MEEC 2010

This weekend is the Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference in Ames, Iowa.  Last night was the first of three plenary talks, delivered by Dr. Jeff Feder. I was somewhat familiar with his work and really interested in hearing more about his take on mechanisms that promote speciation.  The talk was so much better than I could have ever expected.  He captured many aspects that are of increasing interest to me including speciation, insects as model organisms, sympatric speciation (ecological), post/prezygotic isolation, biodiversity... It gave me a new lease on life by hearing him talk about these large concepts that drive his research because we share so much in common. 

Before his talk I sat down with a friend and mentor, just to catch up because I hadn't seen her in a while.  We talked about life and work and the balance of those to ever important items.  Many women at the same stage as I am now drop out of the pipeline.  Disappear from academia and become mothers, or follow their spouses to jobs.  It's a very difficult decision to "sacrifice" your work for that of someone else.  Even successful people drop out at this juncture.  So these thoughts were going through my mind as I was captivated by fly-parasite-plant interactions. 

I don't know where we will be in a year, two years, four years.  But hopefully my work can take a new direction at this point.  Not that the current direction is bad, but I have other ideas on how to integrate my interests in ecology, evolution and entomology.