Hi everyone! Hi, welcome to this Curious Kids Live event on Rainforests. I'm Grace Allen, I run the Curious Kids articles and events for the conversation, and we publish lots of articles where we get world experts to write answers to the questions that children send us, but today we're doing things a bit differently and we've got experts here with us to answer your questions live. So, thank you very much for joining us to talk about Rainforests and an extra special thank you if you've sent us a question, we have some great questions that have come in, and if you think of a question while we're talking, you can type it in the chat box or ask your parent or teacher to type it in for you, and we'll do our best to answer it. So, I'm joined by two experts on Rainforests, Dr Liana Tua from Brunel University London and Dr Louise Gentel from Nottingham Trent University, and to just get going I'm going to ask them a bit about what is they know about Rainforests. So, Liana, you've traveled to Rainforests as part of your work, what was that like and what were you doing when you were in the Rainforest? Okay, hi everyone. So, I'm a social anthropologist which basically means that I try to understand how different people around the world think and feel and live and act as part of bigger groups like, you know, villages, communities, religious communities, or countries, and so most of my work has been done on the island of Borneo, it's the third largest island in the world, and it's also one of the two places in the world where you can still find orangutans, and I work with an indigenous group there called the Bideu, I've been working with them for nearly 20 years. So, as part of my research with these people who live in and around the rainforest of Borneo, I've been living with them, I've been learning their language, I've been planting rice with them, going to the river with them, basically traveling through the rainforest and trying to understand their lives, and more recently a couple of colleagues and I have been trying to understand how people in rural Borneo, a different part of rural Borneo, think about orangutans but also think about the people who are trying to save them conservationists. So, what's it like being in the rainforest in Borneo? It's very hot, it's very sticky, it's very very damp because there's a sort of downpour pretty much every day, it's quite dark because there's not much sunlight that gets through the canopy, and you don't necessarily see lots of creatures but you can hear them really really well, the jungle is a really noisy place but I think the thing that I enjoy most about doing research in the jungle with people is that I've learned to see the jungle, you know the rainforest, trees, plants, rivers, mountains and so on, as places that people really live in and use, so you know I might see a clump of trees and I think oh that's a clump of trees, but someone else might say no that's actually Peter's mother's farm or you know that's where the old village used to be, and so I think you know when you start to do this sort of research you very very quickly realise that the rainforest is not just about animals and plants, it's also very much about people and I guess that's what my research is about. Thanks Leana.  Hi everybody, I'm a zoologist and I work in conservation, the thing about the rainforest is just the sheer number of species that there are there, so you've got invertebrates, you've got butterflies, you've got beetles, you've got loads of reptiles and amphibians, so things like snakes, frogs and toads, then you've got amazing birds and then you've got the mammals as well, so there is absolutely everything in the rainforest, it's the ideal conditions for these animals, so about 50% of the world species that we know of live in the rainforest because it's the perfect place for them, and the animals that live there are amazing because as Leana said it is so dark there, you've got animals that are actually really brightly coloured so that they can show off to each other perfectly, you've got loads and loads of noises happening as well, so it's a really exciting place to be. That's great, right, so let's get going, the whole point of curious kids is that we answer kids questions, so we've got a question that's probably a really good place to start, this one's from Emma, she's six, she sent this question in along with some questions from her big sister too, and Emma's question is, what is a rainforest? A rainforest, well there's a little bit of a clue in the name, right, so a rainforest is basically a very dense forest, so a forest where lots of trees and plants grow very very closely together that grows in very wet parts of the world, so places that get lots of rainfall, hence rainforest, and actually the interesting thing is that you can find rainforests all over the world, you can find them, apparently I've just discovered on every single continent in the world, apart from Antarctica, so you can find them in places like the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, China, and even the UK, and sort of bonus points to anyone out there who can tell us where we have rainforest in this country, and so there are different kinds of rainforest, you can find rainforests in mountains, these are sometimes called cloud forests, you can find temperate rainforests which you find in countries where there are different seasons, but I think the most important and the largest rainforest that you tend to find in the world are what we call tropical rainforests, and these are rainforests that you find in areas all around the equator, so that sort of imaginary line that goes around the middle of the planet, in very very warm regions like Southeast Asia, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific, and so tropical rainforests are quite interesting because they're rainforests that are both wet and hot all year round, which means that trees and plants can grow really really well in them, trees and plants really like these sorts of conditions, and by this I don't just mean a few species of trees and plants, I mean hundreds of species of trees and plants, as well as hundreds of animals and insects and other life forms that exist within them, so in that sense you know tropical rainforests, but rainforests in general are really special because they're incredibly biodiverse, which means they've got lots of different species of life forms living together in the same space, and so I guess in that sense we could also think about rainforests as beings of treasure troves of life. Thanks Leanne. So we've had quite a few questions, quite a lot of you want to know about animals that live in the rainforest, and we've got one from Madeleine, she's nine, and thank you very much Madeleine for sending the question. She says, why do animals in the rainforest have fur if it's so hot? Maybe this one is one for you Louise. Okay that's a really good question, so if it's so hot why aren't these animals stripped off to something like, well if it was us it would be a swimming costume because that's going to make us cool down, but actually what the fur does is it offers the animals some protection. So it protects the animals from the heat, so if you have got some fur it stops the heat going on to your actual body. If you've got some fur it's going to protect you from the sun, so it protects you from being sunburnt. It's also going to protect you from the rain as well, so it rains quite a lot, and lots of animals with fur once it has finished raining they can just shake and the rain just comes off them, so it doesn't really go through the fur. There are also other ways or other reasons that they've got fur, so they can use fur as protection, so almost like you wearing clothes it's going to stop you scraping yourself and getting lots of cuts and bruises. It's also going to protect you against other animals, so things that might want to bite you, lots of insects, lots of parasites, things like that, and the other reason that animals are going to have fur is possibly so that they can have some either bright coloration or more usually camouflage. So if you think of something like a jaguar it's got beautiful fur but it's all really camouflage, so it blends in with its environment and then it compounds on its prey. That's really interesting, thank you. And here's another animal question from Alfie who's five and from Newcastle. Thanks very much Alfie and he wants to know about boa constrictors and what they like to eat. So what is a boa constrictor and what does it like to eat? Hi Alfie, thanks for the question. So a boa constrictor is a really long snake, so they get to around three meters long. They're not quite as long as the green anacondas I think they can get to about four meters long, but a boa constrictor is a snake that will bite and it will grab hold of its prey with its teeth and then its body will wrap around the animal and it's got really strong muscles so it will gradually squeeze until it suffocates the animal. So it eats loads of things, basically whatever it can get its hands on it will eat monkeys, it will eat birds, it will eat frogs. It rarely would eat a human. So it's really nothing to worry about at all, but it can eat some quite large animals and it needs to open its mouth really, really wide to be able to swallow them whole. There is a fun fact about boa constrictors. So a boa constrictor is the only vertebrate animal that is known by its scientific name. So most animals have a common name as well as a scientific name. So something like a house mouse, its scientific name is musculos, but we know it as the house mouse. The boa constrictor doesn't have a common name, so the only one known by its scientific name. That's really interesting. And another question on animals in the rainforest from Taylor who would like to know, have there been any recently discovered animals in the rainforest? Okay, so Taylor, there are so many animals in the rainforest and there's actually so little that we already know about it that animals are being discovered all the time.  