Jack of All Trades, Doctor of Some

This week, our newly minted Doctor Innanen presents an essay in defence of the generalist. Once upon a time, all scientists were generalists, "natural philosophers," as they often styled themselves. Isaac Newton (pictured above examining the dispersal of light into the colours of the rainbow in John Adam Houston's illustration from 1870) was such a scientist, making contributions to mathematics, gravitation and optics, amongst other fields. But as knowledge accumulated, scientists became more and more specialized within increasingly narrow fields. Something I greatly enjoy about Planetary Science is that ours is an interdisciplinary field, borrowing and mixing from many different silos of science. 

 By Dr. Alex Innanen

We sometimes joke in PVL that when you come to the lab you will get a ton of projects thrown at you just to see what sticks. Sometimes, this will happen to you multiple times during your time here. Many of these projects stick, which is how you might end up like me – recently defending a PhD dissertation that included five (5) different projects. 

This is not always the way of doing things – you’ll often hear of PhD students with one large project or one specific area that they drill down into. Not so much in the PVL. We tend to end up more as jacks-of-all-trades. I certainly did – my dissertation ranged from martian clouds to analysing images of Newfoundland fogs to studying methane in the Canadian arctic. At least I (mostly) stuck to one planet (even my Earth-based work was used as a martian analogue). Some students in the lab end up defending on multiple planets in (or even outside of) the solar system.

For me, this gels with the way I like to work. There has been many a time when I’ve grown frustrated with the project I’m working on and have set it aside to chip away at another project. It also helps to keep things interesting. Getting bored of methane? Look at some clouds! Not the cloudy season? Plot eight Mars years’ worth of MCS temperature retrievals. 

I am like this outside of work too. I have many varied hobbies – knitting, gardening, baking, reading – that I tend to flip between depending on how I’m feeling. This is where I feel the jack of all trades, master of none adage really fits me. With all my hobbies and interests I feel like I know just enough to be dangerous. I’ll never be baking complex pastry creations or feeding myself entirely on the veggies I grow in my garden, but at least I have plenty to keep myself occupied and to relax with. 

This, I think, is where having a broad knowledge base can be useful. Even if I am not a master of all my areas of knowledge, those are still areas where I know things I may not have if I had just focused on a single area. In my work, I have a broader appreciation for and understanding of the martian atmosphere as a whole than if I had just, for instance, focused on clouds. I can also apply the deep knowledge that I do have in certain areas to others where my knowledge may be a little more surface level. This was certainly the case when I picked up Charissa’s work (linked above) analysing images of laser beams in the fog and in a laboratory setup. Because of my work looking at the scattering properties of martian clouds, I already had a lot of the baseline knowledge to pick up that project. 

But I do still have my knowledge gaps. There are things about martian clouds that I can’t tell you – for instance, I don’t really know much about the scattering properties of carbon dioxide clouds, except for in broad strokes. With methane, while I know much more now about plume variability, I don’t know a lot about methane transport within the martian atmosphere. A skill that I do feel I’ve gained from being a bit of a generalist, though, is how to find out what I need to know. Having covered such broad topics means I’ve also delved broadly into the literature and have had the opportunity to speak and work with a broad range of colleagues. I know who I’d go to if I needed to learn about methane transport in the martian atmosphere. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to answer my question, but they would likely be able to point me in the right direction. 

Part of this is certainly helped by my work on the Curiosity rover. As a member of the environmental science theme group on the rover, I’m working with other scientists who study everything from dust devils to oxygen abundance. We often share our results with each other, so I get to learn a bit of what everyone does. And I need to understand at least a bit of the science rationale behind our different observations, so that I can advocate properly for them when I’m adding them to a rover plan. 

I often joke that planetary science is five different sciences in a trench coat. Five may even be too low, with the amount of ground planetary science covers. Even just within PVL we dip into so many fields: molecular dynamics, seismology, atmospheric chemistry, astrobiology… Planetary science is a broad field, so even with my own broad background I’ve only sampled a small sliver of it. But that just means there’s plenty more out there to learn about!

A Perspective on Analog Writing Implements

The motto of my favorite journal brand, Leuchtturm1917, is "Denken mit der hand" or thinking with the hand. I'm not the only member of my group with an appreciation of the analog. This week Elisa, one of this summer's graduating PhD students and our resident stylophile, shares her own love of tactile thinking. Her caption for the image above is: "Hastily scribbled text trying to capture the incessant flow of words coming from Elisa's mind. Only some of it is captured. Even less of it is legible. Somehow, she still manages to get the gist of it transcribed."

by Dr. Elisa Dong

Analog tools are often overlooked these days as more and more of our work shifts towards the digital space and collaboration shifts towards being hosted on the cloud. Most of this isn't necessarily bad per se, and typing is certainly faster than writing unless you know shorthand. I do feel like the act of writing is one best not forgotten, however.

Who am I to tell you what to do? My only credentials are that I love stationery. Functional, pretty, and just plain cool. Stationery will always excite me. Oh, and I used it extensively throughout my current academic career and attribute much of my successes of writing things by hand. If you like lists, there are lists in this blog post.

Perhaps it is best to start off with a side story regarding my love of note taking and documentation. My first ever purchase with my paltry $5 allowance was a notebook. It was spiral bound and the covers were made of a stiff foam. The cover had some sort of tropical bird on it made of overlapping pieces of foam. It might even had had a googly eye or two attached to the head. As you can imagine, it was immensely exciting to me. I purchased this notebook as guided by my parents to keep track of what I spent my allowance on, or note down when I received more. To this day, I still tally up my purchases by hand, though I'm certainly less vigilant than I used to be. Somehow, the number of my expenditures has also gone up. 

You might have not had the same experience of looking over your numbers and squishing a foam notebook, but I'm sure there will be something you can care about when it comes to stationery. 

Here's another, more recent story for you. During my defense last week, I asked the examination committee to pause right before the exam actually began in earnest (sorry Scott!) so I could grab my notebook.

    "I wanted to take notes," I explained.

    "Don't worry," said one of my supervisors, "We're taking notes."

And so they were, it was meant to be reassuring and a reminder that I would get a summary of requested feedback afterwards. In the meantime, I didn't have to simultaneously take down the questions and try to answer them. 

    "I wasn't (worried), I just think better with a pen in my hand." 

This is true! At least for me, I find my focus instantly sharpened when I have a writing implement in hand. I feel somewhat badly for those who do online exams now. Perhaps their brains have worked out the association with typing into blank boxes and forms. I know mine hasn't. 

The Joy of Writing

I also find my writing to reflect some things that I really enjoy. It's scribbling, yet flowy, and reminds me a lot of my mother's handwriting on the notes she'd leave out on the table for herself as a reminder. I have attempted such reminders, but it only works if I remember to look for them. Naturally, my handwriting is also far harder to decipher than hers. I also love the way ink flows on paper, whether it be a ballpoint or gel, though I'm particular to a smooth ink. Pencils can also be a lovely experience, with a touch of toothiness that reminds you that you're physically sheering away a layer of pigment to lay on paper. 

If you happen to enjoy a touch of colour in writing, it can be quite a delight to write in pencil crayon or fountain pen ink. I personally like fine-tipped felt markers. I periodically order a couple packs of the Zebra Sarasa vintage ink pens. They come in sets of 5 or so, and contain a suite of fairly standard colours, but deeper and more muted. These are far more economical than the clicky gel-pens I used to buy at the Waterloo bookstore to mark assignments or annotate my own work. What a delight it is to use a different colour on paper and see how variable (or invariant!) it can be. Different colours and strategic outlining can be so useful when narrowing down thoughts. Its like highlighters, but more subtle (on that note, I recommend Mildliners, I have some that are nearing a decade old and still function great without searing my retinas). 

