November and December Wrap-up 2025

Happy Holidays to all of you wonderful people!

Sorry I’m a bit late with this newsletter! With the tutoring job comes the end of the school year, which means finals. A lot of extra sessions for nervous students were being booked all at once at the beginning of December. Great for my bank account, but not so great for my schedule and time management.

But we are here now! Let’s dive right into this nearly-final newsletter!

Newsletter Updates Coming in 2026

Now that I’m out of my PhD and mostly settled in Seattle, I can flesh out the newsletter a bit more!

I was considering having a “science teaching” section in the newsletter, but that’d be more aimed at STEM students, and knowing that none of my current audience are STEM students, I think I’ll hold off on the section and stick to linking my Scicomm work when it’s finally produced.

There are going to be more “call to action” sections in my newsletters. I know that was an update I planned on implementing this spring, but the reality is that I was still surviving writing and presenting my thesis, followed by surviving a big move and finding some form of a job. I had to take a break from what activism I was doing already, and that included putting it in my newsletter for a bit.

In the meantime, though, be sure to download the 5calls app and use their scripts to contact your representatives in Congress to stand up for your and community members. Congress works for you, not the other way around.

Fellow scientists, if you have the means, find a “science on tap” or some equivalent event in your area. I know we have those in Seattle and in Salt Lake City. Due to my evening job, though, I haven’t been able to attend. The more people go to them, the more we can have scientists practice interacting with the public and learning how to build rapport. If you don’t have that in your area, consider setting up a science trivia night at your local bar. I just went to one, and it was a blast. (also, my team was 1 point away from 1st place, but that’s beside the point). Skype a Scientist has some fantastic ideas and resources here: https://www.skypeascientist.com/resources-for-scientists.html

Are these perfect ideas? No, but we have to start somewhere.

Lastly, please keep an eye out for any mutual funds to help Western Washington with all of the floods. I know that World Central Kitchen is doing work in Washington, and I’ve donated to them before so I can recommend them. I’m currently keeping an eye out for more links (though I am planning on sending out on last 2025-wrap up newsletter, so I’ll have an entire section on donation links).

New Blog Post!

I managed to pull through the tutoring chaos and finish up a new blog post!

Full disclosure: there may be some “scientific rage” in this one. The research for this post awakened a fury that I was not expecting. But after finishing a PhD followed by not being able to get a real job, I figured I was entitled to one rant post on my blog, right?

The reason this took so long to write (as this was originally going to be my August post) was because of how much news and background I had to dig into. This became a highly-opinionated journalism piece completely by accident, but the more I excavated, the more I was baffled by the disjointed nature of what the news headlines were claiming and what was actually in the data (or lack thereof). Like, it wasn’t even close to what the research was saying. Usually when I’ve done pieces like this in the past, the headlines sensationalize what’s happening, but they’re still “technically” right. Not this case, though.

Speaking of Jobs…

I haven’t been able to find any jobs right now outside of tutoring. I also did not get the science journalism fellowship, which stung more than I expected. But now that I’m settled into tutoring, I think I’m going to really have a go at science communication freelancing (because I don’t think I had the courage to actually throw myself into it this fall when I started it).

Speaking of which, if you’re wondering how many clients I got this year via freelancing, I got… Zero. Fat goose egg. The big “0”. But I think that can be explained by how I’ve been promoting myself. Come January, I’m going to try and put up more physical promotion for my freelance work. And once I get my science YouTube channel up and running (more on that below), I can also do video advertising.

But if you’re in STEM, I would really appreciate it if you promoted my work; word of mouth is powerful for freelancers. You can promote my website at rebeccamellema.com. Spread the good word, friends! I did complete my first lab website this year: feel free to check out the Petrey Lab website and enjoy my figures, videos, and paper summaries! https://www.aaroncpetrey.com/

YouTube Video?

Yes! I’m starting a YouTube channel that has 2 aims:

1) Make graduate level science far more accessible to the general audience or new graduate students by making long-form videos of paper walkthroughs.