And I found out earlier today actually that there is a new pit viper that's been discovered in the rainforest and this one's been named after one of the Harry Potter characters. So if you can remember the name of the Slytherin, so Salazar Slytherin, so the new pit viper is called Salazar's pit viper and that was only found last year. Wow. So here's an interesting question and it comes from Libgate Junior School. Hi Libgate Junior School, if you're watching. They would like to know if either of you have ever seen a rainforest animal in its natural habitat. So Liana, what about you? Have you seen what animals have you been in their natural habitat? I think I've probably heard more animals that I've seen in the natural habitat because as I say, the rainforest is dark and it's noisy. But yeah, I have seen several animals in the natural habitat and I guess the most memorable occasion was probably about 10 years ago when my husband and I were walking through this jungle, this trail in the rainforest of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo and this was a trail that was very overgrown. It hadn't been used by very many people and we've been walking for quite a long time.  And these guys hadn't eaten for quite a long time and so we had about 20 leeches on our feet at the time and we're getting a grouchy, not really looking very hard of where we were going. And so we were stomping through this very overgrown patch when my husband took this really big step forward and suddenly there was this incredible noise in the grass and right in front of him, literally about two feet away from him, this enormous snake kind of leapt up vertically like that and then flipped over backwards and slid it off into the stream right next to it. And we obviously gave each other a bit of a fright, but this snake was absolutely huge. It was about the width of two grown arms and it must have been more than six foot long, but it was just extremely well camouflaged and it was probably lying in wait for a tasty prey and unfortunately we just, we ruined it. So yeah, that was an interesting encounter. Wow, were you scared? I think we were too shocked to be scared. What about you, Louise? I think my most memorable one, I was with one of my friends and we were actually going for a bit of a jog, so we were running along and we do tend to look out for the animals or at least, you know, search for them quite a lot. So this was a time when we weren't really searching, so we were just running and then my friend just suddenly stopped, kind of stopped at the same time. Look, what's that up there? And we realized there was a black and white collar bus monkey, so this was in the forest in Africa and we saw one and then we suddenly realized that actually there was a whole troop of them, so maybe about 30, they were all ranging, so there were some adults, there were some little ones and then all of a sudden we could hear this noise and it was like a trickling of water and I thought, oh, I didn't realize we were near some sort of river or anything and then actually I looked up and there was one of the monkeys really quite close just on top of us and it was going to the toilet, so it was weeing right in front of us and we had to move out of the way, but it was a really great experience and definitely a memorable one. Wow, okay. All right, moving on from the animal we, this is from Zach and nine-year-old Zach would like to know, what is the deadliest animal in the rainforest? Hi, Zach, good question. There are lots of deadly animals in the rainforest and I think it depends what you mean by deadly, so there are deadly animals like the jaguar who's going to pounce on its prey, tigers in some rainforest like the ones I got on my t-shirt here, there are plenty of deadly snakes, so there are vipers, there are rattlesnakes, there are deadly amphibians as well, but I think if you're looking at the ones that are deadliest to humans or kill the most humans, there is the poison dart frog, so I think the deadliest one of those is the golden poison dart frog and this is what a lot of the indigenous people use on their weapons, so things like arrows so that they can kill things, the poison dart frogs actually eat venomous things or the things which are toxic and then it makes their skin toxic, so if you were to, maybe I don't think you would do, but if you're going to lick a frog then certainly there is enough venom on that skin, it's been reported to kill 10 adult humans, so just from one poison dart frog, so that is pretty deadly, but the thing that I think kills the most people in the forest is the mosquitoes because of the different diseases that it carries, so things like malaria, but in terms of deadly I think you've got things like the poison dart frog, pretty cool, they're also really brightly coloured as well, so it's warning coloration to warn you that they are deadly, so things like bees and wasps have got the striped yellow and black warning coloration, the poison dart frogs, you've got ones that are bright blue, maybe red, green and quite often with blacks on them as well, so that is a warning to other animals, stay away, I'm deadly. And Leana what do you think what's the most deadly animal in the rainforest? Yeah, I think we also need to think a little bit about what we define as animals and I'm going to be a real sort of social anthropologist here and say that humans are animals too, and in some ways we could also think about humans as being extremely powerful animals that are able to shape the rainforest in many many different ways, but it's also quite important to kind of figure out which humans were talking about here, right, so if we're talking about humans who've lived in the rainforest for a very long time, yeah, they kill animals, they hunt animals, they eat animals, they use trees and other resources from the forest to live, and they've been doing that for many many years, this is just part of life in the rainforest, and generally speaking those humans are pretty good at not being too deadly even though they're pretty good at actually, you know, kind of using what they need from the rainforest to survive. I think where things get a little bit trickier is where you've got other humans who come in and change the rainforest in very big and very quick ways, you know, when for example you've got very large areas of rainforest that are very quickly cleared and sort of raised, burnt for huge plantations, for mining, for new dams or new roads, these are pretty massive projects and very often they are important to the country in various ways, but if they're not done carefully they can cause a lot of damage not only to the forests themselves but also to the people who live in them, and so I guess that is one way we could also think about, you know, the influence of one particular animal on the fate of the rainforest and humans can be pretty deadly. Yeah, so when the trees that chop down this is what we mean when we talk about deforestation, right, and I know that if you're learning about rainforest at school you might be covering deforestation, and we've got a question on deforestation from Adam and he wants to know, is deforestation always a bad thing? So Leanne, is it always a bad thing when trees in the rainforest are cut down? Thank you, Adam. That's a really, really good and really important question. Yeah, so deforestation is basically any sort of activity that involves getting rid of trees from forests by cutting them down, by clearing them, you know, by burning them so that the land can then be used for other things like farming or plantations or, you know, building new villages and stuff. And I've probably given you a little bit of a hint in my previous answer, but I would say that deforestation is not necessarily a bad thing. We have to remember that rainforests have always been used by humans for many, many centuries.  They've always burned in cleared areas of land for their farming to grow their crops. This is all pretty normal. And generally speaking, you know, most communities that live in the rainforest have a pretty good idea of how to manage their land and to use it sustainably, right? So how to use the forest so that it's still able to grow back and recover rather than being completely destroyed. So for example, the people I work with in Borneo are rice planters.  And they might cultivate, they might grow rice on that piece of land for one or two years. And then the next year, they'll sort of move on to another piece of land and clear that and leave the previous piece of land to kind of grow back and recover. And what you tend to find is that because they've got quite a lot of land in this area, every piece of land gets about seven to 10 years to recover. And so that means that they're able to sort of farm sustainably without actually damaging the environment too much. I think it tends to get a little bit trickier when we start looking at deforestation on a really large scale. You know, when as I said, you start clearing these huge tracts of rainforest to create plantations or mines or build dams or roads. And I think it's important to say that these projects are not necessarily bad. You know, in the sense that I think it is reasonable for countries to want to use their forest resources to give their citizens a better life. You know, these are very often important sources of income for people who live in rainforests. And people who live in rainforests also want to have roads and electricity and pipe water and access to clinics and schools and stuff. So we can't really say that they can't have that just to sort of save the rainforest. And I suppose the real challenge here is how to make sure that you're able to use that rainforest carefully and also to ensure that the people who live in it, you know, are sort of being healthy and that they're doing all right without causing the complete destruction of that rainforest. And that's a really, really difficult balance to strike. And many governments and you know, many, many places are struggling with that question right now. Yeah, because we know that deforestation can threaten animal species. And this is something that we've had quite a few questions about. We've had a question from Daisy and also from Caitlin, who's six. And both of them wanted to know what the most endangered species in the rainforest is. Good question there. I think possibly the easiest answer is just to give you a few ideas of species. Although I guess the real answer here is that we simply don't know. There is so much rainforest and so little work has been done on it actually that we don't know how many species there are. People are discovering new species every year. But as we're discovering new species, there are also species that go extinct. So there may be some species that have already gone extinct that we just