Sabbatical Activity: Service, Publication, and Grant

I worked through much of the end of December to clear up a number of service commitments so that I would be clear of them for research work in 2014.  In the last two weeks of December, I wrote six letters of recommendation, reviewed two manuscripts, reviewed one grant proposal, declined to review two other grant proposals, and judged awards for an international conference.  A committee that I serve on also completed and submitted a report to the dean on how to increase grant activity in the College of Arts and Sciences.

While teaching at the fieldweek in Tasmania I received good and bad news on some professional activities.  We had a paper accepted to the American Journal of Botany. This work was examining the genetic diversity of beech clones in balds in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. I provided tree ages for the beech trees that were sampled and the genetic analysis showed that older beech patches were clonal while recent recruits came from both sexual and asexual reproduction.

Six hours after receiving this good news, I heard from the National Science Foundation that our grant "Influence of Industry on the Environment along the Wabash River" was not funded.