Erica Maul
@ericamaul.bsky.social
4th year PhD candidate in the Smith Bee Lab at Auburn University, studying nest-protective behavior in honey bees.
Registration is open for STEM professionals (this includes grad students!) to be pen pals with young students for Letters to a Prescientist! prescientist.org/register/ I've been lucky enough to be a pen pal twice and I love it. You only write four letters, and it makes a big impact!
Program Registration – Letters to a Pre-Scientist
prescientist.org
Are you interested in flowering plants, pollinators or Alps? Plant Ecology Group at ETH Zürich is looking for a PhD student! I can warmly recommend the group! The meadows of the study area are simply amazing to anyone interested in biodiversity! Application DL 30.6. @ethz.ch @usyseth.bsky.social
I’ve written a gen pop blog post about my mouse paper for the @insectessociaux.bsky.social blog! 🐭🤓
Insectes Sociaux@insectessociaux.bsky.social · 2mo agoIf you give a mouse to a colony 🐁 @ericamaul.bsky.social reveals what happens when a mouse dies inside a honey bee colony. insectessociaux.wordpress.com/2026/06/16/i... #SocialInsects #HoneyBees #Propolis #BeeResearch #SocialImmunity
New research article! 📰 @ericamaul.bsky.social and @smithbeelab.bsky.social reveal that honey bees process dead mice inside their nests, rather than simply sealing them in propolis. 🐁 🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s000... #SocialInsects #HoneyBees #SocialImmunity #Necrophagy #CollectiveBehavior
Excellent opportunity here: a 5 year senior research fellowship in Life Sciences (broadly defined) at All Souls College Oxford. Many opportunities to work with the diverse & inclusive community here in @biology.ox.ac.uk here in the brand new Life & Mind Buiilding www.asc.ox.ac.uk/post-doctora...
Post-Doctoral Research Fellowships | All Souls College
asc.ox.ac.uk
We (me and @njdowdy.bsky.social) are hiring a PhD student! Come work with us! We seek a PhD student to investigate the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera within a comparative evolutionary framework... Job closes this week! Apply ASAP! njdowdy.gitlab.io/balogh-fello...
Kenneth F. Balogh Graduate Student Fellowship
A PhD position investigating the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera, co-advised by Dr. Nicolas J. Dowdy (Milwaukee Public Museum) and Dr. Chelsea Cook (Marquette University). Apply by June ...
njdowdy.gitlab.io
My first first-author paper is now published online at Insectes Sociaux! I loved this project and sharing it with y’all at IUSSI-NAS and ABS. Check it out! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Honey bees actively process dead mice inside their nests - Insectes Sociaux
Honey bee nests are warm and resource-rich, making them attractive targets for animal intruders during winter, including mice. Beekeepers often protect their nests from mice, but have also documented ...
link.springer.com
Feel free to reach out about my grad student experience in the lab! I’ve had a great time and would definitely recommend.
Smith Bee Lab@smithbeelab.bsky.social · 11mo agoThe Smith Bee Lab is HIRING! 🐝🐝🐝 - Postdoc (2-4yrs, flexible start-date) - 1-2 Graduate Students (to start Fall 2026) No prior experience with honey bees needed, we encourage people from diverse research areas to apply! (no jerks, plz)
I'm looking for a graduate student (either PhD or master's) to join my lab starting Jan 2026. If you know any students in social behavior and evolution (and termites!), please let them know!
TIL in 1992 the National Science Foundation made a grant to support the creation of THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS (the original one, with Lily Tomlin as Ms Frizzle) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mag...
Dr. David Miller 🏳️🌈@davidimiller.bsky.social · last yr.STEM ed has been foundational to NSF's mission & mandated functions ever since its founding in 1950. Ex: Remember the Magic School Bus? NSF funded that. Bill Nye the Science Guy? Zoom? Reading Rainbow? NSF was a key funder in all those [with others like the imperiled Corp for Public Broadcasting]
Registration is OPEN for STEM professionals (grad students included) at Letters to a Pre-scientist! I have participated in this program for 2 years now and it is such a lovely experience.