Then, there is paper. Receipt paper, cheap paperback paper full of disintegrating fibers, 100 gsm toothy watercolour paper, paper with films or coating for a smooth texture that renders them water resistant but prone to skidding, craft paper... there are so many options out there. I found that the numerous packs of 10 cent sheets that are sold in massive packs at Walmart at the beginning of the school year always treated me well. I certainly went through thousands of those sheets. My biggest gripe with them at the time was that they didn't come in a 5 mm ruling, and instead came in 7 mm. I find 7 mm exceptionally difficult to read on, unless the writing is quite slanted and flowery, in which the extra space helps each word stand out without too much overlapping between lines. Back in elementary school (and for some part of undergrad), I would either opt to write two lines per ruling, or just freehand the lines. I do not think my teachers were impressed by this. I'll come back to this later, but I eventually moved into notebooks within finer rulings or using a grid pad with 5x5 mm grids. 

A Real-time(ish) Example and Things Elisa Likes

Right now (or when I originally drafted this post, see the photo at the top of the article), I'm writing on a discontinued 52 gsm Tomoe River paper notebook that has been printed over with a 3.7 mm grid. The binding of this notebook is excellent. I originally ordered this notebook years ago from Nanami Seven Seas and I think I got one of their cheaper offerings that had some defects, hence the lower price. Back then, the exchange rate of CAD to USD was also far more palatable as well. If you've ever read my personal blog, you'll know that I have a fondness for Hobonichi planner products which use the 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, and had been using them since 2018, but the paper is also now discontinued. Turns out there was only ever one factory that produced this paper and they had closed down. Oops. I believe the replacement is now Sanzen paper. Generally, I'm looking for incredibly thin paper that doesn't show through ("ghost") onto the other side too much so I can write on both sides, and carry around an enormous amount of paper with me at all times without adding too much weight to my already overfilled bags. 

This notebook has several nice features, but I especially appreciate the ability to lay flat (due to the binding method) and the incredibly sturdy binding overall. It has been tossed around in the bottom of my bags for 7 months at this point, and I expect it to hold up for another couple of years. (AN: I'm noticing right now that it’s actually taking longer to type this up than the original writing, perhaps I'm a terribly slow typer! Or perhaps it’s just difficult to transcribe my own writing). I also peeked at the website, and apparently the notebook IS still available, as is the paper. Huh. Perhaps they had a huge back-stock or aren't concerned about the changes in paper quality and there certainly were changes. Mind you, the Café B6 slim that I have is currently unavailable, and it does state that it uses the new paper. 
 

Paper Rankings

Let's say I've intrigued you a bit regarding paper, but you don't want to hunt down a discontinued old copy of the notebook I have. Here are some that I've enjoyed in the past and would happily repurchase:

1. 1/2 year Stalogy notebooks in A6 or B6. These small pocket-sized notebooks use a similar binding technique that let you set the notebook fully flat. Because they can be a little small, you may have to push the pages down, but don't worry because the binding won't give out on you. The typical colours available year-round are black, red, and yellow. Limited edition colours are sometimes released. There is gold embossing along the spine for branding. I personally use the gridded paper version. It comes in 5 mm grid (or dot) and is the perfect size for doing math calculations by hand. What's not great about it if you get the printed grids is that they end quite far from the edges of the page, losing valuable writing space. On top of each page is also a calendar, lightly printed so you can mark in the date yourself. This too, takes up valuable writing space. However, one can certainly use it as a title section. I recommend the slightly larger B6 for actual writing or taking notes, and the A6 for more of a personal to-do list. The problem here is that its not always readily available in Canada, and there is quite a price bump buying it from a local business. I tend to do so periodically if I'm only purchasing one, but otherwise I'll get them straight from Japan if I am putting in an order for pens too. 
   
   
2. Mnemosyne. These notebooks are super sturdy, spiral bound, have a sleek black cover and are perhaps best used for on the go writing when you need a sturdy surface. For an unknown reason, there is a stunning strong yellow page in each one of these notebooks. I find it incredibly eye-catching. I have only used the A5 size from this brand. Regardless of the page design, the back side of each page is blank. The individual sheets are quite sturdy and thick, with a lovely soft cream colour that's really quite close to white. Each page tears out neatly with the microperforations. This notebook is for those who like a bit of heft, but appreciate a slim build to tuck away. Or if you like to doodle and write notes on a rickety subway line. They also take wetter inks and markers quite well, and I find that pencil crayons shade nicely on this paper. I usually use it as my base paper for sending letters because I find the paper so satisfying to hold in my hands. I imagine the recipients appreciate it too, though I've never confirmed.
   
   
3. Muji notebooks. The ones in the 5 packs with different coloured spines. I used these extensively in my undergraduate studies. One notebook colour per class. And I'd just purchase more if I was short on them. The paper texture was reasonably nice and smooth, and the price was definitely right for something so customizable. I've checked, and there are no Mujis close by to my new place! Looks like I'll have to swing by on my trips to Toronto. There was something exceptionally charming about the Muji shop encouraging people to stamp their notebooks in store to customize them. 
   
   
4. Leuchtturm1917 notebooks. The paper quality of these is variable, but if you enjoy a thicker notebook cover and built in bookmarks, I recommend these. The cream colouring is excellent and easy on the eyes. These notebooks are A5-ish sized. Normally I'd argue that they're too large to be toting around. But since the cover is very stiff, it'll hold up against the other miscellaneous items rattling around in your bag no problem! It's also got an elastic to keep the pages shut to prevent dinging up and folding pages that might splay open. I found that these typically lasted about ¾ of a year for me. I do really appreciate that the pages are numbered if you like indexing your notes. 

All of the above, except for the Muji notebooks, have a coating on the sheets that let ink float on top and show off fun features. It also means that text can take some time to dry before you can close the pages without smearing. I've also found that if your hands are a bit oily/sweaty, it can ruin the coating on the paper leading to a very blotchy writing experience. This seems to vary across all the papers, with the original Tomoe River paper having the least amount of ruined coating. Mnemosyne is also pretty great about staying consistent, but I don't do enough writing on it to actually test it out. It does seem like a lot to care about when I write it up! Nice writing experience aside, I feel like there are some good reasons to give writing by hand a shot: 

1. Improved memory of things you write down. I'm sure there are a few references kicking around for this. Have people done studies on typing as an equivalent? It does still take fine motor control to some extent (my motor control is less fine, if you ever hear me type, it sounds like I'm trying to destroy the keys).
   
   
2. I imagine its generally good for the brain. Something about using both the more creative side and the fine motor control side at the same time. Perhaps there is also an equivalent perk when it comes to typing however, as stabbing at tiny keys can be quite difficult to do precisely!
   
   
3. Processing of ideas, emotions, and the like. This mostly pertains to the value of journalling, but I also find it useful to write things out by hand when I’m looking for patterns. This can be notes on papers I’m reading, or a wrong variable in an equation I’m trying to track down. 
   
   
4. Bonus - talking to other people who love stationery! One of my new colleagues recognized the pens I was using, and we ended up connecting over the brands we use for writing. I've promised to bring in fountain pen inks to the office. I also remember one of the first meetings with the PVL lab I went to, John saw that I had a rather unique looking notebook! Stationery lovers can identify each other from a mile away I feel. 

Discontinued notebook and paper aside, I also try to always have a booklet of regular letter-sized grid paper on a pad on hand. I find it super useful to work out problems, illustrate things to people if I don't want to check if the whiteboard markers are dried out, and mock up maps if there's some impromptu DnD about to happen. I used these extensively in undergrad for a while as an alternative to the Muji notebooks. I'd take notes continuously on the pad and flip them over so they wouldn't tear at the top, and just start a new page for each class I was going to. At the end of the term, I would compile all the sheets together. 