simply don't know about. But from the ones that we do know about, there are some which are really very endangered. So there's a place called the IUCN and they do basically they give what am I trying to say here? They give ratings to various animals. So there are some area animals which are called critically endangered and some which are just endangered. So the ones that are critically endangered are the ones that have got very few organisms left in the population and the ones where their populations have declined very rapidly over recent years. So these are the ones that are most at threat of going extinct in the wild. A couple that you might have heard of there's the golden lion tamarin. So that's a really beautiful sort of orangey looking monkey and it's got it's called golden lion. So it's golden fur and it's kind of all around its head like a mane like a lion. So those there are a few of those in the wild but there are quite a few in captivity. So people are doing lots of conservation efforts to try and reintroduce them to the wild. We've also got things there is an Amazon giant glass frog. So this is a frog that is almost see-through. So that's why it's called a glass frog. This is a giant one. The giant ones are about three inches long. So that really is a giant in terms of these teeny tiny glass frogs but there really aren't very many left of those and there are also quite a few parrot species. So I think it is the Imperial Amazon parrot. I think they're restricted to one of the islands in the Caribbean and I think there are only 50 of those left in the wild. So a particular species like that it's ones like those that we need to concentrate the biggest efforts on so that we can get the population numbers back up so they're more sustainable and so that they will survive in the wild. Right yeah thank you very much. I had never heard of glass frogs so I'm going to look them up straight after this. So we've got another question about threats to the rainforest. This one's from Carter. It's a pretty serious question. We hear a lot about the threats to the rainforest and Carter wants to know is it too late to save the rainforest? Have we has too much damage been done? Are we too late to save it? Yeah that's that's a really tricky but also really important question. Thank you Carter. No I don't think it is too late to save it but I think we also maybe need to think about what we mean by save. So you know if if by save we mean you know just kind of keep the rainforest as it is never let it be touched again never never let another tree be lost then no I mean I don't think that's really possible. You know as I said earlier people are always going to keep using rainforests and so it's not really our job to tell people especially in other countries that they can't use the rainforest that they've been surviving in for for many many years. So I think maybe rather than thinking in terms of saving rainforests from humans maybe a different way of thinking about it would be how rainforests and humans can be helped to coexist to kind of live together better so that both can stay healthy and thrive and I guess that means you know not just protecting certain parts of the rainforest and keeping it keeping them you know kind of shut away from humans no matter what but also kind of finding new techniques new ways to use the rainforest better but that won't completely destroy it. So I think you know the sort of well-being of rainforests and the well-being of people have to go hand in hand in that sense. Thanks Linane. And Benjamin has got a good question it's also about saving the rainforest and he would like to know are there any organisations whose purpose is to save the rainforest? He says save the Amazon rainforest but I wonder maybe there's some that save other rainforests too. Yeah that's a good question. There are quite a few different kinds of organisations that are working to save the Amazon rainforest but also rainforest in general. So there are quite a lot of large international organisations like Rainforest Alliance, the Forest Peoples Programme for example that aim to save rainforests pretty much everywhere and that have specific programmes in the Amazon rainforest so that's one kind of organisation. There's also quite a big organisation called Survival International that works to really protect the rights and the land of Indigenous people around the world so Indigenous people are people who have basically lived in that particular area on that land in those rainforests for many many years well before any other groups came into the area and so they have a very special kind of right to the land and so you know organisations like Survival work on the basis that if they help Indigenous people protect their lands and manage their lands they will also help to save the rainforest in that way. Now the question about Amazon rainforest is interesting I had to actually ask my colleague Dr Evan Killick about this because he actually works on Amazon rainforest so thank you Evan wherever you are. So he tells me that as in other parts of the world there's also some really really important work being done to save the rainforests on the ground in these countries which are really worth supporting so the examples he's given me from the Amazon are the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazonian Basin so these are sort of based in South America itself and he also tells me that there exists a number of actual Indigenous community run projects that try to save the environment while also fighting for Indigenous people's rights and these include the Kofan in Ecuador and the Achaninka in Brazil so you know in case you are interested I'm sure we could get hold of more links but you know do give it a quick Google because these are organisations that are worth supporting. Sure and actually that ties in really nicely with another question that we've gotten which is from Hisham and Hisham says what can we learn about protecting the rainforest from the people that live there? Great question Hisham. We can learn many many things about protecting the rainforest from the people who live there. I'll just try and pick up on two things which are connected I think the first thing is that this may sound a bit strange but very often people who live in the rainforest don't see that rainforest as this kind of special untouchable super sacred thing that they can't do anything with. It is basically very much woven into their everyday life so you will find people using wood from the forest to build their houses. You will find people cutting down trees to plant their crops and to touch on another question which I got earlier as well you do find people using animals from the jungle like elephants or dogs as part of their work. Elephants for example have been used for many many years in South Asia as beasts of burden so beasts that transport people or carry things carry very heavy stuff through the jungle. I think what we need to understand looking at how people who actually live in the rainforest relate to the rainforest is that the rainforest is very much part of everyday life. It's not necessarily a kind of fragile it is fragile but it's not necessarily something that we need to try and keep apart from humans. I think what's really important is that we understand how humans in rainforests live together and in that sense I guess the second thing that we can learn from these people who live in the rainforest is actually how to sort of view the rainforest not so much as just something that we can just use as humans and then forget about. We need to learn how to look at the rainforest as a sort of source of life as something that we need to live with and that we need to learn how to respect and that we need to take care of because it is something that all our lives depend on you know obviously if you live in the rainforest your life depends a lot more you know much more immediately on that rainforest being healthy and strong and everything but actually all of us do rely on the rainforest in some way and maybe sort of thinking more about how you can respect for how you can respect and care for it would be a good start. Thanks Liana and we've got a question that's just come in I think maybe this is maybe this one for Louise who could talk maybe about the animals that live there. So we've been asked what is a canopy so what in the rainforest is a canopy? Okay so there are various different layers of the canopy you've got the ground floor and the canopy is towards the top so this is the third one so this is where all most of the trees are so most of the leaves so you've got lots of birds living there you've got lots of monkeys living there you've got quite a few insects up there sometimes the butterflies will go up there as well so this is an area that is quite dense in terms of the leaves it can be very hot as well and it also gets quite a bit of light compared to the other areas like the the forest floor there is only one area above the canopy and that's the emergent layer where some of the really tall trees are poking out of the top and you will get some birds with big nests on the top of there sort of overlooking the whole of the rainforest. Okay so there's different layers in the rainforest and the canopy is one of those layers? Yes yes the third layer yeah. Okay and here's another question um what is the smallest animal in the rainforest?  Some of those really small ones the frogs are extremely small the mouse lemur that's just been found again that's really not going to be very big at all and quite a few chameleons now are maybe just the size of your thumb the top bit of your thumb it would be able to sit there so there are some amazing animals that are extremely small but obviously we don't know that much about them because they are so small and we have to use special instruments to actually go out and find them. Thank you very much Louise. All right everyone we've come to the end of our time for answering everyone's questions thank you so much for tuning in and especially if you've sent a question and thank you very much to Liana and Louise for answering those questions and we're going to make and we're going to put some links up so if you'd like to watch again or you've got friends that would like to watch you'll be able to watch this program later and so we'll make sure that that gets to you and thank you very much everyone and we'll see you next time. Bye. Thank you. Bye.


