about me: hi my name is emma (she/her) welcome to my studyblr! I consider myself a plant ecologist interested in estuaries. I post infrequent updates about how things are going, sometimes including fun plants or animals I’ve seen recently. all photos on my original posts are taken by me!
currently: writing my thesis proposal. reading. trying to make time to make some art.
current academic reading: estuarine ecology, by crump, testa, & dunton
current fun reading: the gentleman and his vowsmith, by rebecca ide
research interests: coastal biology, estuarine science, community ecology, restoration, plant-plant and plant-animal interactions, herbarium curation, natural history
other interests: bugs, plants, cats, isopods, sudoku, reading, journaling, stationery, ethics, doctor who, percy jackson, miraculous ladybug, fortnite
goals of this blog:
document life as it goes
romanticize school
post fun pictures
be kind to myself on bad days
affirm that I am a real scientist
make stem and study friends
I am intermittently super active and disappeared off the face of the earth so apologies, but I love making mutuals and rbing the homies
where else you can find me:
taxonomicnightmare on instagram (mostly creature photos)
original posts:
#ecologie blog — any original content of mine
#field notes — posts from out in the field, plant photos, sample collection, etc
TIL that there is journalism equivalent to the Bechdel Test. An article about a female scientist fails the “Finkbeiner Test” if it mentions one of seven topics regarding her womanhood
Okay, one quote, and then you absolutely have to read the whole thing.
Still, the virtue of some rules in Aschwanden’s test is difficult to see at first. Take the rule of “no firsts.” In the comments section below her post for Last Word on Nothing, Finkbeiner explained that no sooner had she taken the vow to ignore gender, than she caught herself writing that the astronomer she was profiling was the first to win a certain award. After a reader urged her to stick to her pledge, she removed it.
“The fact that she’s the first woman to do that says a lot more about the prize-giving committee than it does about her,” Finkbeiner explained in our interview. “So if I were going to put that into a story, it would be a story about prejudice in that prize committee.”
It blew my mind, because she’s right. The fact that there’s some many firsts left is the result of bias in the committees NOT IN THE WORK WOMEN DO
in other less school related news I have been FLYING through books recently. if anyone is struggling getting back into reading, I highly recommend the fanfic to romance books pipeline; I have now shifted from romance to thriller/sci fi and I’ve regained my ability to read a 400 pg book in a day
i go to hippie school so i think our grading/exam situation is slightly different but everyone talks about the quals process as so scary and horrifying but mostly it’s just tiring
every single farmer i ever worked for knew exactly how they were being occupied and manipulated by huge agriculture corporations like monsanto. every line cook ive ever been coworkers with knew exactly how they were being taken advantage of. the working class doesnt need theory to understand their material world. they need the money that will let them organize and they need the space to organize. they need material support. not dialectical. stop telling everyone to read a fucking book. get them health insurance + dental then well talk.
oh someone told me something useful yesterday. she said she’s been thinking about her tbr less as an overwhelming list of books she Must Read and more like she’s cultivating a wine cellar. making a rich collection that will provide the perfect thing when needed. a bottle will get uncorked when the time is right
December 28th, 2025 | A few weeks ago I changed my traveler's notebooks ribbons to more muted colours and I'm absolutely obsessed with the results. Also loved the way the light was acting up when the time came to reflect on my 2025 reads.
