What I actually spend most of my time doing is reading and writing:
I co-curate a monthly book club with Yan Wang—we choose books, read them, meet to talk about them, draw the covers, and publish brief thoughts. If you’re looking for a good book to read next, please check it out, and if you do read one of them, tell us about it.
I also co-founded a community blog called Limanatural with Rocío Lopez de la Lama and Armando Valdés Velásquez, which provides a space for limeñxs to write about their city and their vision for the city. As part of this project, we created social media accounts and produced short teaser videos. It’s on hiatus now, but all the posts are still available and we’re cooking up some ideas for the future.
I have training in translation from and to Spanish, and have translated interviews, transcripts, videos, stories, poetry, reports, and instruction manuals. I love editing and find it rejuvenating to learn about other people’s work and think about the relationship between structure and content- I’ve done this both professionally and recreationally. Credits for translation and editing work are available upon request.
I have formed part of communications teams at various organizations Including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Graduate Students United, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage. I have undergone and lead media training, as well as written press releases, created materials for business and donor outreach, carried out outreach projects, run social media accounts, and put together photography exhibitions.
science communications pieces
- “Water Connects the Basin, the Internet Less So.” Piland (2021d)
- “To Protect the Most Species, Plan for Freshwater Conservation.” Piland (2021c)
- “Healthy Fisheries Mean Healthy People.” Piland (2021a)
- “How to Identify an Important Freshwater Fish Spawning Area.” Piland (2021b)
- “When Migratory Catfishes Go Up the River.” Piland (2021e)
- “Three Methods to Learn About Fish Migrations in the Amazon.” Piland (2019c)
- “The Complex History of Amazonian Water.” Piland (2019b)
- “Hidrovía Amazónica: ¿Quién Gana y Quién Paga?” Piland (2018c)
- “For Many Fish, Forest is Just as Necessary as Water.” Piland (2018b)
- “Consider the Tambaqui.” Piland (2018a)
- “The Case for Citizen Science in the Amazon.” Piland (2017c)
- “Potential Impacts of Planned Andean Dams Outweigh Benefits, Scientists Say.” Piland (2017b)
- “Amazonian Peatlands: The Rarest Wetlands Are Also the Most Important When It Comes to Carbon.” Piland (2017a)
- “Gal Science: Stalking Zombie Tree Swallows at Dawn.” Piland (2014a)
other pieces
- “Colloquium Under a Palm Tree.” Piland (2020)
- “The Exotic is Never at Home.” Zambrano and Piland (2019)
- “Joy, Loss, Ants.” Piland (2019a)
- “The Place Where You Live: Lima, Perú.” Piland (2015)
- “Gotta Collect ‘Em All: My World Cup Sticker Album.” Piland (2014b)
sometimes i also write in this newsletter