I wonder if there are many students who bring paper and pen to class these days. I can see the value in not losing your notes by maintaining them digitally, but it is nice to be able to shuffle sheets around and see the entire class represented all at once. I remember I mostly brought in my laptop to read manga during lectures, and occasionally annotated power point slides as they became more common later in my degree. Rarely did I feel it was worth the battery power consumption to bring a laptop to class though. About half of my classmates simply printed out the slides and filled them in by hand, later transcribing them onto a digital copy. Doing things twice might seem inefficient, but I imagine it meant things stuck in their heads more.*

I'm at somewhat of a loss as to what I'm going to do after I finish up my stash of notebooks (I accumulated a few from Hobonichi with their blank/undated pages a couple years ago, though I don't love the book size). I recently purchased one from Knock Thrice which had a fun trim, but the notebook itself seemed far to heavy to be lugging around. Since I don't love having separate books for different things, unless it's meant to be very one-off, I think I'll have to go back to the Stalogy. Maybe with my next bulk purchase of the Zebra Sarasa since I'm down to one now, I think. With Tomoe River gone, possibly forever, I may truly need to move on. 
 

On Pens and Friendships

In the past few paragraphs, I've been very "In my day...", but the the truth is that my stationery loving journey really accelerated when I found entire online communities that shared similar interests. Shortly after I had an explanation from my brother as to why he had a syringe in the bathroom that is (blunt-tipped, used to refill ink). He promised it was nothing nefarious, and gave me my first ever Platinum Preppy. Prior to that, I just periodically purchased rather pricey gel pens so that my hands wouldn't cramp when marking student assignments. After... well. Let's say I've been to pen meetups and regularly scope out stationery shops when I get the chance. The existence of the community has given me access to trying out pens that go for thousands of dollars MSRP, and sampling papers that I normally wouldn't have paid for, like those element themed bound notebooks that launched on a Kickstarter that I won during a giveaway that seems to have since vanished. 

I found that the (fountain pen) community was incredibly generous and welcoming, regardless of what price point you could handle, or what it was you enjoyed. Whether it be 18 K nibs, custom grinds, cheapie beaters, urushi, or the history of pens and paper. I was encouraged to test things out, swap inks, and simply chat about whatever it was on our minds. The community at the time was fairly small, and it was interesting hearing perspectives on new developments. I tried to give back where I could, and essentially gave away a prized Platinum Century 3776 that I had initially purchased second hand from the US. I'm also a big fan of distributing Platinum Preppy and Pilot Kakuno pens, which I find to be excellent writers in spite of their price point. They are currently my preferred pens, though I have cracked several of them. 

As it turns out, price does not correlate with quality when it comes to fountain pens. Typically, the writing end comes from one of a few companies, and the differences arise from the body of the pen. Urushi, a hand lacquring technique, is far more expensive than an injection mold. Explosive rods that were used for the gorgeous striping found in celluloid have been discontinued because...they are explosive. The technology for flex nibs seemingly has been lost over years. Pens with unique aspects tend to go for more than the standard counterparts. 

Some of the modern “grails” (sub $200) I've tried out! I enjoyed the writing experience of the Platinum 3776, but the number of turns to uncap the pen drove me nuts. I've also had a Pilot Vanishing Point, and upgraded to a vintage body. Unfortunately, I didn't purchase a vintage nib along side it, and it doesn't cap fully when retracted, leading to a messy experience. I also tinkered with the nib and lost most of its tipping. Oops. I also tried out the gorgeous Lamy 2000. What a nightmare that was. I found one on sale with exactly what I wanted, an extra fine nib. Well, with such a huge tolerance for EF, it was decidedly not extra-fine. Furthermore, the makrolon body cracked after a few months, apparently a well-known defect the Lamy team hasn't resolved. I quite enjoyed the taper of the pen, but clearly it was not the one for me. I'm still eyeing a Waterman Carene, but the Platinum desk pen is actually an excellent replacement that is actually fine, and tapered. I've also acquired a "vintage" Pilot pocket pen that posts and turns into a light-weight rounded pen. It has an engraving on it that I've never bothered to translate, but it was most likely a graduation gift for someone at some point. The nib is slightly bouncy, and allows for excellent variation across a single stroke. But it doesn't open so wide that it would be classified as a flex pen. I like this one for urban sketching. 

These days I use a mix of the Zebra Sarasa vintage pens and relatively cheap fountain pens (Platinum Preppy and Pilot Kakuno). I'm not too surprised if they crack in two years given my reckless treatment of them, but they last usually well beyond that length. I had a favourite Preppy with the most incredible nib last just over five years! 

More Reason to Carry Around Stationery

Anyhow, I do feel it is well worth trying to write things using pen and paper. There's something about the inability to edit and simply scratching out mistakes that is incredibly satisfying. Having a notebook on hand also gives you the freedom to doodle during boring meetings rather than browse unrelated websites, which might be more obvious. 

Related to writing, is also just drawing out your problems. I personally think my presentations are pretty decent! For the better ones, I almost always have something mocked up on paper first to show a story board. This is something I did for my defense (Fig. 2), and I had less than normal feedback on the specific contents and sequence of delivery as a result (I think). Instead, the feedback I got could focus on small details to really polish the final product (Fig. 3). When I start drafting something on Power Point (or equivalent software) right away, I often get stuck and feel uninspired, even if I have headers and points of what I want to present on each slide. Starting it out on paper feels more exciting and I can see the whole vision together with minimal distractions. No looking at my messy fingerprints on the screen, the annoying colour scheme of the software, or a reminder to log into my Microsoft account! Especially when I'm planning out a sequence that involves quite a long time to put together, I feel like its best to see it out on paper before the committing the several hours it takes to complete.

Figure 2. A draft storyboard in preparation for a defense. Elisa likes to think of them as movie scripts, with critical details in scenes shown as their own slides, and various arcs that need to be captured. The ellipses represent various content that are either methodology or results, which she likes to keep fairly simple, nothing too flashy. Some of these sections would borrow from previous slides, so any critical design elements didn’t have to be reproduced. The transition slides and ideas are shown on the far right. Key words are written in all caps for legibility.

 Figure 3. Simple notes that Elisa took during her second mock defense regarding things that could be improved. These pages are a mix of suggestions in illustration and animation upgrades, and text that covers things she likely wants to remember or reconsider for before the final presentation.

 

Conclusion?

I don’t really have one for you. I wanted to share a love of stationery and encourage that readers seriously consider trying out writing by hand. Even if you cannot read your own handwriting, there is a lot of value to putting your thoughts on paper.

---

*As a further aside, I lived in China for a year, and I recall the stationery there to be generally excellent unless you were purchasing scrap paper that was clearly quite rough and fibrous that was meant for practicing letters. Paper was pretty much always quite nice, regardless of whether or not it was cheap and had cute figures on the front. I definitely recommend purchasing random cute notebooks when in East Asia, generally everything is nicer feeling, even if it is cheap! 

Cleaning up the lab… finally!

 

 Whenever you are doing research, it's important to control the chaos. That could be keeping notes and reference papers organized, keeping track of simulations and parameters or the physical items that accumulate in any lab. This week, Kevin describes a major cleanup in our lab to keep entropy at bay for a little while longer.

by Kevin Axelrod

December 20, 2025 was finally the day. 

I have been at the PVL for over 2 years now, and while projects and some people have come and gone, one thing has always remained constant: our PVL lab room has looked like my bedroom when I was 7. Because we work in planetary sciences, we have a wide variety of equipment – from optical equipment to vacuum chamber components to flow tubing to spectrometers to regolith simulant to various chemicals. And that is before we get to all the non-science items in the lab, like books and files, as well as that big Venus globe! 

Keeping all these things organized is difficult, with so many different projects in and out of the lab. And at times, motivation to clean can ebb and flow, both for me and a lot of other people. But, on the week of December 15, just one week before I planned to leave town for the winter holiday, I decided that it was finally time to get down on it. 