For STEM Professionals - Letters to a Pre-Scientist
Pen Pal Program Overview We encourage STEM Professionals of all kinds to get involved with Letters to a Pre-Scientist! STEM professionals send and receive letters throughout a school year from ...
nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com
Made it to Baltimore for #ABS2025 !! Come to my talk in the Dietary Decisions section Thursday at 3:00 (spoiler: it’s not about dietary decisions!!), and message or find me if you want to chat about research or my experience in @smithbeelab.bsky.social (recruiting grad students!).
PhD wins can feel few and far between, so I’m thankful for this week! Not only did I finish my quals and become a candidate, but I also was awarded a Wellesley College Graduate Fellowship! Had to celebrate in @smithbeelab.bsky.social tradition.
Annual GRFP thread, more relevant than ever (# of awards down 50%). This thread is for students who didn't win the GRFP today. Who are wondering if they belong in science, or scrolling through posts that start "So excited to announce..." with a little spurt of bitterness they aren’t proud of. 1/9
🎉🎉I am SO excited to share our lab's first data paper published in ProcB @royalsociety.org! This research is part of @jlotusnguyen.bsky.social 's PhD dissertation and explores how social #behavior is organized in honey bees. 🐝 Let me share the story...! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
Disruption of collective behaviour correlates with reduced interaction efficiency | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Group-living organisms commonly engage in collective behaviour to respond to an ever-changing environment. As animals face environmental change, establishing the mechanisms of information used to collectively behave is critical. Western honeybees (Apis ...
royalsocietypublishing.org
The first data paper of my dissertation thesis was recently published in ProcB! Follow my rockstar PI's thread below to learn more! Thanks for your support! 😁 And reach out if you're interested in a postdoc - I'm graduating soon 👀
Chelsea Cook@phdbee.bsky.social · last yr.🎉🎉I am SO excited to share our lab's first data paper published in ProcB @royalsociety.org! This research is part of @jlotusnguyen.bsky.social 's PhD dissertation and explores how social #behavior is organized in honey bees. 🐝 Let me share the story...! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
Is anyone looking for a roommate for Animal Behavior in Baltimore this summer? #ABS2025
Collaborating with @rin-krichilsky.bsky.social and Kanako Shimizu, we put together what's basically a top-ten list of ways to help foster trans inclusivity and awareness within our scientific and academic communities and would love if you could help share the guide!
If you are an undergraduate science major who is interested in pursuing a career in STEM, there is an exciting opportunity to develop your skills while studying the interface between microbes and bees. BeeMORE is a USDA-funded Research and Extension Experience for Undergraduates
I started gathering a list for REUs/Summer research opportunities for undergraduate students in Ecology/Conservation/Evolutionary Biology. Feel share to share with any undergraduate students who may be interested in participating in *PAID* research. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
REUs/Summer Research 2024 List (Ecology and Evolution)
docs.google.com
I have a PhD position open to start fall semester 2025! The position will include investigations of the structure of both phenotypic (behavioral) plasticity and genetic variation in behavior as well as lots of opportunity to develop your own project. #Evolution #evobio #evolsky #Ecology 🧪
If you are a scientist (including graduate students) or professional science communicator who is at least 18 years old and are using Bluesky for any kind of professional purposes, please consider taking our survey. Link: umiami.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Please help share. 🧪🌎 #SciComm
Congrats to the whole team: Michael Smith, Claire Bailey, Ben Koger, @ericamaul.bsky.social, Prathibha, Bajaree Chuttong, Roberto Molinari, Ethan Rowe, Maritza Spott
Form, function, and evolutionary origins of architectural symmetry in honey bee nests
Smith et al. show that honey bees stockpile their nests symmetrically on either side of the double-sided comb, revealing architectural symmetry in the extended phenotype. This symmetry provides the co...
shorturl.at
Our architectural symmetry paper made the cover of Current Biology! Congrats to @smithbeelab.bsky.social and the team. Check out the form, function, and evolutionary origins of honeybee nest symmetry here: www.cell.com/current-biol...
I had so much fun today judging the Alabama Science and Engineering Fair for my second year!! And so did lab mate Prathibha 😊 This state is full of young smart cookies and I feel reinvigorated for my own research.
