Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve looked at this blog. Between grad school and trying to start my writing career, I haven’t had a chance to get this up and running like I wanted….

But you’ll be happy to know that my plan for 2022 is to actually start writing on a semi-regular basis! I definitely want to put something out every Friday. It won’t be anything wild, just a quick, ~10 fact exposé about cool animals. Because who doesn’t want to learn about fun animals every Friday??? I’ll do longer form essays and reviews of cool papers as I can. Maybe once or twice a month?

While I’ve got you here, let me give you an update of what’s been going on with me.

First off – I graduated! I successfully defended my PhD in November of 2021 and had my degree conferred in December. It wasn’t the thesis I was expecting to write, but it was a thesis all the same. Basically, my thesis ended up being much more about development and hardly at all about mating tactics. This was due to me figuring out what I wanted to do with my life and really just needing to finish up grad school and move on. Which leads me to my second piece of news…

I’ve decided I want to be a science writer! I’ve been dabbling in science writing and science communication for a while now, and all of my experiences have really cemented for me that I love reading about cool science and sharing it with others.

To start out my science writing career, I’ve begun working at Outsmarting Human Minds. It’s a project that takes the science of implicit bias and translates it into engaging videos. I really enjoy it so far and am looking forward to continuing to practice my writing skills. I’ll also be trying to do some small, freelance articles in my spare time to keep that journalistic side of me sharp!

So there you have it. I managed to get both a PhD and a job that will set me on my career path. I’m pretty excited, not gonna lie. It feels great to be done with graduate school and really start my life. And this blog will hopefully be a part of it!

I’m looking forward to 2022, and I hope you’re as excited to learn about cool animals with me as I am!

-Caitlyn