Faith Rahic-Seggerman

SSE Lab Roster 2023 🧬

New Postdoctoral Scholar opportunity in my lab focused on woodchip bioreactors and water quality monitoring. Apply here: lnkd.in/gM8HH-uT

Four life lessons I learned while studying statistics: 1. False positives vs false negatives: Fewer false positives often come at the cost of more false negatives and vice versa. LIFE LESSON: The less stringent your criteria, the more crap you need to deal with, but the more stringent your criteria, the more genuinely good stuff you miss out on. Missed opportunities is the price of never wasting your time. Wasting your time is the price of never missing an opportunity. 2. Overfitting vs Underfitting: Less flexible models can't fit the data. More flexible models are prone to picking up patterns that don't generalize. LIFE LESSON: Over-thinking makes you more vulnerable to seeing patterns that aren't there. It turns you into a misinformation machine. 3. Bias vs Variance: More complex models give less consistent answers. Less complex models give more biased answers. LIFE LESSON: There is a natural trade-off between nuanced thought and consensus. People get mad when experts disagree especially when non-experts don't but that's actually what you would expect. 4. Curse of Dimensionality: Given a fixed amount of scenarios to learn from, there's a point beyond which considering additional factors stops helping. LIFE LESSON: If you haven't experienced much, keep things simple. Nuance without experience is actively harmful. SUMMARY: The common theme I see is these are cautionary tales for over-thinkers like me. There are hard mathematical limitations on what we can possibly know as rational beings. There is wisdom in knowing when to think but there's also wisdom in knowing when to stop.

Important new report from the American Academy of Microbiology on the role of microbes in methane emissions. Microbiology is a very important part of the climate equation. asm.org/Reports/Role-o…

@Mellata_Lab Incredible as always @MarissaRoghair !! Congratulations!! 🎊

Congratulations to our IM student for this great achievement !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PhD Candidate Marissa Roghair Stroud Recipient of USDA NIFA Presdoctoral Fellowship | Interdepartmental Microbiology Graduate Program micrograd.iastate.edu/news/2023/phd-…

A fourth-grade student wrote this and asked his teacher to send it to me so I could share it.

Three open faculty positions in microbiology at the University of Tennessee. Pls share! apply.interfolio.com/131119

UMaine is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Microbiology! Apply by Oct 13 for full consideration: umaine.hiretouch.com/job-details?jo…

I anticipate recruiting two PhD students for Fall ’24 (or earlier) in the following areas: 1. Cyanobacterial blooms and their strain diversity and interactions with heterotrophic bacteria 2. Broad metagenomic data to track biodiversity in the #GreatLakes.

New job advertisement for an Assistant Professor position in Host-Microbe Interactions @IowaStateU ! Come and join us! Follow the link below for more details about the position and how to apply: isu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/IowaStat…

Every day I am in awe of international students. Doing a PhD in your native language and home country is hard. Doing it in a non-native language, in a different country and different culture is so much harder. You are not stupid. You are legends.

Congratulations to Hanna Grace Seggerman B.A., B.F.A., M.F.A. Beyond proud of you! ♥️ #UTGrad2023

@gcmicrobe @teeniedeenie @ISUWaterChicks @Soil_Plant_IXNs CONGRATULATIONS GRACE!!! 🎊🎊🎊🎊

It's all takin' and no givin'

Opinion: Cutting funding for sensors that monitor pollutants means we won't know if conservation practices are working, writes Randy Evans. desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/…

Science is hard. Good research makes you feel stupid. You're inadequate for the task at hand. How else would it be? You're pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Get used to it. This process is immensely rewarding.

Don't forget about my cheatsheet on the most common functions of R (for ecology). 👇 i.e., 80% of everything you will ever do in R (on TWO pages) rforecology.com/post/the-essen… Enjoy! #rstats #datascience #cheatsheet #ecology #science #rforecology #tutorial #biology #reference

When the reviewers start suggesting changes to my paper

Most of my ideas in grad school...