Happy 2021!!!!!

As we turn our backs on 2020, a real jackass of a year, I wish you all good fortune. May your grant applications be funded, your papers be published and your exciting new science keep you jumping to see new data every week.

I’m not a big fan of huge sweeping goals and resolutions, personally. And right now, I am going to be satisfied with putting my research program back together.

As you will recall, I changed jobs in early 2019. We were juuuuusst getting the laboratory into something resembling operational shape in January 2020. And then Covid hit.

This has been very much not-fun for me. As you can imagine. The hardest thing of all is the loss of the data stream. As I may have mentioned before this is the bulk of the reason why I do this job. To see the data.

But I also picked up some new responsibilities in 2020, in part due to the job change and in part due to the death of George Floyd, murdered by Minneapolis police officers in May. Our various academic institutions had a bit of a moment. This caused an opening. A “strike while the iron is hot” moment. From my perspective anyway. So, despite a certain weariness with institutional efforts on diversity, I’m back in the fight. I say yes to way more things than I would have prior to May of 2020. I am accepting more obvious tokenism offers. I am bearing down.

I plan to continue that for a little bit more. Until the steam seems to have escaped and the ingot as cold as the earth.

I have been delighted to see many of you doing the same. Recognizing this moment and getting down to work with hammer and tongs. I know you can’t all sustain these efforts forever. Do it as long as you can. And then rest knowing you did your part.

Happy New Year.