My last post was in the fall, when I was transitioning from sabbatical research to teaching. Since then, needless to say, much has happened. Like all institutions that continued teaching, Reed College finished the semester completely online. I managed to finish my classes and the semester has officially concluded. As for next fall, we will see, but one thing is crystal clear: even in-person teaching will not be like it was.
First, some congratulations are in order:
- Congratulations to all Reed 2020 graduating seniors! You finished your time at Reed under exceptional circumstances, and we will never fully know how hard that was for each one fo you.
- Congratulations to all Reed faculty and staff who carried off a pretty much successful experience overall, given the situation.
- Congratulations to anyone who completed this year in a way that was safe and kept others from getting sick.
Next, I’m excited to say that undergraduate research is continuing at Reed through remote fellowships, and I have a bunch of students and post-bacs doing computational biology research. Read more about their plans in my kickstarter post on the Reed Compbio blog: Summer 2020 Research | The Pathway Not Taken
Finally, I went back to my creative roots during the pandemic and designed a new compbio lab logo – expect to see it on future posters!
There were numerous challenges this spring, many of which were shared by other colleagues. However, these comprised only a tiny sliver of the hardships that people have faced in the past months. I’ll write more this summer about how the pandemic has affected research and teaching at Reed. But for now, I feel lucky to be safe and able to continue doing what I love.
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