Recently in Personal Category

What Vincent van Gogh might have done were he alive now.

Starry Night (interactive animation) from Petros Vrellis on Vimeo.

Hat tip: John Maeda (@johnmaeda)

Remember that Elsevier boycott I mentioned yesterday? Well, I'm afraid that I'm likely to have one more paper appear in an Elsevier-published journal. About a year ago a collaborator and I were invited to submit a paper to a special issue of Theoretical Population Biology. If you'd asked me at the time, I could have told you it was published by Elsevier, but somehow it just didn't register.

Last night I was reviewing the final draft of the paper as revised in response to comments from reviewers. Then it hit me. This paper will appear in Theoretical Population Biology several months after I signed the boycott pledge. All I can say is that I'm embarrassed. I won't be submitting any new papers to TPB. Sorry Mark & Tulja.

Wordle courtesy of Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics). Click on the image to see the original at wordle.net.

Today it becomes official. I wrote last month that I agreed to serve as Interim Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate School. My appointment becomes official today, although I've spent a fair amount of time over the last month becoming familiar with people and operations in the Graduate School (and dealing with a problem or two). After my last post, I heard comments from a few people that made me want to clarify why I agreed to take on this new role.

First, the University of Connecticut has been good to me. When I joined the faculty in August, 1986, I didn't expect to stay in Connecticut more than a few years. Even though I've now lived here more than a quarter of a century, I still think of myself as a westerner, born and bred. I was born in Oregon City, Oregon, but other than one very dim memory of Sacramento, California when my father was in his medical internship, all of my memories growing up are from the small town of Burley, Idaho. I went to college at the College of Idaho (in Caldwell), received my Ph.D. from Stanford and did post-doctoral work at UC Berkeley and UC Davis. I'd spent a grand total of two weeks east of the Mississippi before moving here, and most of that was on job interviews. But Connecticut is home. I have many wonderful colleagues in this department, and I've been able to grow and develop professionally here in ways I don't think I could have elsewhere.

So when Peter Nicholls asked me to step up and serve the University in this positon, how could I refuse? I owe the University at least this much.

Second (quoting from my earlier post),

As I've told a few close friends, I think of myself as mediocre in research. My record of external funding is pitiful compared to those I regard as leaders in evolutionary biology, and my intellectual contributions have occurred at the margins of important topics, not at the center. In contrast, I think of myself as a talented and effective leader.

That's the comment that needs some clarification.

The past 4-5 years have been the most productive and satisfying years for research of my entire career -- thanks largely to the extremely talented group of people I've been fortunate to work with. But I think I might be even more effective as a dean. I think I have an ability to work with other people that's unusually strong (at least for an academic). I seem to be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses people have, to feed their strengths and starve their weaknesses, to mediate disputes, to foster collaborations, to remain even-tempered when situations get tense, to defuse tensions when they arise, to ensure that all people are treated fairly, and to make connections for myself and others. In short, I think I'm more talented at helping others get real work done than I am in doing real work myself. Now I have a chance to find out.

Shodokeh.



If you happen to be anywhere near Hartford today and you have any interest in contemporary music, call the Hartford Symphony box office (860-244-2999) right now or go online and buy tickets for their concert this afternoon, Brahms and beatboxing. Shodokeh performs "Fujiko's Fairy Tale", a work by Finnish composer Jan Mikael Vainio that had its world premiere in 2010. It is unlike anything you've heard with a symphony before. Shodokeh's vocal abilities are beyond belief, and Vainio's score is the perfect complement.



We saw last night's performance of "Fujiko's Fairy Tale" at the Bushnell. It was among the two or three most memorable musical performances I've ever seen.¹

The overture to "Die Fledermaus", which opens the concert was brilliantly played, but Brahms' First Symphony was disappointing. It lacked the fire and precision that Carolyn Kuan usually brings out of our orchestra. It's the first piece I've heard her conduct in which I've been disappointed.

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I have the predictability. I don't have the magic.

Drawing Inspiration from Wesley Louis on Vimeo.

Drawing Inspiration is a charming animated modern-day fable about serendipity and the deep desire to transcend aimlessness. It tells the story of a man all too enslaved by his routine who one day finds some mysterious sketches on the park bench he visits daily. The drawings prompt him to reconsider the world and his place in it, as he encounters a young boy whose innocent hunger for the world helps peel away those layers of protection and reclusion. (source)

Uncommon Ground received nearly 25,000 page views in 2011.¹ The most read posts by month were:

January: The scale of the universe
February: Climate change and extreme weather
March: The sixth mass extinction
April: Remembering Sally Richards
May: I'm a climate scientist
June: GFAJ-1 arrives
July: The theory that would not die
August: Which type of scientist are you?
September: Evolution travel award for ScienceOnline
October: The Jackson Lab comes to Connecticut
November: Google Scholar citations
December: #arseniclife links

If there's a pattern there, I can't see it. All I can say is thank you for stopping by. I hope to "see" you again in 2012.

In 2010 I ran just over 1000 miles. I went to the gym this morning¹ for my last run of 2011: 32 minutes a 7.8mph or 4.16 miles. My total for this year was over 1100 miles.
The difference is partly that I ran more (256 times in 2011 vs. 227 times in 2010, 148 hours in 2011 vs. 135 hours in 2010), but it's also because my pace was faster (7.7mph in 2011 vs. 7.4mph in 2010). In 2010 my average pace was 8:06 per mile. In 2011 it was 7:49 per mile. That's not fast enough to win me any races (even local races in my age category), but I still feel pretty good about it.

I am a professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. I received my B.S. from the College of Idaho and my Ph.D. from Stanford University. After post-doctoral work at the University of California,¹ the University of California - Davis, and Stanford, I moved to Connecticut and I've been there ever since.

I've taught introductory biology, evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, population genetics, and conservation biology since joining UConn, and much of my current research focuses on understanding the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for the great diversity of plants in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, with a particular emphasis on the genera Protea and Pelargonium. That work is part of a large, multi-investigator Dimensions of Biodiversity project funded by the National Science Foundation. I am also interested in developing statistical methods for analysis of genetic diversity in geographically structured populations and for demographic analysis of perennial plant populations. Until about 10 years ago, my research focused on the evolution of plant mating systems.

If you're really interested, you can get a better sense of the kind of research I've done by looking at my Google Scholar page. And if you're really interested, you can download a PDF of my curriculum vitae.

If you've never heard of Strunk & White, this video won't be nearly as much fun as it could be -- and you should run out and buy yourself a copy. Joseph Williams writes in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace that "Telling me to 'Be clear' is like telling me to 'Hit the ball squarely.' I know that. What I don't know is how to do it." Strunk & White lay down the rules, and Williams tells you how to follow them. Come to think of it, if you don't already own a copy of Strunk & White and a copy of Williams, run out and buy both.

Now enjoy the video.

The Elements of Style from Jake Heller on Vimeo.