ds You know be in charge of that and then come to the planning board with some chapters as they're done So if you could just read that what Rob Ralph Wilmer suggested I'll just be quiet for a minute You're suggesting that that's for the deeper dive Yeah, I think it's good to look at because I think we even if you're doing master plan light we might start Trading or we might get deeper than we hope but I just think it's worth looking at So so I'm I'm completely fine if we're gonna do a light not doing the steering committee If we're gonna do a more thorough update which could have benefits I think we should I would follow the Wilmer route and so that would be my suggestion so But I really I also really think the priority for me would be forming the master plan implementation committee and just you know Pulling us together. Otherwise. My fear is that we'll have this 20 year master plan that we really haven't Updated and we didn't really ever dig in and implement it in a more coherent way and as we implement it, you know You'll start seeing what has to be changed and what's working what's not and having some us you know assessments and things like that so Janet you I'm in agreement with the importance of the master plan implementation committee on the on Maria's flow chart You see that that down toward the bottom it says formation of master plan implementation committee and When I saw that that was news from the chart that we saw yesterday that wasn't on the yesterday's chart My my and I think it's important that we have that at some point we do that and I'm wondering whether or not And this is really a wonder and not a statement if if we ought not to Start the M pick To start to start the acronym right away that as soon as the Proposals that end up in the proverbial basket for next time start arriving that The M pick whoever or whatever that has to be turns out to be Can begin working on those things? and That it be a kind of rolling process and that there's no particular um Date by which a document has to be done because there already is a very Important and useful document which exists on the on the website on it's an appendix to the master plan And it's the implementation. It's appendix a implementation matrix I don't know if any of you have seen it, but it's it's a list of all the specific recommendations in the master plan with all columns of Responsible entities and another column that says time frame and I've been working through this trying to decide who the responsible entity for one particular event or a sorry each particular goal and Those are sometimes pretty easy to figure out sometimes You wonder and sometimes there are five or six different entities that are involved in a particular idea Then the time frame of course is another matter entirely Is this something that can be done in six months or is this a ten-year time frame and they're they're all there, but Going through that implementation matrix is a really interesting trip through the through the master plan itself and it can give the M pick a Really good place to start and organize and a way to organize its work by going through that and saying okay Who's responsible for this idea? The planning board is okay Well, how do we do it? How does the planning board do it or? Town council is responsible How do we get to town council and remind them that this is their responsibility? That seems to me the goal of the of the master plan implementation committee to figure out How to implement this and figure out more importantly who is responsible for implementing it? and to sort of prod those people Proud the department in town or the board in town or whoever is in town that needs to be working on that maybe some Non-town entities like the bid are involved in this. I think some of the bid is involved in this in some cases I think we need to prod them So I Suggest that maybe we ought to start the M pick sooner rather than later and I also suggest that the planning board Take the bull by the horns and appoint it I understand that the previous one was appointed by the select board when we had a select board And that that for various reasons never quite got off the ground And that may be miscount mischaracterization of what happened, but I wasn't involved with anything town government at that time So I didn't have any idea about it but Christine you correct me if I'm over if I'm mistating that the way that began but in any event Is that right so? The select board was asked to create the M pick and they did actually create it But I think there was a lag in the time frame in which they did that and then by the time they finally Did create it? Planning board members were kind of tired of talking about the master plan So no one volunteered to be on the impact and so it sort of faded away into memory Well Maybe that's even more reason to start it now because if we wait till after we're finished with this with the review The light review we may all be tired of it then too But all over again Cress so I just wanted to note that If we were to dive into the matrix right now There may be things there that have already been done or things that we feel like we don't really want to do anymore So I think part of the update is to decide are those things still viable and do we still want to do them? And so to have a group that's kind of launching into Making you know taking action steps to make those things happen when we don't actually know If we want to do it or not Maybe premature so I'm just saying that putting the M pic at the end of the process Makes sense to me because then you actually have things that you know you want to do Maybe the M pic can be you could begin working on say section 4 After you have made your your go-through and say this has been done this hasn't been done this we need to work on And do the do the edit the light edit that you're talking about Having and then as part of that you'll probably mark two or three things for future consideration At least as I understand what your process is going to be and at that point it comes to the planning board and we sign off on The changes that you've made and accept the fact that there are things that we're going to be working on later on But at that point the M pic can start working on those things that are later on Which wouldn't get in the way I think of what you're talking about is your basic work Does that make sense? It does I'm I'm thinking about how all this is going to be managed And if we have a master plan update process going on and also an M pic process and we're also going to have zoning by law Rewrite, and then we also have these other things that we're working on. Are we taking on more than we can handle? Maria I think that Michael what you're saying about the M pic makes perfect sense But it is going to be a moving target for a while and we want a lot of public input and the great thing about this website is We can actually tally it and see what items keep coming up the most and that might help drive the priorities for this Group as far as what to tackle first or what to put more Interests, I'm sorry consultants or money or time or staff So I think this process this update is actually going to be very revealing for the impacts sort of next steps I think for me it too early like Chris said it's a little little too early just as far as being effective, you know with their time and I Guess I didn't know that can impact people who are not on the planning board. Is that right? Yeah, it can be yeah. Okay. Well, there's there's no statutory Concerned it's not mentioned anywhere in the statute Because I think we will be exhausted and it'd be great to get fresh eyes. Yes, but I think we should own it I think we should it should be it should be a committee of the planning board. I Don't know Chris. You need to check on that on our power of subcommittees it was my understanding that we can only have our own members on the subcommittee and If you have other people then it has to like Be treated like all the other committees and you have to have the whole like of the form and the Be appointed by the town manager and charges and terms Yeah, so it is a more complicated issue and so I'm just going to say Yeah, but there's a bigger thing that trumps that the actual forming of a committee it's part of open meeting law which Chris you can check on that with the town manager and stuff, but it's because I've been on other committees We have the same thing has come up And I remember in the formation of the tack the whole thing we were supposed to have a parking subcommittee and It got killed because of this whatever Chris is going to go find out There were reasons and complications, but I'm just speaking as the chair I do worry about having too many pots on the stove at the same time You know the M pic, you know, I'm hoping I have enough energy at the end of this that I want to be involved in that But I start to worry Doing that right now along with updating like I said I want that to be done well and be a win and we have zoning subcommittee that's will have its work, too And then to have third it just starts I feel it's a little cart before the horse because back to the public participation how I'm looking at this Chris had talked about a forum. We're talking about websites We're talking about collecting all the comments as we move through the process and then great You have all these comments and then you have to Sort them and prioritize them and hopefully there'll be areas that are shown that need to be addressed I Just think it's too much At least can we table this and get this process rolling and then see how we feel in a couple months Like I said, it was just a suggestion and yeah, I'm not I'm not making a motion to that effect I just want to underline the importance of the M pic that it's something that we really have to get I agree, and I think it's very important that it be a creature of the planning board somehow I don't know whether it means we just we are it's us plus everything Or whether we can or