David is officially a scientist. Well, I guess. I suppose that depends on what makes one an official scientist. In my mind, a scientific publication makes one a scientist.

Damn. I guess that means I'm not a scientist. Poop.

David and I both have our degrees in Geography and certificates in Geography Information Systems. I'm quite a bit more creative and less disciplined than David, so I went the way of tourism and wine geography, with a minor in art history, of all things. David, being Mr. Guidelines and Methods, went the way of biogeography, with his heart in trees.

While an undergrad David started on a project with his mentor looking at gap-releases in tulip poplar, red maple and sugar maple stands on the Cumberland Plateau. He spent many a late night hovering over a microscope measuring tiny tree rings, analyzing data, and trying to explain to me what the heck he was doing.

Now, don't think I'm a ding-dong. I'm actually the one who brought David over to geography (from finance, no less) and can still name more tree species than my little tree man. However, the reasons for hovering over a microscope until the wee hours of the morning surpasses me. Which is exactly why he is published and I am not.

Yesterday while working my non-scientific and very creative job, David got an email sending him the final copy of the article he and his mentor compiled from the data David collected and analyzed over all those months. The article will be in the next issue of Physical Geography, an academic journal with few pictures. Ha!

David is a published scientist. And though I joke, I'm tickled pink.

{image credit: Bellwether Publishing, Ltd.}

*Gosh, I should be traded in... this was published in the May/June issue. If you wanna be a nerd (ha!) you can read the abstract and/or get the full text here.