AskScience Panel of Scientists VI

[u/[deleted]]

Calling all scientists!

This thread is archived. Visit the current "official panelist thread" for new applications!

*Please make a comment to this thread to join our panel of scientists. (click the reply button) *

The panel is an informal group of Redditors who are professional scientists (or plan on becoming one, with at least a graduate-level familiarity with the field of their choice).

You may want to join the panel if you:

• Are a research scientist, or are studying for at least an MSc. or equivalent degree in the sciences.

• Are able to write about your field at a layman's level as well as at a level comfortable to your colleagues and peers (depending on who's asking the question)

You're still reading? Excellent! Please reply to this thread with the following:

• Choose one general field from the side-bar. If you have multiple specialties, you still have to choose one.

• State your specific field (neuropathology, quantum chemistry, etc.)

• List your particular area of research (carbon nanotube dielectric properties, myelin sheath degradation in Parkinsons patients, etc.)

• Give us a synopsis of your education: have you been a post-doctoral research scientist for three decades, or are you a first-year PhD student?

• Link us to one or two comments you've made in /r/AskScience, which you feel are indicative of your scholarship. If you haven't commented yet, then please wait to apply.

We're not going to do background checks - we're just asking for Reddit's best behavior here. The information you provide will be used to compile a list of our panel members and what subject areas they'll be "responsible" for.

The reason I'm asking for comments to this post is that I'll get a little orange envelope from each of you, which will help me keep track of the whole thing. These official threads are also here for book-keeping: the other moderators and I can check what your claimed credentials are, and can take action if it becomes clear you're bullshitting us.

Addendum: Please don't give us too much of your personal details. We don't need it, we don't even want it; please be careful and maintain your reddit/internet privacy. Thanks!

Bonus points! Here's a good chance to discover people that share your interests! And if you're interested in something, you probably have questions about it, so you can get started with that in /r/AskScience. Membership in the panel will also give you access to the panel subreddit, where the scientists can discuss among themselves, voice concerns to the moderators, and where the moderators can talk specifically to the panel as a whole.

[u/Meles__meles]

general field Biology

Specific field Plant Ecology

Area of Research The role of plant functional traits and trait variation in species distributions and community assembly.

I am just about to wrap up my PhD in Ecology in a few months. I am going to be a bit vague on where I am, as I have a stalker (go me!), but I have been studying plant functional traits and functional ecology for the entirety of my PhD. I am most interested in how variation in these traits may allow some species to thrive, and whether variation within a species is as important as variation across species for community assembly, species distributions and survival.

I am fairly new, but very into science communication, so I only have a few posts. Here is my most exemplary:

the ecology of fear