whether we can appoint other people. I don't know how that can work It'll be ideal to have you look into what our options are in the power of a subcommittee and what limitations there are with that And then if there was actually and just check what again was the original idea of because there was some rate You know the select board Created the charge and created the committee. So do you have that? That would be really helpful. Thank you. And so that will continue that Janet. You have something to add. I also Reiterate that we shouldn't spend 11 years Waiting to implement them the moped and so if we wait another year, and I hope this process is much faster If it's going to be a lighter process I would wonder Michael if you Could I mean my endless search for information Maybe talk to Ralph Wilmer or somebody about like what do other towns do with implementing committees? Like, you know, I think it'd be great if it was just a planning board committee And we had a board of advisors that we went when we're talking about transportation We just you know call somebody up and bring them in for a talk I dread the idea of getting hooked into the town manager or the town council Selection process and so I think you know we have a zoning subcommittee that does that Maybe we can do a moped that does that with some advisors and make it sort of easy and not crazy But can we get more information about what that would be and involve and bring bring it back to discussion? Okay, great David, I think that this material is great, and I'm looking forward to starting it I'm curious in about a month's time according to what's the first step Is this best trip step is on me. I'm supposed to take one chapter and go through it and try to Update it as much as I can. I have made a start on I think the first Three three chapters I've got a list of things that I would Put into them and some things that I would take out and things that I would emphasize What I'm envisioning is that there would be some sort of introductory paragraph that sort of describes in general How things have changed with regard to the particular topic and then I would go through each I think they're called strategies each strategy and look at it and see if it is something that we've already Accomplished because many of them are Something that we've partially accomplished and we could comment on that or something that we haven't done anything about at all and evaluate whether we really want to Keep this on our list of things that we want to do and then perhaps at the end have some kind of concluding paragraph or pages about Where do we go from here? So that's kind of what I'm envisioning Is there a way when you should bring that back to us like half the page is the original language and the Other half of the page is the changes. We can do both ways You can do markup and then you can the markup stuff is kind of okay, but page after page after it kind of Does something to my mind? It's a word thing you can do both Well, thanks. Thanks Chris and I hope that you'll reach out to whoever you need to hear For whatever assistance that you to facilitate it and not swamp you Yes, so one of the things I went to this to the CRC meeting on the chart one of the how we work Is maybe the easy part because we can talk amongst ourselves, but On the on the chart when it goes to the CRC in The memo from the CRC it was 45 days or more if the town council grants it and so I wonder if people could focus on the rest of the piece because You know my fear is that it'll be 45 days and then it'll be extended and then it goes to the town council and People will start digesting a hundred page plan and I just with Mandy Joe today. She said 45 45 is good. Okay, so I just want to You know I have kind of concerns for that, but at some point we just can't control everything and people so If it's okay I'm gonna move on to item 7 planning and zoning zoning subcommittee report which do you have more? Okay, we'll count that is done Item 6 all business a we have a decision signing fun fun Unfortunately, I didn't finish the decision. I was hoping to have mr. Gurfine's hoping to have mr. Gurfine's decision ready for tonight, but I don't have it ready, so I'm Hoping it will be ready for the February 19th great more Riverside organics the Cannabis growing that's right. Yep, there are two there's so many parts to it and I want to get it right and yep Get it right. It's all right. We're not sad. All right item 7 new business. We already covered that unless there's something else that has not been Okay, why did I know that yep? You mass is going to launch into a project to Dredge their pond So I have a report about that I only have one copy, but if anybody wants to borrow it and read it or come into my office and read it Welcome to do that. It's it's a big deal. They have like three feet of silt at the bottom of the pond that they need to Excavate and they're they've lost their stormwater Detention capacity is a result of that and you know the water quality is affected and everything so anyway If you want to read it, I've got it and I'm willing to lend it out Good times. We'll all be lining up. Are we gonna are we gonna be discussing it here? No, they're required to send this to us, but we're not required to discuss it Item 8 form a and R We do have a form a we have one for West Street, it's at the intersection of West Street and Shays Street. So West Street is 116 going south It's just as Shays Street peels off to the east There's a house owned by a former Reverend she used to be the reverend of the first congregational church Donna Scopper is her name and She and her husband own this property and it's a really big property and there's a house on it They don't live there anymore and they would like to Peel off of a property to sell for someone to do something with so Well, we'll show you the location. We have a location map and then one of us will bring this around and show you what they're planning to do I will pass around the location map and you'll see where this property is located. It's really between the What river is that? It's probably the Fort River Fort River down there. Yep. So it's between the Fort River and Route 116. Oh, yeah, it's huge This is north North is this way No, north is that way. Yeah north is this way So you're heading North Shay comes in And it it's this there's I sort of remember the metal guard rail so next time you go It is it goes steep way down. So this is the part they want to take off and sell Right yep, and I like this the inhabitants of the Sounds kind of big back there No, this this piece right here they want to carve off and this is the neighbor I Know I think like I was saying this is a drop off here. There's a guard rail Yeah, look at 300 Square 160 It's probably a topography issue But can they get to building circles I know Chris would know They may is their wetlands of the trees My guess is that they're going to sell both the lots that lot with the house on it and the other lot and then Whoever buys the other lot will determine what can be done with that lot and I think it is possible to subdivide it to make Front more frontage lots possibly some flag lots, but that's not something that they want to get involved in at this time Yes Because it drops down and then there's this look straightforward to me everybody I Be nice play nice in the sandbox, please Okay, so now is that it for an ours? Okay, we'll go to item 9 upcoming ZBA applications Pam do you know of any upcoming ZBA applications? 10 upcoming SPP SPR So the one I know about is this one that is on Bay Road. It's a Property that is owned by Jeff Brown and his son Jack and it's up the hill getting towards the mountains They own properties that kind of climb up the hill and they want to create one lot way in the back and In order to do that they have to extend an existing common driveway So the zoning by-law talks about what you're allowed to do with the length of a common driveway and a And the steepness of a common driveway and if you want to deviate from that then you have to come and get a special permit from the Planning Board, so you'll be seeing this on March 4th, and we'll probably want to take a site visit unless it's Very snowy or something like that. So I'll be in touch with you about that Is that property come to us before? That property has come to you as an a and r and it's gone to the To the ZBA. I think the ZBA has granted a special permit for Flaglots to be created there to be built on but in order for them to actually be built on you have to Give the special permit for the driveway modifications Thank you Any others? There are always things out there in the wings, but nothing that's been submitted great We'll move on to a planning board committee liaison reports Jack's not here. So I'll skip that one Michael did any of yours meet? Yeah committee preservation committee is in them in the End stages of its deliberations about the proposals for this year. We are we have a meeting tomorrow Which probably will finish up the of the process and I was just gonna ask you at the same time design review board. Did they mean design review bear is not bad Did the Ag Commission meet David? Yes, and it was an amazing meeting It was great, and there were two two things that Where I thought Relevant for the planning board in my mind one is there there was a presentation about pollinators Butterflies and birds Encouraging among others and that solar farms and are actually are often inviting site for pollinators especially since there's a lot of space within the solar farms that are kind of just allowed to Grow and and that it's it occurred to me during the meeting that a possible condition on future solar farms Is to encourage pollinated develop and then then there are standards and societies and cool And the second thing that seemed relevant There was a presentation about trying about the ebb and flow of community gardens in Amherst and Now we're in an ebb period and there are fewer than there had been previously, but one of the things that was suggested was When considering the development of new residential space that the green areas Potentially could be resident garden plots if there are and That that's something that we might want to encourage in future applications Excellent, thank you And zoning subcommittee were done. So we'll move to item 12 report of the chair. I just want to say Welcome Doug Marshall Thank you for joining us Sorry, this first one was kind of long, but we're really glad you're here and Reach out to any of us if you have any questions or concerns or want to like find something that we may or may not know Probably up to three of us Report of staff I might have no report Yeah, yeah, no, okay, so do I hear a motion for adjournment? Second someone awake Okay, I'll in favor great done. Thank you Amherst media. Thank you very much 1016


