal PNAS showed that physical activity increases hippocampal volume, a part of the brain responsible for memory and learning.

An older study from the University of Bristol published several years ago found that employees who exercised before work or during lunch breaks reported an increase in performance. Positive changes in performance outcomes were almost exclusively linked to changes in mood. For those of us in academia, where problem-solving and creativity are essential, these benefits can't be overlooked.
PhD life in Australia, typically spanning 3.5 years, is a marathon, not a sprint. Like any long-term challenge, pacing is essential. Yes, a PhD is demanding, and there’s always more to do. But pushing personal boundaries on how many hours you can sit at a desk without moving isn’t productive. Studies show that sitting for prolonged periods increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even reduced life expectancy. Even worse, extended desk time leads to a decline in focus and problem-solving abilities, defeating the purpose of staying glued to the chair in the first place.
Anyway, if you really don't want to do medium-intense physical activity, you should at least make time for a walk. In my journey, I’ve learned that stepping away from the desk, whether it’s for a short walk, a workout, or even a stretch, can reignite productivity. You return with fresh eyes, a sharper mind, and often the solution to a problem that had you stumped for hours.
Finding a balance between work and personal health isn’t easy, but it’s crucial. I’m now in the early stages of my final year of PhD, and throughout this journey, regular exercise has been a constant. I currently work out three times a week and make time for at least one long walk on the weekends. The toughest periods in my PhD were when I neglected exercise. I became fully absorbed in research a couple of times, pushing aside essential activities outside academia, and those were the hardest times. Life outside academia matters too, and the body and mind function best when we respect their limits. For those of us navigating the academic world, taking care of our physical health is an investment in both our current well-being and our future success. So, the next time you feel like you’re stuck in the PhD grind, remember that sometimes the best thing you can do is step away, get moving, and let your body, and your mind, recharge.

by Coralie Williams

Last month, I attended the International Statistical Ecology Conference (ISEC) in Swansea, UK. This was my first time attending ISEC, and I was excited as I had heard it was a friendly environment for networking with ecological statisticians and the R developer community.
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To start off, optional pre-conference workshops were offered. These workshops provided a great way to overcome jetlag, get into the stats/coding rhythm, and meet people in a smaller setting before all the attendees arrived. I often find that the first day of any conference can be overwhelming, so this was particularly beneficial. I attended the workshop on RTMB, a new R package designed to run flexible models with TMB (Template Model Builder) directly in plain R code. We received valuable tips from Anders Nielsen, one of the TMB maintainers, and Ben Bolker, the GLMM guru.

The conference itself was packed with a diverse range of topics, from software development to sophisticated multi-species models. While most presentations focused on animal taxa applications, there were also interesting topics on the modelling fungi distribution with spatially explicit capture-recapture models and models to predict different apple species flowering time. During the poster sessions, I presented my first PhD chapter, which is a meta-research project proposing ways to improve the reporting of simulation studies evaluating statistical methods. I was very pleased with the interest it generated. 

A highlight for me was attending this conference with the Ecostats team from my joint supervisor David Warton’s lab. It was great to get to know each other in a different setting and to see familiar faces throughout the week. I also enjoyed supporting the team in their talks throughout the conference. Additionally, I had the opportunity to attend the SORTEE (the Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) meet-up, where I met other fellow SORTEE members.

Overall, it was a great experience, and it reminded me of the importance of in-person conferences for promoting one’s work, networking with current and potential collaborators, gaining new perspectives on my own research and feeling part of a community.
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After the conference, I travelled to Lithuania for some time off. This was a special trip; Lithuania has a lot of folk tales and many beautiful national parks. When we were on the Baltic seaside, I found small amber stones along the beach, just as described in the tale of Jūratė and Kastytis.

by Pietro Pollo

Watching movies and shows is a hobby of mine. Unfortunately, it is hard to know what is truly interesting given the ocean of boring and uncreative media out there. In this post, I share some titles that I have recently watched in the hopes you like them too.
 
American fiction (movie)              
A comedy in which the protagonist, a writer who is a black man, questions the expectation that black people can only tell stories involving racism. Despite tackling such a heavy topic, it is a very funny movie, making it a must-watch. Available on Amazon Prime.
 
Anatomy of a Fall (movie)
The story of a woman that is accused of murdering her partner after his body is found outside of their house, and how their blind son perceives his mother during the trial. An interesting discussion on how tiny bits of information, like brief, intimate moments, can be taken out of context and be used to determine one’s reputation. Available on Stan.
 
