Here it is! My annual report, edition 2016. This is the third year since I moved-in here at water-research.info, so preparing an annual report is becoming a tradition (you can find links to 2015 & 2016 at the bottom of this post).

The purpose of these reports is to summarize the most important things that have happened to me professionally (and maybe personally, as it is sometimes hard to separate these two). Basically, it covers the questions: what did I do, what can be done better, and what are the new year’s resolutions.

I quite enjoyed 2016. Most of the time I spent in Laramie, working on my post-doc at WyCEHG (University of Wyoming). Still, there was quite a lot of flying. I calculated that my CO₂ footprint from flying is more than 7.4 tons.

The most notable events professionally were:

• together with Scott Miller, we submitted a paper, which is currently in revisions & to be resubmitted
• participated in a summer course on Runoff prediction for ungauged watersheds in TU Wienna.
• presented posters on the biennial CUAHSI meeting and the annual meeting of AGU
• made an outreach video about the summer field season of another WyCEHG project
• had an on-site interview and got a new job with the National University of Singapore.

The second part of the year was a bit more hectic, as I was also applying for jobs (post-docs or lecturer positions). My WyCEHG post-doc was until June 2017, but due to J1 visa specifics, I needed to find a new job before that.

I am really excited about starting a new chapter in my life and becoming a lecturer at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. New beginnings are always so energizing! I am looking forward to this new and challenging experience: new university, new responsibilities, new continent, new climate zone, new cultures… Hopefully, I will do great. I start in the beginning of January, so things are moving really fast.

On a more personal note: it was also a great year. Everyone is healthy. I (we) visited for first time Los Angeles, Tokyo, Riga, Yellowstone national park, Singapore, and San Francisco. We were also lucky to see our friends in Denmark and our families in Belgium and Bulgaria twice this year. Also, Niels and I had a whole year of living in the same country and continent, which is always nice 🙂

Most of my efforts this year were focused on changing the site theme (now: Genesis) and getting to know how to use Visual Composer, so I can change the layout of my pages and blog-posts easily. The theme transition took some time. I am not completely satisfied with the formatting yet, but it is much better than before. Now the font size is OK and the site is responsive to different screen sizes and devices.

The site structure is also a work in progress. For now I am trying to keep it simple. Changing the theme meant also revisiting (building from scratch) the pages I had before. So, I did that with the About page and also added a new one – Field work. The About page is basically my CV, publication list, and all the links to online profiles. Field work is selection of my photo reports and some additional pictures from field work.  I also added a Home page, so Blog is not the first thing you see when you come to my site. And, if I have more time I’ll add also Links page, so I can list all the sites and blogs I am following.

This year I also started using twitter more actively (my feed is both on the Home and Blog pages). I tried to live tweet from CUAHSI and the AGU events. This is also reflected in the number of tweets and the engagement rate stats. I had 53 tweets in December (up to 25th of December), most of these are from the talks or the posters I saw and liked. There are few with shameless promotion of my poster. I am not sure if anyone stopped by just because of the tweets, though.

I am also quite active on Instagram. I post mostly natural or urban landscapes, as this is what I like to photograph. It is a public profile, but it is more personal and not so much professional. It follows my travels. So, my best nine for 2016 (most liked) are as follows:

• Nyhavn (Copenhagen) with prisma app (upper left corner)
• skyscraper at San Francisco Business District
• building close to Moscone center (San Francisco)
• Mural from Mission District (San Francisco)
• Gardens by the Bay (Singapore) with prisma app
• Yellowstone canyon (Wyoming)
• “Urbanjungle” from Mission District (San Francisco)
• Laramie and the high plains of Wyoming (home)
• Guggenheim museum (Los Angeles)

Last year I had 3 things on my list: to get a Wyoming driving license (failed twice), exercise regularly (didn’t happen), AGU 2016 (did that). The exercising part is still on the list, maybe this year I will take it a bit more seriously. I spent one month on physiotherapy this year. It is difficult to make plans for next December, but I hope I can go to AGU 2017 too.

Other resolutions… I have been using R for a year or so now, but there is always place for improvement. I also think it is time to start using github and the R package geoknife. I also would like to get into Bayesian change point analysis or just any Bayesian statistics. And, as I am going to be living in Singapore, maybe start learning a new language. I haven’t decided on which one, maybe Mandarin or Malay. Or maybe I won’t have time.