nudibooty - Tumblr blog

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Just a reminder to everyone that I do in fact have a tumblr called Nudibooty. Reviving it as of.... now! Throwback to a marvelous day at Duxbury Reef.

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Hi. I saw a post you did a bit ago with a pink nudibranch that was swimming in a really weird way, and I was wondering: where are the anterior and posterior ends??? I always thought they were at the two points, but this swimming makes me think they’re on the middle of the nudibranch.

No, your original thoughts were right, they just swim in a very weird way. The equivalent would be like us using our obliques on our sides to flap our arms towards our legs and propel ourselves that way!

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Please continue to spread the word about my citizen science project! 

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Just chilling with honeycomb ray and cownose ray at the #Philippine mangrove lagoon #coffeebreakatcalacademy (at California Academy of Sciences)

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Excited to be back in the field and trying my hand at underwater photography again! Pretty proud of this Goniobranchus reticulatus in Mabini, Philippines. 

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Caught the #Philippine #coralreef show during today's #coffeebreakatcalacademy #education #scicomm (at California Academy of Sciences)

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Chromodoris annae are now crawling on my ears and I love it. If you want your own, check them out on etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/215093114/chromodoris-annae-small-earrings?&gclid=CjwKEAjwudW9BRDcrd30kovf8GkSJAB3hTxFuI1wt8RcGobu4YtL2lZfK6QeXAUak8v4pbLVREsxyhoCsLrw_wcB

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Super cool! 

Bornella anguilla

Bornella anguilla is a species of sea slug in the family Bornellidae. This species is widely distributed throughout the tropical waters of the Indo-West Pacific. This species can grow up to a length of 8 cm.

photo credits: wiki, seaslugsofhawaii, J_deGuzman

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What could be better than cats and nudibranchs combined into one adorable yet terrifying creature??? In honor of #nationalcatday and #seaslugday I present to you two mashups of my cat, Milo, and a nudibranch friend I made in Sulawesi. Photos by me, photo edits and artwork by Sam Cheng

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Women in Science

Being the change you want to see in the world is challenging.  Inherently this means that you are doing something that doesn’t quite fit within the status quo.  Also, you can’t be the change; you just create a little wiggle room and hope for company.  I should know, I just finished my PhD and am a woman.  This means I am on the precipice that few women pass.

Survey data shows that the reason women leave academia at this point is that they go into non-academic jobs and/or stay home with children.  This work life balance isn’t unreasonable to want; in fact we lose many good minds, conscientious collaborators and caring instructors by not valuing work life balance in academia.  Disproportionate to their male colleagues, women who succeed in academia are likely to be single and childless. I am not married and I have no children so at least I have that going for me…but I have supported my advisor’s decision to go home to his family in the early afternoon for years and will support my colleagues in their work life balance regardless of whether or not my personal situation changes.  I hope that others will join in that support, regardless of gender and family status since without consciousness these disparities will be perpetuated.

I have noticed throughout my PhD that my fellow female graduate students and I devoted a lot more of our time to outreach than male counterparts.  Traditionally, the opinion is that women are not as enabled in no saying as their male counterparts and that plays a big role in the extra committee and extracurricular activities that decrease women scientists’ competitive edge by eroding away time needed for research.  I disagree that is the whole story although I think that disparity is important to consider.  I, and many others, went out of our way to seek out outreach opportunities not merely agree to them when they were offered, even against the advice of our supervisors or at best without their encouragement.  As I finish up my PhD, after two years of involvement with NAPIRE (Native American and Pacific Islander Research Experience), a year as a resident scientist at a high school, and many outreach events, I believe I understand why I feel so driven to continue outreach even in defiance of my best interest in the moment.  This world of white male professors is not my world and I’m doing my best to carve out some space here for women and minorities.  The effort required to carve this space is time other colleagues spend on skillset building and research and that perpetuates the inequality. 

However, I alone can’t be the change and so the effort is valid despite the cost.  I have had the honor of having five amazing young women work with me during my PhD and we have learned science, positivity, and one another’s favorite foods over the field seasons.  Those five women and all my other students past and all those to come, are worth it.  I believe that the world will change and that I will be there to see it.  I have learned an incredible amount from my students and hope that they will spread out and dance out huge swaths to make space for all of us.  Here’s hoping that this difference is reversed, both by inclusivity going forward, but also by increased conscientiousness and effort towards outreach among those students whose gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation and culture are already well represented among the professoriate.   Next time someone asks you to participate, remember that if you say no the person who says yes does not have any more time than you do, they just can’t honor their privilege by always saying no.  And neither can you; we all will benefit from the synergy of creativity created by inclusivity and you also have an obligation to help science level up. 

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In honor of World Oceans Day, here’s a friendly Glossodoris cinta from Donggala, Sulawesi.

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Hey nudibranch lovers! Ever wonder why are coral reef nudibranchs are so diverse? See one reason in my new video!

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Phestilla minor radula!

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Spending the day at Cal Poly doing my first nudibranch dissections with Angel Valdes!

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The Spanish Shawl, Flabellina iodinea, is our favorite nudibranch here in California! Under the microscope you can really see the projections of its digestive system in the cerata.

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This Spanish Shawl nudibranch, Flabellina iodinea, is helping UCLA undergrads learn about marine invertebrates. Check out its crazy swimming!