My summer 2025 research stay

This year, I stayed a bit longer in Europe to align with my participation in a conference in the last week of August.

In earlier years, my research stays were moments during which I could concentrate on research and make a lot of progress in writing papers and reports. Over the years, the dynamic has changed. I now focus on in-person meetings with colleagues, students, funding organizations, and more, as well as on the opportunity to travel to other nearby institutions.

Adding this amount of networking to my research stays has made them more intense. At the same time, I have of course all my regular tasks that need to move forward. And, my research stays are also solo-parenting time. Needless to say, these months are intense and fly by.

This year, an added complexity is that I returned after the beginning of the semester. As a result, I was juggling online teaching (and piloting a COIL for my class), with wrapping up work in Europe (and a one-day trip to Germany, which resulted in me being 45 minutes late to teach my class because of many train delays and malfunctions).

I arrived to Ecuador with a sleep debt of 31 hours – and had to hit the ground running as the semester was already in its third week.

For next year, I am not sure yet how I will organize my summer research stay. As I have no funding confirmed yet for next year, I am currently just gazing into the abyss.