It started when we needed to pack up our Martian Atmospheric Gas Evolution (MAGE) experimental breadboard spectrometer and send it back to our industrial partner, ABB. Abby and I had collected a pallet and ordered some bubble wrap and shrink film a few weeks prior, and on December 16 we put those materials to use (below). Shipping it out via LTL freight, which happened on December 19, only 2 days before I left for the holiday, was a significant step towards making the lab genuinely clean. This was not just because it had been sitting in there for a few weeks and was crowding our lab, but also in the process of shipping it out, we cleaned the lab upstairs (which belonged to a different group and was where we conducted most of our experimentation with this spectrometer).

Sending it out freed up a little bit of space on our optical table. Nonetheless, there was still a significant amount of optical equipment and other things lying out - tools strewn everywhere, old boxes/cardboard, tubing pieces from the spectrometer setup, etc. Even our chiller still contained ethylene glycol-based antifreeze from a project that occurred several months ago.  

It seemed like such a massive task that maybe we were beginning to accept the constant state of clutter. However, in many cases, constant clutter in a laboratory is a safety hazard, because it impedes the ability to conduct experiments in an organized fashion, and introduces issues like tripping and spilling hazards. So, on December 20, with my flight out of Toronto less than 24 hours away, I drank a cup of coffee, put in my earbuds, and somehow just got into the zone. I went through the lab putting away tools, taking apart optical equipment, wiping down counters, and throwing away scraps. I officially started a “Sharps” disposal box for our lab (we were starting to use glass pipettes on a regular basis) and also started and labeled waste disposal containers for the ethylene glycol. I also started a “Misc/I don’t know” box. This box is for all the things that are probably optical components, but I am not completely certain of exactly what they are or how they are used in optical setups. “Misc” is a Swiss-army knife of a lousy excuse for a box label, isn’t it? 

The lab is far from perfect so far. We still have 2 desks in the back of the room that are filled with miscellaneous computer equipment, the corner next to the door is overflowing with old poster tubes, and the floor could use a sweeping. But, when cleaning a lab, just like in conducting scientific experiments, progress is always incremental. I forgot to take a “Before” picture, but the “After” picture is at the top of this post. It will keep getting better, too.

Two final thoughts:

1. For what feels like the millionth time, our lab’s tape measure has gone missing. It might be time for another trip to our local hardware store.
2. During this day, I listened to a lot of what I would call “indie EDM” and a lot of the songs made me think of outer space.  We need to start making a PVL playlist/mixtape.

[Insert Title Here]

Writing is a key part of being a researcher of any kind. It's not enough to do the work, take the data or make the discovery. It's not science until it is shared. This week, Alex reflects on their writing journey.

By Alex Innanen

I like to think of myself as a pretty good writer. Very young me harboured the wish to be a famous novelist when I grew up, and I probably still have old notebooks hidden somewhere in my parents’ house full of stories and attempted novels. There’s a lot about writing I like. I like putting words together in interesting and clever ways (I am a big fan of puns), I like figuring out how best to say something, and I really like the rules of language which feel a bit like a puzzle. In first year engineering we had a Technical Writing for Engineers course that many of my classmates groaned about but for me I was thrilled to have a whole class full of grammar quizzes. 

Moderate bragging aside, there’s one thing I struggle with time and again when I’m writing and that is choosing a title. Several of the posts I’ve written for this very blog have been sent to John with something like ‘I can’t think of a good title, HELP!’ at the top. I also write blog posts about once a month for the Curiosity Rover’s mission updates page, and there’s many a time I’ll have the whole post written, sitting in my inbox ready to be sent for approval and struggling to think of a title. 

It's not just blog titles either – short stories, journal articles, even my dissertation. And all these different kinds of writing need different sorts of titles! But this post is not just for me to complain about how hard titles are though. Having toiled in the title mines for as long as I have, I’ve developed some tricks and observations about choosing a good title. 

The job of your title is to give your audience somewhat of an idea of what they’re getting into, or at least to interest them enough that they might want to read what you’ve written. For something like a blog post, I try to keep it relatively short and clear. The title of this post, for instance, pokes fun at not being able to come up with a title while also giving an idea of what the post may be about. When I’m writing mission updates for Curiosity I tend to go one of two ways: some wordplay or reference to a well known phrase (for example, “New Year, New Clouds”), or succinctly describing something important from the plan (like “On Top of the Ridge” – three guesses where we were). 

Writing a title for a paper is a bit different. You can assume that whoever is reading your title has a bit more familiarity with the subject so you can be a bit more specific. Sometimes this leads to marathon-length titles. The title of my first research note, for example, “Minimum Mars Climate Sounder Retrieval Altitudes Reveal Cloud Altitudes at Aphelion and Stranded High-altitude Dust Following the MY34 Global Dust Storm on Mars” is twenty three entire words. This may seem a bit excessive, but you cannot deny that it tells you exactly what’s in the note. We’re also big fans of the humble colon in academia. My master’s thesis was titled “Aphelion Cloud Formation and Swiss Cheese Sublimation: Martian Atmospheric Water Vapour Processes”. The first bit of the title tells you the two subjects of my thesis, the second part ties them together. Sometimes, Journals will have guidelines for paper titles. Acta Astronautica, for example, has a 15 word limit. My research note above wouldn’t fly, and in fact the title I proposed for the paper I submitted there (which I posted about here) was too long and I had to figure out how to fit what I wanted to say in their word limit (I think I changed ‘Canadian Arctic’ to ‘Arctic’). 

So maybe I actually do know a bit more about this title thing than I thought when I started writing this blog post. In fact, I feel confident enough to offer some things to think about when you’re coming up with a title: 

1. Consider your audience. Will they recognise what Aphelion means? Will they enjoy a good pop culture reference? 
2. What is/are the main takeaway(s) of your piece? Are there different subjects you need to link?
3. Is there a word limit? Should there be a word limit? How can you be more concise?
4. How are you going to get people excited to read what you’ve written? 

As with most things, though, practice helps. The more I write, the more titles I need to think of and the less daunting it gets each time.  

Say Yes to the Lab Group

It's an interesting exercise to look back from time to time. Can you make out the pathway that brought you to where you are today? No matter whether the decision at any particular juncture was good or ill in retrospect, as the song (and Mary Schmich column) goes: "your choices are half chance." But why not improve those odds? Today, MSc student Milena Markovich offers some advice for those thinking about returning to university for graduate school.

By Milena Markovich 

In December of 2023 I found myself with that annoying, undeniable and incurable itch. The itch to go back to school. Only six months after graduating from five arduous years of an engineering undergraduate program, complete with all-nighters, co-op terms and oceans of coffee, I had vowed that industry was the place for me. I wanted a break – a simple 9-to-5, no working on weekends (most weeks at least), no worrying about assignments or exams.  However, after only a couple months as a full-time engineer, I knew that this was not what I wanted my future career to look like. I had always paved my path through engineering with the goal of one day working in the space industry – and, after all, what was I waiting for? I decided “one day” had to become “today”. Now that I had made up my mind to pursue graduate school, I began the hunt every little scientist dreams of – the hunt for the perfect lab group.
 

Here we get to the crux of this blog post: an easy (in theory) how-to guide for finding the perfect grad school program for you. Step number one: “thank you, next” – meaning, establish your dealbreakers. For myself, the past 5 years of my life had been spent laboring over an engineering degree, and I was hesitant to throw that all away. I wanted my MSc program to be a low-stakes introduction to the world of research. From this principal objective, I could establish two requirements. First, the program or research must have some relation to engineering, whether it be with engineering courses or instrument-based research. Second, I needed to graduate from this program debt-free, such that I could later choose whether to remain in academia or return to industry, without the pressure of financial stressors. This led me to limit my search to graduate programs within Canada, both for the proximity to friends and family and to avoid hefty international tuition fees.