Going on everyone Sam here with late sports cards rip in 23 top scrim baseball logo for actor edition 10 box break number 2 Random team style. There's a look again at your ran results as always you can find those on the website under the results tab as well as a link in chat So good luck here. Yeah, I know it's a It's true Shai if they do a It's you know have the best organization on the redemptions. No. No, I have to run down there with you soon for that Paolo Yeah, there you go. I don't think so you haven't gotten that yet, right? I'll go down to Arlington Wherever they are outside Dallas Rookie, I'll go to Arlington get the card go to freakin the Kia Center and get Paolo to sign it fast Yeah, there you go fly there now. I got I can get this Rather green again coming soon as well. We'll be doing more content on our YouTube channel and Won't be uploading breaks Individually anymore will be up to all the live streams will be uploaded individual breaks will not be uploaded But in the description it will have where each break is in case you do miss it many pass can see them Burns nice green show a to 99. Let's go another buyback there and The national bro type going it's like going I'm gonna have to go. Hell. Yeah. That is say, uh Stephen Kwan gunner to 50 Here we go Orioles congrats Baltimore A future stars of Alvarez and Michael can for though. So pretty solid Box right there That's true. You don't go to Cleveland, but they do they are more responsive when you can look them in the face Yeah Say where I very big card the week of the national.  Yeah, right Let's go shine go shite. I don't know if we're gonna be there, but hopefully hopefully I know yeah, hopefully Libertor Yeah, QC on it's pretty good. Actually, you're not wrong about that shite. Yeah, so it is actually very good Anyone catch Zach Eadie? I know he was getting another I'd imagine would award. Let's go.  Let's go Eadie morale purple Otani to 250 Blue is say a Suzuki to 150 and Brett Beatty I know that's one of the most craziest interviews of all time. He's like, hey, what's so like cool about Cleveland? I've never heard somebody go like, oh man. I'm going to Cleveland on vacation. That's insane, dude Sanga you just start going up shade throwing an absolute just rays at the city of Cleveland There's Gavin Moreno real moot. So and Fernando Tatis, Jr. Is a masataki or sheet of glue together There we go. We need some QC on our top loader. We need the logo for actor Lucy on this man. It's fun while I'm watching from not live Got you. Got you. Nick Prado rookie. Whoa Shers are went down rock and roll hall of fame I'd be about purple or not. Oh to 250 pink to 190. I'm Brian Bale All the Chuck rookie. There you go shite. Well, the Chuck rookie is Langlears Eggy Rosario Gunner Henderson Cal Mitchell in Paul Colchman on to the next one Yeah, man. Rick H with a leaf spot. Hano B with two leaf spots We got John H with the Marlins in NT in Kori T with a One mixer spot so spots for all remaining group breaks just had just came in So thank you all not gonna last much longer. I can't imagine Appreciate it very much. Let's go. They can life extremely easy You know, you really do not understand how much easier life becomes when breaks sell out man It's on it's unparalleled But thank you all appreciate that guys so six to go I believe now on Um On NT which is our last baseball break of the night couple left on um, like 11 to go now on Leaf Art of Sport and then five to go on a Panini one mixer and that is five boxes of 22 one and Five boxes of 2020 Panini one. So good stuff Riley Greene Clicking a Stress is Charlie Sheen at the national And base Charlie Sheen with Riley Greene Well, here we go Salvi Adley rushman is that variation? Is it maybe a very yeah, that's the variation. How about a green Michael Harris auto atl. Michael atl. Michael It's a 99. This stuff's been on fire, man Let's go. Cory seager and not bad. Jeremy Pena. I do recommend getting into breaks of this I have to say because this is our third auto. We've seen in two breaks of this Max meyer to 199 Anthony Volpe and an Oscar Gonzalez uh nationals in Cleveland this year. It's in Cleveland this year And these are 40 box cases too. So we have seen now three autos in 15 boxes so like one per one. It's like we're seeing we're averaging one auto per five boxes Which is pretty good for this stuff. Hello sab Sab word on the street is your microwave is super powerful. Can you confirm? It's super power according to this guy It's it's the best microwave possibly in existence Confirm what you're trying to do confirm No, you made it sound like it's a superior microwave to everybody else. Everybody else's microwaves. I would not recommend putting ice cream in it for sure Runs hot it does run hot but I mean you made it sound like Every other like I said every other microwave is beneath yours Can you prove it's wrong? I guess I have a proof right here potentially Sab locked himself out of the house Powerful as my home's in the playoffs that is wow Santos runs hot Garrett Mitchell to 99 is say a Suzuki.  I got on the end base A couple minutes never hurt nobody Glad to junior Bryce Harper to 250 on the purple Kate Cavalli and Lou Bob Blue jumbo did say it cooked an alligator in 10 seconds. See there you go. Sab, we got blue jumbo as our As our correspondence here Let's go. I know in the next logo for active break. I'm getting someone other than the a's There's Josh young now the the a spot. It's reserved for you from now on and logo for active shape after tonight years and years only Gorman Box did look good against the lions I don't know how the lions lost that game man. I know I know man I like I literally fell asleep for a minute. It was tie game and I was like, oh boy I thought I missed like the entire game. I missed like five minutes of action. I was like, okay So, uh, I don't know what happened there. Riley green Nelson belasca, etc setiwap Mullins Five minutes real time. It was like 17 points. Myer Duran the 250 say a Suzuki again green to 99 Gavin Moreno And Riley green to see chen with the grids tomorrow. Mr. Schype Schype's there with some more logo for actor and mike c with two In the a penini one mixture. Thank you, brother. Appreciate that We're a team in history Maybe That it did seem that way jase.  It did seem that way I couldn't believe it man. I thought we turned a different game on right. Oh, I know Totally with the m's m's would be good. Yeah outman x's tech versus tcu. Let's go Powerhouses here. Do you have any nba on or no? We're all college today. I think they're shooting Something right you think it would be Game tonight. We'll be able hey, let's do a tie. Hell. Yeah, man. I'm in dude. I'm in Sewing on that that is uh von grissom. It's so far. I'm in tie. Yeah Barraza, let us know. Let us know the outcome of the hockey game tonight. Ty It's like Celtics are on tnt a classic Celtics Pacers. Oh hoppy corbin burns to 250 Going to the brewers yellow jordan grochans to 75 rookie for the marlins Turner and zander boogers zander boogers Lakers hawks At 330. All right, 730. Let's go No way that's televised around here though. I don't think so Yeah, no ad tonight. That's right. Yep, very true. We've been told uh I'm told hawks my six nine of six tonight common man Had the rushman although Still feel like should be taken advice from the guy called con man. That's really is could be could be grand three now We're asking for trouble could be taking the con man's work michael harris No, I don't believe sewage train. We should uh, we should get on that though. It's true. Bring that up I actually have it but Accident, all right. Yeah paper Paper full year you get one week free do they They get you They get you Classic not reading the fine print there. Yeah classic. No, I think I knew about it too and just Escaped me Bryce Harper when the week came the past watch to 250 and went Blue past watch again to 150 this time Aaron judge and cj Bobo machete as well peraza rookie raffy devbers and george springer.  I just want to put it on I just want to put it on so sab can't watch it put my phone kick them off Yeah, just so sab can't watch it. Let's go He's just kidding sab. Hi He wants you to see The hawks first the lakers. Yeah Couldn't keep that from them 17 spots left. Wow 10 or to sport five National treasure spots and two Do you need one mixer? One mixer. One board man So five to go on nt everybody those teams are on sale as well. We marked them down Outman menesis Most of spring training The old hall joeman s's freddy freeman to 199, uh, austin riley intrusion cosis. You have marino shohei To 250 steven kwan Alvarez rookie and Last logo for active box everybody. Good luck Here we go Shin chiro with a mixer spot tomorrow william f with the angels in nt. Thank you buddy Thank you. Thank you. Walker rookie There are dansby swanson john carlo stan as well vientos ohapi austinianos and oscar gonzalez lugu frac tour now Uh, freddy freeman zekel tuvar rookie yellow jacob de grom to 75 for the rangers got masatake yoshida and jv jessen berlander ryan bale rookie steven kwan to 150 nice one there for the guardians a von grissom future stars oniel cruz and louise castillo Quick recap here to 250, uh, otani Uh, saia sezuki, nullan aronato, rice harper, corbin burns, vindy patskentino, steven kwan to 150 brine bao freddy freeman max mire Uh, to 150 it's steven kwan patskentino, uh, and saia sezuki green to 99 gabby marino saia sezuki Shohei otani yellows to 75 jacob de grom jordan grochans gold gunner henderson to 50 michael harris Green rookie otto to 99 going to the braves. It'll do it for the breaker. Everybody. Thanks again for the fill up next is the bowman's best and uh, logo frac and mix