Poor things (movie)
A story in which a revived woman (similar to a Frankenstein monster) explores and questions her reality, including societal norms, human behaviours, and life at large. The gender of the protagonist, and the taboos that surround it, becomes an important topic in this movie. All of this in beautiful, colourful, impressionist-style landscapes. Available on Disney+.
 
Problemista (movie)
In this A24 comedy, the protagonist is an immigrant trying to legally stay in the USA. In a desperate moment, he takes a job with a Karen-like boss (i.e. who complains about everything). This movie shows, in a light way, the difficulties faced by immigrants and the injustices of a system that claims to be meritocratic. Unavailable in any streaming service in Australia at the moment, but there are alternative ways to obtain it (wink-wink).
 
Under the bridge (show)
Based on a true story from Canada, this series follows the details of a crime involving teenagers. Prejudice, the need to fit in, and horrible things people can do to others as a result (especially when they are adolescents), are topics discussed here. Most importantly, this show explores how the negligence and hardships that people suffer when young, which society fails to address, end up causing a cascade of problems. Available on Disney+.

Despite friendliness and collaboration being key to the success of humanity, collaboration in science remains scarce. To understand why, we must consider the current state of science. There is a pervasive culture of "publish or perish," exacerbated by the intense competition for academic positions. Researchers may perceive collaboration as detrimental to their own progress. After all, why invest time in helping others when they could be future competitors for the same jobs?

​I pose that this ‘selfish’ attitude which appears frequently in science is costly. When scientists, especially early career researchers, work in isolation and don't contribute to projects beyond their own, they miss out on the huge benefits that come from diverse perspectives and outside expertise. Collaborators outside one's 'echo chamber' can provide fresh insights, challenge assumptions, and introduce new approaches that can significantly improve the quality and impact of research. Plus, collaboration often leads to more opportunities for co-authorship, which can help boost one's publication record and academic profile. This not only advances individual careers but also speeds up scientific progress as a whole. By not embracing collaboration, we’re missing out on both personal and collective gains, making it crucial to promote a more cooperative research environment.

​By Szymek Drobniak

Time is money – it’s a truism that nobody would dare to question. In our particular type of job – in being a scientist – time also equals benchmarks, indices, track record. The more time we have – the more papers we should be able to publish, the more students to supervise, the more brilliant ideas turn into reality. Interestingly, science also tends to be particularly rich in people representing all kinds of neurodiversity. My hypothesis is that such people are also often particularly creative. Unfortunately, certain kinds of neurodiversity can throw sand into well-oiled gears of our scientific work. Here’s a bunch of recommendations a veteran of ADHD, such as myself, can offer to make the working scientific life of at least some of you a bit more predictable and satisfying.

• Do not discard methods such as Pomodoro as overly simplifying or lacking flexibility (for those not into tomatoes: dividing your work into small, 15-30 mins. chunks, separated by short (5-10 mins.) breaks). Pomodoro may be surprisingly effective in identifying the ways you waste your working time (see what takes you during breaks and what makes them harder to finish), and in learning how to quantise your tasks into well-defined steps. My all-time favourite in implementing this method is the Be Focused app – but the Internet abounds in other options.
• Keeping track of ones’ calendar is one of the most annoying activities. Try to cultivate the following habit: the moment you plan a meeting, receive and invite, decide on a task or receive a task – put it into your calendar. Do not postpone doing this – your few taps on your phone away from permanently recording the task for future and freeing your mind from having to remember it. Also – make it a habit to check your calendar every morning.
• Do the same with a to-do list (yes, you want to have one, desperately). Some picks to consider – Todoist app, Tasks app, or whatever speaks to you functionally and visually. I would also like to preempt a question you surely will have: isn’t using calendar and a to-do list superfluous/too time consuming? It may be – but clever people have come up with solutions that connect to-do lists with calendars in a seamless way. If you want a hassle-free experience, without having to reschedule or move items as new things enter your agenda, consider checking out AI tools that manage your calendar for you. My current favourite is reclaim.ai – I honestly do not remember when I had to manually reschedule anything in my calendar.
• If a task/activity is taking too much time (e.g., because it is too difficult and you’re stuck without new ideas, or it begins to bore you) – leave it for a while (unless, of course, your being chased by a hard deadline, breathing frantically into your neck). Wonders happen when you set a task or problem aside or – even better – sleep with it.
• During the day, deal with the least liked tasks first.
• Don’t be afraid to declare some ours of your day/week as off-limits for others (within the limits of reason and your responsibilities, of course).
• To retain sanity and balance – try to do work at work, and non-work/fun things elsewhere. Don’t mix you working and leisure spaces. And for the sake of all known gods – don’t take work to bed. Some things do not mix well – like oil and water, or work and resting.

by Ayumi Mizuno

The SQuID (Statistical Quantification of Individual Differences*1) statistical workshop took place this March at Hokkaido University in Japan (Shinichi is a member of the SQuID team. He and my PhD supervisor decided to hold the workshop here). I had only attended workshops and seminars as a student before, but this time, I also prepared this workshop as a local staff member for around six months, with Shinichi.

