Dr. Erin Zimmerman

@doctorzedd
79 Followers
66 Following
25 Posts
Evolutionary biologist, science writer, big geek. Really into plants.🌿 Author of UNROOTED: Botany, Motherhood, & the Fight to Save an Old Science (Melville House, April 2024) #botany #naturalhistory #womeninSTEM #science #scicomm
After twenty long years of wanting to eat a puffball and never finding one, my delicious mycological dream came true this week.
Well i guess this is really happening… looking forward to reconnecting with community of #PlantEcology, #PlantEvolution, and #Conservation folks on this new platform. Already seeing some familiar faces!
I am a plant ecologist based at #SmithCollege focused on questions around plant conservation and #ClimateChange, with some developing projects exploring #CarnivorousPlants as well as #mycorrhizae. My lab involves mostly undergraduates #PUI and often collaborates w/ #SmithCollegeBotanicGarden.
I am looking for all my #science #journalism peeps and scientists to follow! Please speak up if you are a #sciencejournalist or a scientist who doesn't mind talking to journalists! #noxp
A few #project posts, as an #introduction
I've had a long association with the International Plant Names Index https://www.ipni.org firstly in a technical role, now in analysis.
IPNI is a longterm project. Kew received a legacy from #Darwin to create #IndexKewensis - a list of scientific names & place of publication, to avoid repeated lookup of primary literature.
Darwin saw the coming #DataDeluge & supported a text mining project to address it
1st output published 1893 & we continue today
International Plant Names Index

When male physicians tell patients to call them by their first name, they don't suffer role incredulity. They are still seen as a physician. Yet for women physicians, many patients untitle them even when told to their name is Dr. So-and-So.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/984533
Don't Call Me 'Dr', Say Some Physicians. Most Disagree

Patients "untitling" physicians has become more common. Some doctors think it's a positive trend, but others feel that the honorific title helps reinforce the physician's medical knowledge.

Medscape
And the nice thing about having left academia is that now I don’t even have to be jealous of these lucky souls. I’m just excited to meet them and potentially get to write about their crazy awesome projects haha
Okay, here's my Mastodon #introduction --
* Spent 10 years as an environmental policy reporter in DC.
* Last 14 years as a science writer for a university. Wrote a book on #scicomm for research institutions: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo18768107.html
* Freelance writer and editor on everything from health to tech to food.
* I periodically write about random stuff on Medium. Such as this: https://medium.com/@shiplives/how-hank-williams-and-robert-johnson-tricked-me-into-thinking-trains-are-from-the-south-e35f21e443f3

Loved being on my own #podcast talking about my #science #book ! Wanna hear about PESTS?! Yes you do. http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/pests-how-humans-create-animal-villains

Also you can preorder! https://bethanybrookshire.com/pests/

#613 - Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains: Science for the People

Tomorrow will be the last day we see the Sun until February. Well we’ll likely not see it as it is forecast to be overcast. People image we have one long night, but that’s not true. We have a varying amount of twilight as the Sun skims below the horizon.

🦋 #citizenscience 🦋

As part of a research project led by Maël Doré (@Eonymus) on mimicry in tropical butterflies, we have developed a survey to quantify our perception of butterfly color patterns. ⌛ < 10 min

Your participation would be very helpful.The more data we have, the better. Thank you so much!

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https://memometic.cleverapps.io/
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Please boost! And follow Maël for great research on #macroevolution and #mimicry

#colsci #survey #research #perception #cognition

Memometic - Butterfly Survey