Okay, welcome. Welcome again, everybody. Nice to see you. My name is Ed Berger. I'm currently the interim head of School of Engineering Education. I'm really grateful to hear from the other speakers today, but I'm actually really thrilled to be able to introduce to you Dr. Carrie Douglas, who is Associate Professor in Engineering Education. She's been a Purdue-affiliated person for a while, but she's been on our faculty just in the last six or seven years and is now Associate Professor with tenure. And she has done an awful lot of things in her career. Right now, one of the things that she is, she's one of the key leaders in the scale project that you may have heard about. And there's a lot in the news about scale. There's a lot in the news about semiconductors in general. But oh, by the way, Carrie is also a career award winner on a very different topic in which she's a really deep nationally and internationally recognized expert. So Carrie is multi-talented for sure. And I'm thrilled to see her development over the past few years. I've been part of her mentoring team for five or six years now. And the growth and the leadership in terms of thought and action both in research and teaching has been tremendous. So I'm really thrilled to introduce Dr. Carrie Douglas. So my talks can be a little different than the other ones, but I thought, you know, this is celebrating and so I thought I'm going to talk about what I want. And I invited my grad students here, my team, because I'm sort of giving the talk that maybe isn't like, maybe I wish someone would have given me before I went on to my academic journey. And so I think we'll hit some of the stuff that Maria wanted us to talk about, but it's definitely going to be a little different than the others. The first thing I want to say is that well, this is a road in Door County. And this is sort of what my career path has looked like. It was never a I know where I'm going. I know exactly what I'm going to do. It's more like, oh, this seems really interesting. And this seems really interesting. And along the way, I'm still going. And I think the thing I want to point out now is I still don't totally know where I'm going to go. And so I think as Ed said, I graduate my PhD in 2012. I post-doc for a while. I was a visiting assistant professor. And then I started my tenure track in 2016. So a little bit about me and I think that'll kind of help understand why maybe I wasn't always one to the other is that I have four kids. And I really never heard of anybody being a professor or a tenure tracker successful that had a family. And I don't know, there's actually some research on women faculty members who are at R1 institutions. And the vast majority of them with children are divorced. I think they've done a study. I saw one study that almost all women in tenure track positions in the state of California who were still married well who weren't divorced either had never been married or didn't have children maybe their husband didn't. So I have always been very aware that I want to keep my family together. And being a professor was very overwhelming because I you know we see a lot of examples and surely obviously I mean I want to be clear like I am successful as Ed mentioned I've been on the leadership of over 50 million dollars in external awards. I'm an NSF career award winning awardee but I want you to know that everybody deserves a life outside of being a professor and so that's what I'm going to kind of talk a little bit about because maybe you don't have four kids but you have something besides just your work. And so there are my four kids. We went to a Reds game. My husband's there at the end. I have two dogs. You can see I really like hiking and my four kids now that they're three of the four teenagers they don't always cooperate. So if I'm going to get their picture it's their back sides you know and there's my research team right now and you notice I take them hiking also and they're way more cooperative.  So the first rule is to be a person and yes I know but this is why you all came because you don't know when your pictures are going to show up. So it's never like I am never too busy to be kind and whether that's the staff that we interact with you know the people that help us get our you know in the business office our account managers the cleaning folks our colleagues grad students undergrads like we're never too busy to be kind and be a person because they all have other stuff too. In terms of like being a person to family and friends like we have to show up still like our family still needs us you know and so along the way well I'm pursuing all the stuff that Carrie does there's still life happening right like and so it's important to be part of it. So being present in the moments that really matter so that one picture there with my four kids was you know a first day of school there's a picture of my husband driving us back from the Taylor Swift concert this summer I'm passed out and yes I worked you know like I work late before we go somewhere but that's one of the cool things about our job is that you know we are flexible and so I can make the time to do what I want to do. The chair there is my husband's grandmother she has Alzheimer's and we bring her meals a few times a week her and her husband right before the pandemic we help them move to the West Lafayette area and so recently I took her to get a manicure and pedicure and when she was in there she looked at me and she said if I were a cat I would purr like this is just moments you don't get back so okay I've already used five minutes telling you but so yeah being there and being present and the other is I'm a person to myself like okay so apart from all my roles in life and the things I do for people I have to take care of me too and so I need rest I need to exercise and I'm more than what I do as a professor like okay next rule is to be stubborn and about what you really want and yes my husband would say I'm a stubborn as a jackass sometimes but my point about this is sort of what others have said is I have been rejected a lot. I submitted like three applications to Purdue 10 year track positions and like didn't even get a phone call. I made it was on my third application for the NSF career award that it finally went through and so I think the big difference between a lot of people and what gets them certain is like how do you deal with no and how do you deal with rejection and like I take the no as a challenge like you don't think I'm good enough I'm gonna show you wrong and gets a little chip on my shoulder I'll be but I use it to propel me forward. The third rule is to commit to others success and there's an African proverb that says if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together. The problems we're working on if they actually matter they need more than just me to help solve them and so I want to give to other people and their success because they should work on those problems too so you can see here oh different students we've been to Sweden we've like one student there he left to get a job at Google and he started making way more money than me and so like what their success is is different you know not everybody's gonna be a carry. My student Lara Cruz my former she's now at University of Florida and her and her colleagues this year won best conference paper for American Society of Engineering Education for all best conference paper. I've won lots of not lots I've won my share of division best papers but she got the whole conference best paper I'm so proud of her I could go on and on at their successes also being committed to my colleagues success like it's not just about me so here you can see that I'm like was leading a workshop with scale and we had faculty from 19 institutions and they're coming together and I'm the associate professor and I'm gonna point out like in that one picture right there he's the ECE head at University of Florida like still working and helping other people be successful even though like I'm junior you know like it's not just about me again if the problems were working on it needs more than me to solve them. The other ones like folks from Vanderbilt and just for time I'm gonna move it along and the other is like is knowing who's committed to you so I am not a superwoman is my 13 year old daughter responded don't worry mom no one thought you were but the only like the way that I am able to do all this with four kids is because I am really supported so you know well I'm out traveling or giving talks my husband's waiting online to pick the kids up from school you know or he's the one like you can see like he's out there playing ball with our daughter and so whether you have a partner or not like you need community and you need people that will support you and help you because you are more than your job so and that's my daughter you can see when I was winning an award she came and they came she wasn't totally thrilled it was the only time though I'll say that I saw someone making fun of Meng while he was speaking. And my colleagues obviously also and so like Heidi Diefas-Dukes when I was a visiting assistant professor she helped me write NSF proposal on my research area and so I was able to be the lead PI as a VAP and it was funded at $800,000 so that's part of my being stubborn like if you keep getting told no you show I can bring in the money you'll look at me now. And other colleagues Julie Martin is actually my mentor one of my mentors Ed connected