Step number two: “so tell me what you want, what you really, really want” – or, set your core values. Seriously answer the dreaded question from every behavioural interview: “where do you see yourself five years from now?”. No one stays in grad school forever (at least I hope not), and as such you need to tailor your graduate program to the career you want. No doubt priorities shift, interests evolve, and you can finish grad school with an entirely different goal. But based on your aspirations right now, you can start your hunt for a supervisor. For myself, I knew I wanted to retain the engineering mindset I had built from my undergraduate program. I also knew I valued the novel approach of my program – integrated engineering at UBC, which allowed me to learn multiple disciplines of engineering, informing a systems-based approach. These values were what initially made Dr. Moores’ career, and the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory, stand out to me. Having completed an undergraduate degree in engineering science at U of T, John has built his career bridging engineering and science interests in space exploration missions.

Step number three: “you’ve gotta have faith”. When it comes to grad school applications, a myriad of factors play into a supervisor’s ability to accept you as a student. When I first reached out to John, I initially received the dreaded “sorry, no vacancy”. However, as I continued connecting with various supervisors across Canada, a couple months later I opened my inbox to find a follow-up response. As luck would have it, a spot had opened up and I was able to meet with John to talk about potential thesis projects.

Step number four: “how deep is your love?” – I fear I must age myself and establish that this refers to the Bee Gees song, not Calvin Harris. Of equal importance as a supervisor or program, is your thesis project – namely, how much you can commit to this project. This is what will “take over” your life for the next, at minimum, two years. As such, you want to make sure that this project aligns with your goals beyond grad school. Imagine yourself sitting in an interview, discussing your work over the past couple years. Will this project help you impress your dream company and land the dream job? Will it help you take steps towards the path you want in academia? Is the project feasible to tackle with your skill set? Does it help you build a new skill set which you need to be a competitive candidate? When I first spoke to John, we discussed a modelling-based project which had me very hesitant to join the lab. I was steadfast in finding a project that would suit my engineering skills and which I could use to market myself to future employers in industry. Once again, in another blind stroke of luck, only a couple weeks after re-connecting with John he attended a conference which kickstarted renewed interest in a Lyman-alpha camera he has been working on for lunar ice prospecting from within permanently shadowed regions. Instrument-based? Check. Relevant to space industry interests? Also check. With this project aligning better with my goals, I was nearly sold on the Planetary Volatiles Lab.

Step number five: “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations”. If you are like me and have relocated for grad school, this step is likely of equal importance to everything else. Living in a new city, trying to make new friends while overwhelmed with the workload of research, taking courses and teaching assistantships can feel impossible. You want to establish what the lab culture is before you make this big jump. Ensure that the lab aligns with your personal expectations outside of research – a social, welcoming and warm atmosphere can help ease the transition to a new city. John happily connected me with Alex and Grace, both of whom helped confirm my decision for me. As numerous blog posts have detailed before, our lab makes time for social activities throughout the year and during conferences, facilitating a friendly environment. Establishing a support system within the lab has been the biggest factor in my success in moving to Toronto and starting graduate school. Research can be difficult in its own right, choosing a lab where you never feel alone helps to brighten both the tough times and the celebrations.

“Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go” – and that’s all folks. Following your own values, goals and passions will result in a foolproof strategy for picking the right lab group. These decisions are not one-size fits all, and at the end of the day only you can make this decision. So, think about these steps, write some pro’s-and-con’s lists and take the leap into the wacky world of graduate school. Whether this guide leads you to us at the Planetary Volatiles Lab or elsewhere, I wish you luck in your new adventure. 

Poster Sessions and All That

An image (Figure 1, courtesy of Elisa) of one of the many buildings which housed the 2024 American Geophysical Union Conference in December of last year. The conference is massive, overwhelming even! Yet, it provides a venue where even disciplines with small numbers of scientists can meet and discuss their science. From Elisa: "There was no mistaking this was the place. So many poster tubes and people piled up waiting for the light to change."

 by Elisa Dong

Going to conferences… is fun! 

The attendance at conferences is a significant part of a graduate student experience. These are the places where we showcase our work, get feedback, and check out what’s up and coming in the field. Sometimes, conferences take place at exotic locales, and sometimes, they may be as mundane as “the place near the airport that is extremely inconvenient to take public transport to.” AGU 2024 fell somewhere in between, in Washington D.C., capital of the United States of America.

Given that the flight time and drive time were not too dissimilar, my boyfriend and I opted to drive down to save on costs, a very real consideration for going to conferences! While unplanned, we drove through some fascinating geological features going through Pennsylvania, dotted with various electoral signs on the way down. We stopped at a fairly mediocre cash-only brunch place, and saw snow and horses for most of the way down. Entering the city, the traffic went from a quiet one lane drive to cars changing lanes without signals, and mysterious roundabouts with confusing signage. Once at our hotel, we spent half an hour figuring out the parking situation, grabbed some food downstairs (with the best free bread we had ever had), then promptly went to bed. 

AGU is about a 5 day conference (see Day 1 in Figure 1!), and I had a poster on the first day and a presentation on the third. My presentation went well, and I was able to touch base with a coauthor of mine to confirm a few key concepts for a paper I was writing (I did this by tapping his shoulder to say hello). I had thought I would have the entire last day off to wander the city. As it turns out, there was an entire session dedicated to planetary defense and impactors that I had missed in my schedule, so I slunk back into the conference center to hear about the modelling work that was ongoing (Figure 2 shows once of the very few photos I took at the museum). 

Figure 2. Ducks at the museum! I also took photos of many many rock displays, but the local fowl section was also very cool!

It’s worth noting I met up with several other colleagues who do similar things – checking on some scientific concepts that were their specialties, sharing ideas for future works, and generally touching base. Despite running around to sessions, visiting random posters, picking up free ducky keycaps, the networking and chatting with more distant coworkers and future collaborators is one of the best things about a conference for me. Getting on a zoom call or sending an email is just not the same. 

The collaborative and productive nature of conferences was really highlighted by the poster I had up. I made the questionable choice of wearing heels that first day, anticipating being able to sit and walk around. Unlike some other conferences I had attended in the past, this poster session was huge. Having mine on the first day, I didn’t realize just how well attended it would be! 

So instead of being able to kick back and look at other posters during my session, I was glued at my poster well past the closing time and completely missed seeing an old colleague just a few posters down the aisle. I received a large amount of feedback, including kind critiques and thoughtful questions that have lingered as I consider the limitations of my work. Folks stopped by to offer resources and model simulations, encouraged me to bring up my work to a larger group (this has happened! I gave a presentation and received more positive feedback and further suggestions), and all the good stuff. I met many new people, whose names I wish I had taken down, including some who might be future reviewers of my work that gently pointed out the critical questions that I might want to consider as I continued working on the project. I explained a few concepts to a child attending the conference with family, and shared in their excitement over the awesomeness - that modelling that can help us explain our real-world observations. 

I was also happy to meet up with my previous supervisor and bring him up to speed on what I was working on, and to hear his assessment of the current state of his field and view of the conference.
Some cool things I got out of AGU 2024:

• An invitation to ask about a summer internship position (this didn’t end up working out, but it definitely expanded my thoughts)
• Meeting undergraduate students! It’s always a delight to see what cool things they’re working on, and we’ve spoken again since about work related matters
• A suggestion to present my work at an internal MSL meeting despite not working on data from the team directly
• The potential for writing a paper for a special edition (this also didn’t work out, but the procedure has been established and might be something to touch up again in the future)
• A visit to NASA Goddard! I’ve never been to a NASA Centre before, and I was able to plan it with one of my coworkers based out of there and get approvals just in time! It was great to see what folks are doing behind the scenes, the huge clean rooms with possibly over a hundred HEPA filters installed (Fig. 3), and the old-fashioned, yet extremely functional, measuring tools they used
• A late night ice-cream hangout with an online friend who forewarned me about the roundabouts
• More ice-cream and a super toasty paper fill menu on a busy Friday night when every other place was packed
• An experience (and the post-experience) at Coffee Republic. I have never enjoyed ads in my inbox so much before. The food was delightfully greasy, the coffee solid, and it was fun to hear the workers chat about their relationships candidly
• Going to the Christmas market! Two of them even!
• Barrel and Chuck, the two plushies I picked up on the way back at a Cracker Barrel. (Barrel is the lab’s new emotional support capybara, and has a lavender scented heat pack inside him! All of us in the office where he lives happen to like lavender, so it works out great. He occasionally moves from desk to desk to provide extra support)
• And, an incredible amount of useful feedback for my own work + inspiration from other projects in the future!

