I recently made one of those decisions which, although pretty normal for a lot of academics, meant uplifting my life in New Zealand and moving to Singapore. I finished my PhD almost 2 years ago now and have been lucky to get several postdoc positions, one at the University of Auckland (where I did my PhD) and a shorter stint at the Australian National University (playing with fiddler crabs in Darwin).

(left to right) 1. Male Forsteropsalis harvestmen eating a fly, 2. Male Pantopsalis cheliferoides harvestmen, 3. male Uca elegans fiddler crabs jostling for a burrow

These opportunities allowed me to get publications from my thesis out, make some new collaborations and delve into new research areas. The time had come, however, to head off and do something different and so I jumped at the chance to take up a research fellowship at the National University of Singapore. Although exciting…