with Julie and well did you know that she's like a sister to me now and there's Shani Perzer and Tamara Moore some of you might know Stephanie Masta and then the fifth rule in my last one is to enjoy the ride we get to do a lot of really cool stuff and go really cool places so these are all things I've done while on work trips we had to go to DC to go to an NSF thing my husband and her and her like our husband joined us and then that night we did a cruise on the Delaware Bay you know they're in Sweden I had to go to UPSLA for a conference I got tea like the afternoon tea in London we've got pretty cool jobs they give us a lot of neat experiences and so with all the you know things that you should be doing I think it's important to say like enjoy it too oh and there's my students they're also part of the enjoyment do you see that souvenir sign probably the best souvenir shop in town I love that I love seeing the different cultures but that's my so thank you thanks for bringing me okay we have a moment or two for questions thank you very much you know one of the when we mentor our younger colleagues a sort of a complaint that I fearly hear quite often is how to do work-life balance because they feel they're working 24-7 and don't have a life but you focus on the fact that you are not just a professor there's a lot more to life than just being a professor what advice would you have for me to convey to these people well there's actually I mean so there well there's books you could give but what like there's the book rest actually the person goes through and talks about different research on when people's brains rest they become more creative like when we are working all the time like how like we're in it we're not actually taking that break and letting that you know our brains work on it passively you know like when you sleep your brain keeps working so I mean it's hard like with I think getting I think the norm the mentality is sort of like if you're not working you know 80 hours a week then you're not going to be successful or something but you know actually it was him I forgot to mention it but I had the Galileo's daughter book up there and the reason is that I don't know if you all know this but Galileo he never married but they did have three children and when he was at his university post he moved his very radically moved his family to a house near campus and his colleagues told him you can't be an academic and have a family and so this message like I read that early on actually I read it in one of my kids books it was who was Galileo but that message has been there and sort of ingrained in the system that's part of why I wanted to give the talk is I think people don't see examples of successful researchers who have an identity besides being a professor. Thank you. So you know that the you talked about one stage of the career of one's life where you know the work life balance with the family and then once you have those people gone that are distracted you enjoy a totally different life and have other challenges and in fact you fall off the end and say oh now I can work all the time and don't have any distractions but when you mentioned this you know I, Wayne and I have shared you know the same kind of the same position in recent years what could we as administrators do or have done could we have done beyond the obvious of not having meetings after five o'clock what kind of deeper thing might we be able to do to promote not for women and for men who have families to promote better work life balance and make it possible for them. I think about a lot it's a tough question I don't think there's one single answer I think their culture communicates as much as any policy you know so maybe you might not ever ask me to have a meeting after five o'clock but trust me I get like it's hard to say no and after a while you start thinking like I'm you know I don't want anybody to think I'm not capable or you know I think earlier in my career I just almost never talked about my kids or my family at all because I didn't want that to be seen as a weakness and so that's how I sort of now I'm making it my mission to be more transparent and say like you know you can do this it's not because I can do it all on my own but you know again like I my husband is fully hands on way more than me but there's a culture I think it's a culture thing and people need to be more willing to talk about the other things and like you said not everyone is going to have you know my like how I spend my out of work time is my family but maybe you want to do the roller derby you know or actually met a professor who she does do roller derby so that's you know or other things right like we need other parts of our life and yeah so I think it's hard because it's so the culture is so pervasive we certainly don't give points and as we move forward promotion and tenure for what you do outside right it's a totally unbalanced kind of evaluation in that respect right and I know people who no offense guys my like I said I'm not sexist because my husband really does take care of the kids most of the time but at the same time I know of colleagues who used their parental leave to get more done for their research and so again like when we're talking about equity and how women you know like oh well this person's on parental leave or on family leave look at all that he got done this year and you know if you compared that to a woman who had a baby and was at home nursing and all of that like it doesn't compare the same so I think because I always felt it I think it made me feel like I had I had to be more and when you're younger you can stay up all night like I could put the kids to bed and then I could do my research and then the older I get that's harder so now it's more like you know okay I need to make time to still be a wife I need to make time to show up for my kids and my other family because I mean in the end they matter sorry like they matter more than like probably Purdue not probably they matter more than Purdue because you know they're the ones with me the whole way through and I don't even like the phrase work life balance actually because because it's my whole life I don't have to figure out how the whole thing works it's not I'm working I'm not like I think it's you know what I have to make the whole thing work like I'm alive when I'm at work and chances are I'm probably thinking something about work when I'm living yeah and I think our creativity depends on our ability to do other things besides just work and I think we have to be better examples for our graduate students yeah a lot of them say things like they don't they're afraid of being tenure track professors because they see how busy we all are and we do model like what it what it takes to be successful beautiful stories and your success your failure and your and show us how to be a complete package we really appreciate that so before we wrap it up we're very happy our Dean is get out from meeting with provost and join us and now thank you everyone and just my apologies for not being here at the very start but you know since here congratulations to all the faculty who are featured here today getting hired into Purdue is not a given it's extremely hard going through an assistant professor tenure track and getting an associate professor is as hard it doesn't it doesn't get easier right so this is a tremendous achievement and so the first thing we want to do with this series is to congratulate our faculty who have been promoted it's not it's not and you heard the last example all those stages getting in was hard once in succeeding was hard right it's very hard to see that so that's really important second thing we wanted to highlight was kind of use the chance for faculty to reflect upon decisions and many kind of things you heard from these faculty are key to other assistant professors to PhDs and postdocs in the audience who are saying hey maybe I want to take that next step but the idea is really that we share best practices what worked what didn't work so we don't burn ourselves down you know out when we're trying to do these kind of tenure track positions in the future how to succeed in the best way possible is the question right so you heard great wisdom on that and the third opportunity here we hope is that when you heard these faculty you had a chance to see what great stuff they're working on and you have chance to collaborate with them and I do hope in fact it has happened in the past that many of the colleagues attending this meeting reach out to the faculty who have just made the presentation I didn't know you worked on that and hey that starts a research collaboration so those are the three things we're kind of celebrating this series thank you all for coming I think this is the last one we have we have one more this year on November 29th right so yeah same place same time so please be sure to be here for that thank you all for coming appreciate it


Well, my advice that I would give for a new student would be to take as much as possible inside Prague College and especially inside the master degree, intentional management. Because it's quite extended, you're kind of studying many fields, many areas of the market and basically depends what you do. If you are only writing and so on, that's great, but you can push it much more by having some conversation with the teachers, by going on the market by yourself, by trying. Actually, this kind of like program is very flexible as it comes to time management. So my suggestion is highly like to combine it with a real experience as well. And by doing that, you can combine either the theory and like the real practice. And that basically make you like much stronger and much aware of what is going on and so on. And I would say that you can find some point of synergy when you're applying it and when you're like basically studying it. And as it comes to if you insert like a cooperation and so on, of course, like I would say that they will be pleased to see it.