The lectures were amazing. The course began with the basic linear model, but on the last day, we had the chance to conduct a simulation on our data using the squidSim package in R. Through the workshop, I became more familiar with how linear mixed models work and what insights they can provide about my research. In addition, I learned that simulations help understand the models better and are useful for planning data collection and analysis. The participants had diverse research backgrounds and countries of origin, so the conversation during break time was also exciting.

Watching participants enjoying coding and interacting with others made me feel all my work had paid off. I had predicted that some accidents might happen, but everything went smoothly. Even though preparing the workshop took up a lot of time*2, it was definitely a valuable experience for me.
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To conclude, I would like to share four small tips for people (like me) organising workshops or seminars for the first time. These are all general points but essential:

1. Early preparation is key. Most tasks often take longer than expected.
2. Communication is essential. Do not be afraid to check with the person you are working with, even if it is small. This can prevent irreversible mistakes.
3. Put yourself in your participants’ shoes. What may seem obvious to you might not be as clear to them.
4. Prepare plenty of drinks and snacks (both sweet and savoury tastes). While this tip may seem somewhat unrelated, it significantly contributes to the workshop's success by keeping participants focused and motivated (hunger or thirst can greatly affect these).

 
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*1 Please check this link for detailed SQuID info.: https://squidgroup.org/
*2 I had some sleepless nights worrying about whether the workshop would go well.

by Samantha Burke

The scientific method is a long-standing framework used to teach aspiring scientists how to conduct research and experiments. However, I believe even well-established scientists could benefit from a reminder about the final, and arguably most important, step: communication of the findings. As many memes across social media would suggest, scientists hate writing. This hatred is further proven by the “file drawer problem” where researchers would rather leave completed experiments to die in the metaphorical (or physical) file drawer than to write and publish the work.
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I must acknowledge that there are a variety of reasons work doesn’t get published. Oftentimes, it’s the high paywall a lot of journals require for publication. Also of note are the biases against non-English (or English as a second language) researchers and the systemic barriers researchers from the Global South face.

Even those researchers without these barriers and with publications do not communicate their work effectively. Recently, I published a second-order synthesis of coral health research, which found that while review-level literature was fairly well cited amongst scientific literature, the reach of this same research outside academia had much room for improvement. The high citations among academics makes sense, as much of research currently focuses on a “publish or perish” rhetoric, where publication is the last step of the scientific method rather than communication in general. However, research needs to be communicated to these external bodies, as these are often the groups which ultimately drive funding.

Beyond publications and citations, scientists regularly participate in internal communication – most often at conferences giving presentations or creating posters about their research. However, conferences are also environments where scientists are speaking to other specialized researchers. In these cases, there’s no need to explain complex topics with simple language, which is a difficult skill only honed through practice. When these same presentations or posters are presented to a non-specialised audience, it often perpetuates the idea that STEM is difficult to understand and can only be known by an elite few.

In the final year of my PhD, I committed to broadening my involvement in science communication (SciComm). There are so many avenues available to researchers to communicate their research. As such, science is the most interdisciplinary it’s ever been and has the ability to reach audiences all over the world. I’ve put together a list of the top ways I’ve found success in communicating my research.

1. Pub talks

These are rare opportunities, though the most famous one occurs once a year called “Pint of Science.” Going to locations that people outside of the science field are likely to spend time is a great way of ensuring your research is reaching a wide audience. In these situations, I find it best to keep your explanations snappy and passionate. People generally respond well to enthusiasm and a more casual tone.

2. Comedy

​The universal way to relate to people. Comedy is less an opportunity to spread your research, and more about how you should communicate it. Oftentimes, people outside of science find science unapproachable or confusing. By bridging this gap in ways people empathise with, scientists can better relay their findings to groups outside their field.