Figure 3. The HEPA filter wall. Incredible. What else can you spot in the room?

AGU is one of the stranger conferences out there. It is a huge conglomeration of what is really 30+ conferences that are distantly related all mashed into one location. While it makes it easy to pop into a session about say, climate change or quantum physics, it’s not necessarily planned out in a way that potentially related sessions don’t interfere. Add on thousands of attendees, and you might be feeling a bit claustrophobic and getting more exercise than planned as you trek from one building to another. Something to keep in mind. It may be better for some folks to target more niche conferences to get the same return.

We drove back as well. My eyes are still recovering from being blasted with 8 hours of dry air.

The Art of Collaboration

I can't emphasize this enough: Science is a team sport! Collaborations are key to all that we accomplish at PVL. Often, the effort of trying to develop a better understanding of our solar system can be difficult or frustrating. Working with others not only makes this more fun and social, but those connections can often get you unstuck or send you down a path of discovery you didn't even know existed. All it takes is the right conversation to spark something new! Above: A view from the Nydeggbrücke, a 19th century bridge over the Aare that connects the old and new parts of Bern.

by Conor Hayes

I’ve now been with the PVL for almost five years. In that time, I’ve really come to appreciate the power of a collaboration, particularly with people outside of the lab. I first got a taste of this following the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) in 2022. There, I was presenting some of the work that I had been doing as part of my Master’s thesis. In that work, I was examining how small-scale terrain may influence surface temperatures in the Moon’s permanently-shadowed regions (PSRs) in ways that we can’t currently observe from orbit. To do so, I was using a “Gaussian rough surface” to represent the interior of a PSR. While Gaussian roughness is a decent model for planetary surfaces over smaller regions, it’s a simplified model as it ignores larger structures like craters.

After my presentation, I got a DM on the conference’s Slack workspace from David Minton, an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University. In his message, he told me that he had been developing a Cratered Terrain Evolution Model (CTEM) that can create realistic lunar terrains at small scales, and asked if I would be interested in collaborating. Over the next several months, we merged his CTEM outputs with my illumination and temperature models to create a paper that was significantly better than the version that was in my Master’s thesis.

This past February, another collaboration offered a new experience to me. During my PhD, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at the transport of volatile molecules like water across the lunar surface. One of the more popular models for doing so assumes that molecules undergo a series of thermally-driven jumps across the surface until they are either destroyed or trapped by cold temperatures. The temperature required for one of these jumps to begin is determined by a parameter known as the “desorption activation energy.” It is arguably the most important component of the model, but its value is not well understood, particularly if you want to look at molecules other than water.

There are several ways that one can attempt to determine the value of a molecule’s activation energies, but nobody at PVL has the expertise or the equipment necessary to do so. We could just use the values in the literature while making note of their limitations, but I didn’t feel like that was the right approach. Instead, we’ve been working with Liam Morrissey and his team at Memorial University on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of desorption, which can be used to estimate the activation energies for various molecules on different surfaces without having to put together a complex experimental setup.

As part of this collaboration, I was invited to participate in a workshop at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, Switzerland. This workshop was the first meeting of ISSI’s Multi-Scale Understanding of Surface-Exosphere Connections (MUSEC) International Team. At this point in my graduate career, I’ve been to many conferences, so I thought that I knew what I was getting into. It didn’t take long for my expectations to be proven entirely incorrect.

What rapidly became apparent was that a workshop is a much more collaborative environment than a conference. Rather than a rigid schedule of short talks and even shorter Q&A sessions, each presentation was more like a conversation between all the attendees. About half an hour was given to each person, not because they were expected to speak for that long, but to give ample time for discussion during and after each talk.

I had been worried because I was coming in without many actual results. Instead, the presentation I had prepared was mostly a listing of open questions that I would like to address in the final version of my model. Not exactly the kind of content that would attract much attention at a conference, but I had been assured that it was appropriate for a more informal venue such as this one. Still, I was haunted by the ever-present specter of imposter syndrome, particularly as a last-minute addition to a group of people who were already familiar with each other.

After the week’s agenda had been updated to include me, I noticed that 45 minutes had been allocated for me. Before I began, I joked that I we would definitely be taking our afternoon coffee break early, as I couldn’t imagine a world in which my set of questions could possibly consume that amount of time. As it turns out, if you start listing unanswered questions in a room full of people with the expertise to answer those questions, it inspires a lot of discussion. I was told afterwords that my presentation was exactly the kind of content that this workshop had been designed to focus on, which was very reassuring to hear given my initial uncertainty about whether I should be there at all.

Outside of the workshop itself, the MUSEC leadership made an effort to foster a sense of community with group lunch and dinner outings, which allowed everyone to get to know each other outside of our work. It didn’t take more than a day or so before I stopped feeling like an outsider. Bern itself is a beautiful city, and I hope to be able to explore it more during the next in-person MUSEC workshop next year (if writing my dissertation isn’t consuming too much of my time by then!). 

 The aftermath of a successful workshop: a completely inscrutable whiteboard.

 

A Niche Conference?

 Being at a conference is like being thrown in the deep end; it's like drinking from a fire-hose; it's so unlike anything else in academia that water-based analogies just don't describe it accurately! It's an even more impactful experience if we're talking about your first scientific conference or your first time diving into a new field where unexpected connections can be made (e.g. discovering a new kind of Phoenix!). This week, Kevin shares his experience of attending a planetary science conference with a narrow scope: the 10th Mars Conference.

by Dr. Kevin Axelrod

Back in July of this past year (which is 2024, for those of you reading this in the future), the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory of York University traveled to Pasadena, California to attend and present at the 10th Mars Conference, hosted by Cal Tech and organized by USRA. This conference is not held every year, usually just once or twice a decade and therefore had some big-shot attendees from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and elsewhere. In total there were nearly a thousand participants.  Given that it talks about the study of a single non-Earth planet in the universe, I considered it to be niche - something that is highly specialized, highly technical, and extremely important to some but obscure to many.

So, coming from an Earth-oriented atmospheric sciences background (I got my Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences, and my research focused on bioaerosols) at first, I found it very difficult to fit in.  In just about every single conversation, (including with graduate students, who are supposedly “less experienced” than a postdoc) I found myself to be the least experienced participant. Typically, the other person did 99% of the talking, and, when responding to someone, I would just say stuff like “Okay”, “Hmm… interesting”, “I see”, “Alright, sounds good”, and “Cool”. I had difficulty contributing meaningful thoughts to conversations because I simply did not know enough.

I immediately noticed something in an opening plenary given by one of the keynote speakers, someone highly experienced that I would think of as a “big-shot.” In his presentation, he discussed a measurement technique and the missions that have performed these measurements. Then, in the question session, a member of the audience playfully ridiculed him for not including a shout-out of the Phoenix lander for a similar measurement that it had performed.  He genuinely apologized, stated that he is a “big fan” of the Phoenix lander, and that its exclusion was an oversight.

Meanwhile, I sat there thinking: “Hmmm… Phoenix.  To me, Phoenix is a city in Arizona, a bird in Harry Potter, and the mascot of a professional ultimate frisbee team based in Philadelphia (above).” Don’t ask me how I somehow know that third one. 

This was one of many instances where I felt like I should have signed up to be the guy filling the water coolers instead of an actual presenter. Other scientists there seemed to know every single Mars mission like the back of their hand – something that I should study more.  People there knew all the important (and more obscure) studies, both legacy and recent.  

