NeuroDojo

More projects completed! Huzzah!

The paperwork has been signed and our Department Chair got copies, so I finally get to welcome Dr. Anita Davelos to our department. Anita was hired in the genetics position we've been advertising for. She'll be bringing some expertise on the genetics of bacteria to the department, although her own research focuses more on ecology than genes.

Just so you can prevent personal embarassment if you should ever happen to meet her, her last name is pronounced with three syllables, not two. It's "Da-vel-los," not "Dave-los."

To paraphrase some classic Uncanny X-Men covers, "Welcome to UTPA, Anita. Hope you survive the experience."

;;;;;

In other good news, I finally packed up the last manuscripts for "my" special issue of Journal of Comparative Physiology A today. This will be an issue containing papers based on the "Mechanisms of behavioral switching" symposium I organized last year for the Animal Behavior Society meeting. One reason this pleases me is that at the end of the symposium, the participants did a bit of "soul searching" on whether it was worth talking about neural mechanisms at an behavioural meeting, because attendance ran low near the end of the day. If it was kind of a misguided place to hold the symposium (and I'm not convinced it was), having all of the papers together in one place will make bring it to the audience that maybe wouldn't normally attend a meeting like ABS.

But just to give you an idea of scientific efficiency... I had 8 speakers at the original symposium. Two declined to present manuscripts, saying they were too busy to write them. The symposium was August, and the original deadline was January for receiving the manuscripts. I won't mention how many of the six authors made it, but let's say it was nowhere near all of them. Sigh. However, many harrassing emails and extensions have gotten three-quarters of the authors to get their papers in. I'm looking forward to seeing the final thing in print, as always.

It seems like such a cliche, doesn't it? Professors being bright, but disorganized and not really good with deadlines.