3. STEM outreach events

Outreach events are the most common way science communicators will reach the public. These events are great because they are often in person events and provide the opportunity to attendees to really engage with the science. In these settings, creating activities, physical models, specimen, or any way your audience can “get their hands dirty” in science is going to be a hit.

4. Guest talks (e.g., skype a scientist)

While the name implies an invitation and thus no effort on the scientists part, guest talks usually come as the result of your own efforts. There are many programs which you can express interest for which will help connect you to parties interested in hearing about current research. I personally have worked with groups like CSIRO, Skype a Scientist, and Deadly Science – all of which are amazing organisations dedicated to increasing involvement in STEM. I’ve found lots of pictures and personal stories are great ways to engage with your audience, particularly if you’re delivering content virtually.

5. Social media

In such a connected age, social media can be a great tool for communicating research. While researchers are most familiar with Twitter (now called “X”), I’ve found there is a growing community of SciComm specialists in other social media platforms. As Instagram and TikTok are huge hits with younger generations, researchers have created wonderful online personalities to engage with upcoming science enthusiasts to share their work, answer questions, and provide guidance.

6. Website

Websites, while a great tool to have as a reference to your work and CV, are not the best way to communicate your research. They often need to be searched for, and as a single researcher (not a website controlled and advertised by your institution), traffic is quite hard to come by. While I recommend setting a website up so you can refer all your audiences from the above SciComm events to find you, these alone are insufficient. Treat your website like a center hub to which all your events, publications, media articles, socials, etc. are all connected. I recommend jazzing the website up with lots of photos and other content besides your CV. Giving people something to engage with may have them coming back for more!
 
Happy communicating!

by Malgorzata (Losia) Lagisz

Systematic reviews (and meta-analyses based on a systematic review of literature) are extremely time-consuming. Anyone who conducted one in a rigorous and robust way can attest to this fact. Not surprisingly, researchers across disciplines have been looking for using computer algorithms and software to automate and accelerate systematic reviews of academic literature.

It is tempting to think that a recent development of a new generation of AI models and software has better performance and new capabilities. Especially, Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on large datasets of written language (think ChatGPT and similar models). They can be operated by using user prompts in conversational language, rather than technical programming languages, which makes them user-friendly. Why not ask them to find relevant studies, highlight or summarise relevant information do the screening for you?

by Shinichi

During my study leave at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, OIST, Japan (2023), I walked to my office at OIST every morning. I often took a route where I could get a full view of the cobalt-blue coral sea of Tancha Bay and, in the distance, Ie Island. Then, I often thought this must be how a paradise would look like.
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​Enjoying the view of a paradise, I had a secret. I was waiting for a “Love Letter from Canada” (which happens to be the name of a famous Japanese song). In fact, our 2023 started with a trip to the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, where I applied for a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC), although there was no guarantee I would get one.  

An outcome was supposed to come out in early Spring, but it was already the 5th of May. For the previous two nights, I could not sleep in pain and walked around the OIST campus after midnight for hours. Earlier in the year, I was diagnosed with gallstones and was told I would have to have them removed at some point. On that day, I woke up at 3.30 am with incredible pain, so I could not go back to sleep. Instead, I started checking my email, and there was an email – the long-awaited letter – a CERC success!

​And I screamed for joy and agony, and I walked down to Tancha Bay to ease my excitement and throbbing pain. It was ~6 am when I returned home. Then, my wife, who just got up, took me to the hospital. It was a Japanese holiday, so only emergencies were open. To make a long story short; I got operated on and got gallstones removed. I had to stay in a hospital for a few days, which I had never done. On my hospital bed, feeling discomfort physically and mentally, I thought about how to tell my group members and friends about my news. The news of CERC was embargoed until the official announcement (it turned out, till mid-November last year), although I was allowed to tell people who would be affected, informally.

​I told the big news to my lab group members one by one online, and each of them was surprised, but they were very happy for me and my family, who were excited about the move despite the -20-degree winter experience in Edmonton early in the year.

​For I-DEEL, 2023 was another amazing year despite me being away a lot. Although Zoom meetings help, we have great group members who support each other and can work independently. Notably, Patrice and Sammy are nearly finishing their PhD after a difficult 4 years, coinciding with the biggest global event in my and their generation – the COVID-19 pandemic. For them, much of our interaction has been online.

With all its limitations, we are lucky with virtual technology that connected our group together tightly in 2023 and the previous few years. Moreover, I feel privileged to mentor such a talented group of people who are enthusiastic, kind, intelligent and productive. So, thank you all - this is my love letter to all I-DEEL members.