Niche conferences are nothing new to me: back in 2023 I attended a conference called the International Conference on Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere, at Berkeley. There perhaps 150 participants (given its small size, John might call this a “workshop”, not a conference), and the title said it all.  Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere was the only topic discussed.  I did my Ph.D. on bioaerosols, so my research fit in perfectly with this conference, and there were many other scientists there who were also doing work on bioaerosols.  

I talked with these people like we were equals: I knew what they were talking about and vice versa.  But, even in a “niche” conference like this, with relatively few attendees and a narrow range of subject material, there were also several presentations that struck me as completely new – things I have not researched before, worked on, heard of, or imagined.  While I vibed with a good number of presentations, there also were many presentations that were so new to me that I was completely lost by the second slide in the slide show – giving me the feeling that I was having at 10th Mars in Pasadena. Even in a conference where I have a good grasp of much of the research, there was still plenty of research that made me feel like a “newbie”.

Remembering this conference, I now realize that there may not exist a conference that is too niche. Even when narrowing down the range of topics, science is still extremely broad, and even more extremely detailed.  Because of this, I find it difficult to call myself an “expert” in a broad field like atmospheric sciences, even though I have a Ph.D in this topic.

So, 10th Mars reminded me of something critical: the most important skill in a scientific career isn’t knowing everything there is to know in a field. It is the ability to push outside of your comfort zone and learn new things. Even though you may have a Ph.D, you can never stop being a student. Even though 10th Mars was perhaps a bit uncomfortable for me (because of my relative lack of experience in the field compared to other participants), I learned more material in those four days than maybe I ever had before in a four-day span.

The message of this blog post is this: I would highly recommend all early-career scientists to not just attend conferences in your field of expertise, but conferences that are slightly (or more than slightly) outside of your area of expertise. And to be honest, middle- and late-career scientists should probably be doing the same as well. It will challenge you to learn new things, meet new collaborators, and in doing so conceptualize new ideas for research that you may never have had if you had just stayed in your typical lane – the one that you were trained in when you did your M.S. or Ph.D.  

A few final thoughts:
1.    I need to find a way to drag some other members of the PVL out to a conference with more Earth-based atmospheric sciences!  I guess the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in Washington DC is a good place to start (three of us were there last year!).
2.    “Phoenix” now includes the name of a NASA Mars lander from 2008 as a definition in my brain-dictionary!

The Crunch

There comes a point when working on any large project when you can run into roadblocks or motivation can flag. This is almost guaranteed with something as long and as challenging as a PhD. Indeed, statistics suggest that in Canada about a quarter of science and engineering PhD students do not complete their degrees within 9 years (as of 2013). Sometimes, the greatest challenge can arise just before the end in "The Crunch" to finish, as Dr. Kevin Axelrod, our new Postdoctoral Fellow attests in this week's very personal post below. But if you find yourself in this situation, don't loose hope!  As the saying goes, it's often darkest just before the dawn.

(Photo above courtesy of Dr. Axelrod: "The view from the roof of the main building of the Desert Research Institute.  I spent a lot of time up here over five years, all four seasons.  It’s that nice.")

by Dr. Kevin Axelrod

So, it’s been a pretty crazy 12 months.  In January of 2023 (one calendar year before this blog is being posted), I was lying on the couch for two straight weeks in my shared house in Reno, Nevada, recovering from leg surgery, high on hydrocodone, and needing my housemates to get food from the kitchen for me (thanks, Heather and Brie).  Not appearing in the lab at the Desert Research Institute for two full weeks, I still had not completed the experimentation for my second publication of my Ph.D. research at the University of Nevada at Reno.  I still did not have a set date for when I would defend my dissertation and graduate from school, and quite frankly I did not yet know where my life was going.  And, believe it or not, I had never heard of York University.  

I had spent the last year and a half worrying about where my research was headed and how it was going to help me take the next step in life after graduation (if I even graduated).  At this point, I was supposed to be in “the crunch” - the last year of a Ph.D. tenure in which a student is supposed to devote their life, body, mind, spirit, overall being, consciousness, life-force, qi, etc. to their research and nothing else.  Instead, for two weeks, I watched Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime (not sponsored, by the way) while eating chocolate pudding.  Not exactly the demeanor of someone who had spent the last 4.5 years of their life in graduate school and was now supposed to be in the crunch.  Of course, I could not walk and thus could not come into lab to work on my experiments, and I struggled to write anything because most of the time, I could not even sit up.  I felt stuck – I was seriously questioning whether I could graduate in August of 2023, which was a date delayed from a previous goal of May 2023, which was a date delayed from my original goal of December 2022 that I laid out in my prospectus defense.  

This was just 12 months ago.  And now, I am writing a blog for the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory, supervised by Dr. John Moores, at YorkU in Ontario.  Back in January, I would not have guessed that I would be here now. 

So, this blog is not about how cool my Ph.D. research is, a summary of an important meeting or event, or a case study of a planetary atmosphere.  This blog is about Ph.D. students in “the crunch”, who are anxious, unsure of their future, feeling consistently unprepared or inadequate, and always being very busy while still feeling like they get nothing done.    

Hopefully, that is not the case for most Ph.D. students who read this.  Hopefully, most Ph.D. students are constantly ecstatic about their research, enjoying all the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that they had dreamed about since childhood when they first watched Bill Nye the Science Guy or Mythbusters.  That was not me, however, and I know I am not the only one.  I had been working on this one singular project (bioaerosol chemistry, and more specifically pollen chemistry) for 4.5 years, and though it came with a lot of intrigue and enjoyment, I had also made many mistakes, suffered setbacks, and was disappointed with what I viewed to be a low level of progress. As a result, I was feeling very stressed and burned out – I just wanted to finally complete it and move onto new things.

After I got to the point where I could walk again, I returned to the lab with a new motivation - to get my life together.  And that involved two tasks: finishing my research on the volatility of bioaerosol constituents in the atmosphere, and also looking past my Ph.D. and finding a place where I could continue my passion for scientific research on a new project which would allow me to expand my knowledge further.  And I ended up finding such an opportunity with the PVL via a flyer that Dr. Moores posted on the American Geophysical Union website’s career listings.  

Upon my first interview with Dr. Moores, I knew right away that I wanted to join the lab – I was completely overwhelmed when he extended the offer to join.  I accepted.  It would be an exciting change of pace - a new project on the development of a functioning methane spectrometer for the Martian atmosphere (and so far, it has been a very exciting change of pace).  But, in March 2023 when I first interviewed, in the back (and front) of my head was a lingering doubt – would I actually be able to finish my Ph.D. research in time to move to Toronto and start research at YorkU in September 2023?

One thing was for certain – the pressure was on like never before.  Pressure not just to produce manuscripts, but to start a new chapter in life.  To self-improve, if you will.  In my opinion, that was the subject of my dissertation writing, even though self-improvement is never mentioned in it.  

And, for the most part, that pressure was good for me.  It made me more focused and motivated towards my bioaerosol research.  And as my leg improved, so did the state of my dissertation.  By the end of March, I completed the experimentation for my second publication and was busy writing the manuscript for it, while simultaneously taking care of in-lab work for my third research chapter in my dissertation.  By May, I had finished the writing of the publication and was wrapping up the in-lab research.  And by July 10, I was holding my dissertation defense.

Granted, the defense was far from perfect (almost nothing ever is in academia).  The night before was my most disturbed night of “sleep” ever. The morning of, I woke up at 4:30 AM and was instantly wide awake – something that had only happened one other time in my life, which was the morning of my prospectus defense two years earlier.  I held off on coffee that morning because it would have had no effect.  My jitteriness was already at a maximum due to the nervous energy surging through me. 
I was in a state of extreme anxiety.  But, I took solace in the fact that I had given the past year, “the crunch”, my best effort – motivated by my desire to make it to my postdoctoral fellowship.  And if my best effort was not enough, then oh well.    