2) Train scientists on how to communicate science, specifically through presentations and writing.

If you’ve been following my blog for since 2019, you’ll think that these topics aren’t really in my wheelhouse. The thing is, I ran multiple workshops covering topic #2 back in graduate school. It’s such a basic topic that we don’t teach our STEM students, and it’s a detriment to our fields. We had minimal science writing training throughout graduate school as well, which is ridiculous since writing is how scientists earn grants and get money. At the very least, scientists should know basic sentence structure. Are these videos going to fix that gap in knowledge? No, but it’s more than what we have now. Maybe I can lead a series of actual classes at a college covering these very topics, but that’s not possible right now. So YouTube it is.

In terms of current video work, I’m working on paper-walkthroughs! My first video (which should have been out by now, more below) is on a paper that was fundamental to my thesis. My second video will be my thesis paper. From there, I have a list of immunology papers, though I will throw in the original CRISPR paper.

I WAS going to have that first YouTube video already up and running by the time I sent out this newsletter, but… well… Right before I finished my edits, Adobe Premier decided to delete 2 days worth of edits. I had to take a full week off as I was too furious to touch my computer (and I can’t afford a new one if I hurled my current laptop out my window). I’m currently re-editing over an hour’s worth of content while trying not to angry-cry. It’s fine. Maybe I’ll get the video out around Christmas (assuming Adobe doesn’t do me dirty again).

Fellow scientists, if you have a paper you want me to produce a walk-through video for, send the PDF to my work email: [email protected].

Other Scicomm Projects?

I’m finishing up a really fun, kid friendly project for a group of science communicators! I can’t wait to show you all what I’m cooking up for them; it involves adorable animation!

I also acted as a science consultant for two authors recently. Didn’t get paid for it, but it was so much fun! I even made a fictional virus for one author so that their plot would work!

As for the science journalism, I still aim to start working on news articles come 2026. I was really hoping to use the fellowship as a way to gain confidence in my journalism writing. And maybe I invest in a journalism class to get over that confidence hump and to build my credibility; but I’d have to figure out the affordability and timing of said class. I did recently apply to a Investigative Journalist position for Infectious Disease at a University, but knowing that my resume is primarily scicomm and not journalism focused, I don’t think I have a fantastic chance. I’m hoping my PhD does a lot of the heavy lifting along with how long I’ve been writing my blog (since 2019! That’s impressive!).

Book Update

I am on chapter 31. We’re in the final stretch. Unfortunately, tutoring+ finals have kept me busy and away from the story. But we’re getting there!

Also, I had a discussion that has yet again turned me away from traditional publishing. If I want my book to sell, the individual (who was quite versed in traditional publishing) said that I’d need to probably age up or age down my characters, because there’s not a market for college aged characters? I find that hard to believe. Also, I’m not changing the age of my characters; them being in college is integral to their development. I don’t know about you, but I went through a very specific type of maturing when I was in college. Why does my “coming of age” story need to only be for 14-15 year olds?

I think at this point I’m happy to publish a high-quality scicomm fantasy book as a hobby project and just accept that my market/intended audience is going to be niche and tiny… Which is not what trad publishers are looking for.

(But again, I haven’t even finished the book, so maybe things will change by the time I’m done editing!)

Art Appreciation!

As I learn how to draw in procreate (and not making science figures in Adobe Illustrator), I’ve used some of my tabletop sessions as inspirations for new art pieces! Here’s one I painted of a recent session where the players helped save a Fae Lord’s magic reservoir! (He’s gliding on the top of the water, and is glowing red. There’s a whole chunk of lore for why he’s glowing)

That’s All for the Wrap-up!

While this is the last monthly wrap-up, I’m still planning on sending out a final 2025 newsletter to end the year on! It’ll come either right before the year’s end, or a little after January 1st. It depends on how wild the holidays are :)

Things to expect: Book recs, discussions on earning a PhD, and a few “behind-the-scenes” discussions once I get those videos out!

Until then, Happy Holidays!