The defense was an absolute fever dream – I don’t even remember most of it.  But it went well, and after two and a half hours I walked out of the presentation room with the blessings of my committee.  After living in Reno for five years, I was finally going to start a new chapter in life.  Provided, of course, that I take care of a few other things before I left, such as updating some of my writing and attempting to gather some results via a secondary analysis of some of my aerosol samples because one of my previous experiments failed.

But before any of that, I had another immediate task: attending my first in-person conference as a graduate student (no thanks to you, COVID), at the International Conference for Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere (ICCPA) in Berkeley, California.  After my defense, my next task was to drive for four hours (on two hours of sleep) to California.  Though I was driving at night and did not arrive at the conference hotel until 2AM, it was one of the most euphoric drives of my life.  

The next day, I finally got to enjoy an in-person conference, as a reward for passing the defense.  It was a great time – I presented a poster on my research, sat in on an absurd number of exciting platform presentation sessions, met several new people and research groups, and certainly did not skimp on the catered wine.  By all estimates, it was one of the most enjoyable excursions of my time as a graduate student.

And one month later, I stuffed all my belongings into my sedan and left Reno, driving them back to my parents’ house before jumping onto a plane two weeks later.  

I will miss Reno.  I will miss the incredible natural landscapes around Lake Tahoe.  I will miss the excitement that I had back when I first moved there in 2018 as a grad student, realizing that I was about to take part in cutting-edge research for the first time.  And I will also miss a lot of the time I spent in lab over those 5 years.  I am forever grateful that I had a great advisor, a great program director, and great co-researchers and classmates, without all of whom I would not have graduated.  I will forever cherish the research topics that I was able to take part in while at the Desert Research Institute.  But there were certainly things that I will not miss: the many times that I made mistakes in my experimentation, the many re-do’s that needed to be done, the eternal frustration of trial and error, followed by finally obtaining a set of results that I thought were interesting enough to be published (and then writing about them for several months), only to have the manuscript murdered by some very truculent reviewers.  This cycle of frustration made it feel like I was stagnating – that I was not moving forward in research or in life.  It made bioaerosol research, a topic that I intrinsically enjoy, into something that stressed me out.  It’s the part of the scientific method that they do not show on Mythbusters.

So, to any current Ph.D. student who feels the same way right now, I would say: try to think about what you want to do after your graduation, even though it can be difficult to think about.  A visualization of your “next chapter” will get you over the hump.  Scientific research has both excitement and disappointment.  A Ph.D. may sometimes seem like it has more disappointment than excitement.  But after completion, you will feel just like the Mythbusters right after they blow something up: total ecstasy.  And that feeling will fuel my motivation for further research here at YorkU - hopefully I can keep it going for a while.    

Completing the Thesis Defence: The Final Boss of a Graduate Degree

This past summer, several of the students in PVL had the opportunity to go through the timeless ritual that all us academics undergo in order to earn our MSc and PhD degrees: the oral defense of our research. I can report that everyone made it through with flying colours! Of course, a defence is also a transition for the student who may be moving from an MSc into a PhD, from a PhD into a Postdoc or from their MSc into the working world, amongst other paths. If you are considering getting a higher degree and want to know what this hurdle looks like, or are starting to think about your own defense, Grace has some helpful insight below. 
(Image above from XKCD Comics: https://xkcd.com/1403/)

 by Grace Bischof

The end of the summer marked a busy time in the Planetary Volatiles Lab. Conor, Giang and I were each nervously preparing for our upcoming thesis defences, where we would learn if we were to pass and obtain our degrees, or fail and be very, very sad. Giang, reaching the end of his PhD in August, defended first, setting the tone for the rest of us by passing! Conor and I followed, defending on September 7th and 8th (apologies to our shared committee members who had to sit in back-to-back defences). Conor and I were also successful in defending our theses, meaning we both obtained our master’s degrees. It was a very exciting end to the summer.

So, what is a thesis defence and why is it so nerve-wracking? In a research-based degree, the findings of the research you complete over several years get written up into a document – at York, this is a thesis for a master’s and a dissertation for a PhD, which is a more robust document than a thesis. This document represents years of hard work, and hopefully, makes an original contribution to the field in which you’re studying. That, in and of itself, is a nerve-wracking process. But before the university can award you your degree for all the painstaking effort you have put into your thesis, they first must test you on the contents in the form of an oral examination.

The oral examination usually begins with a public talk, where your research is presented in a 20 minute to hour long (depending on the degree) presentation. Typically, anyone can join this portion of the defence, and for me, it was fun having my friends and family watch my presentation so they could finally stop asking what it is I actually work on. Once the public talk is over, everyone else leaves the room, so it is just you and your committee. One-by-one, the committee members take turns dissecting your thesis, asking questions, and making suggestions about the contents to facilitate discussion on your work. This process can last several hours, especially for a PhD defence which is more involved. Once the committee has run out of questions to ask, you are kicked out of the room while they deliberate. Sitting outside the room while a small number of people decide the fate on the culmination of your work is horrifying. Then you are finally called back to the room to receive to your verdict…

The good news: the thesis defence is largely a formality. That is, if your research supervisor is doing their job, you will not walk into the thesis defence if you are not going to pass. The purpose of the defence is simply to ensure the student understands their work and the literature in which it is situated. Not knowing the answer to an examiner’s question does not mean you will fail the defence. In fact, the examiners want to see you reason through their questions, applying your knowledge even when you do not have the exact answer. There was one point in my defence when I answered a question completely incorrectly but realized my error once I thought more about it. I told the committee that the answer I gave was incorrect and walked them through my thought process to answer the question correctly. The committee was more interested in seeing my reasoning in getting to the answer than they were worried about the initial mistake I made.

So, now that you know what a thesis defence is, let’s briefly walk through some tips for the defence:

1. Start preparing early. The amount of time needed to prepare is going to depend on the degree being obtained – i.e., PhD students will likely need to start earlier than master’s student. Three weeks out before my defence I began to seriously prepare. I started by compiling a list of the most important references in my thesis. I read a handful of these a day, highlighting and jotting down notes on important aspects of each paper. At this time, I was also walking through the basics of the field – sure, it might impress your committee to describe in detail all the aspects of radiative transfer in the atmosphere, but that might diminish if you forget Mars is the 4th planet from the sun.
   
   
2. Anticipate questions. About 1.5 weeks from the defence date, I began combing through my thesis line by line. I had a PDF version of my thesis which I used to highlight and make notes in the margins. I wrote down anything that came to mind when reading my work and how the committee might interpret it. Some common questions that are asked in defences are: “How does your work fit into the existing literature”; “Describe your work in a few short questions”; “In what ways can this work be expanded?”; “What limitations did you experience in this work?”. Funnily enough, I prepared for all these questions and did not get asked any of them. However, preparing for them helped me to pick apart my work more carefully, meaning I could answer the questions they did give me.
   
   
3. Try to relax as much as possible. It’s easier said than done. An important tip that I read online before defending my thesis was to make sure that in your state of nervousness, you don’t consistently interrupt the examiners while they are asking questions in an attempt to quickly prove you know the answer. When an examiner is speaking, it’s a perfect time to collect your thoughts and let them talk (it eats up more time this way too!). But, like I said, the defence is largely a formality. If you’ve done the work, then you know your stuff and you will crush it! You are allowed to sit and think about your answer before speaking, drink some water or have a snack, and take a break during the defence if needed. After the first 30 minutes of the defence, the rest breezes by.

Your thesis defence will probably be the only time you will ever have a discussion with people who have ever read the full contents of your thesis. That itself is a pretty cool opportunity, so try to enjoy it as much as you can! Hopefully in four years’ time, when I’m preparing for my PhD defence, I can come back to this blog post and try to take my own advice.