Shameless Self-Promotion

I live in Cyprus, a country inhabited by reactionary, short-sighted morons with a victim complex, an over-inflated ego, and rampant xenophobia, and governed by a Parliament more interested in populistic pandering than reasonable action. If you have read the financial news over the past week, you’ll know that Cyprus has been killed by its own populace and politicians, of their own free will. Banks are now closed, and will probably be dissolved soon.

So, in a pathetic act of desperation that I will probably regret soon enough, I have to resort to shameless self-promotion in the hopes that someone influential might perchance read this and give me a chance to leave this shithole out of the goodness of their heart. I was planning to leave of my own initiative, but the money I needed to set up a job for myself overseas got locked up in this disaster.

I will take any job, or an internship if accomodation is provided. I will even clean your toilets, as long as they’re not toilets in Cyprus. I have Cypriot (EU for now) and Lebanese citizenships, for VISAs. By the by, I have an Iranian microbiologist friend who is in a very similar position, if that’s more what you’re looking for.

What follows is simply a listing of my talents and skills. My training is in invertebrate palaeontology and zoology, and my main interests are in phylogenetics and macroevolutionary processes, so you have an idea of  my basic toolset that I will not mention in the listings. My knowledge-base comprises the above subjects, as well as a hefty dose of history of biology. My e-mail’s marcsrour@gmail.com.

Scientific skills:

• Phylogenetic methodology:  constructing and interpreting trees from multiple sources of data; emphasis on morphological cladistics;
• Applications of phylogenetic methodology outside of biology, e.g. linguistics, categorisation algorithms;
• Dissections;
• µCT and volume rendering;
• Histology, including serial histology for 3D rendering;
• GIS;
• Statistical analysis with R;
• Entomological sampling, storage, and curation;
• Collection databasing;
• Identification expertise: fossil molluscs, beetles, Hymenoptera, spiders;
• Programming languages: R, C, python, Ruby, Perl.

Communication skills:

• Languages: English (native), French (native), Arabic (native), Greek (business), German (business), Japanese (basic, self-taught).
• Lecturing and teaching experience: undergrad teaching assistant (evolution, invertebrate palaeontology); monthly public lectures, extracurricular biology project advisor for schools; webcam lecturing for overseas undergrad and grad journal clubs and discussion groups; lecture database now at 22GB; worked as English teacher at language school (B2-C1 level);
• Scientific outreach online through this blog and through Quora, where I was one of the Top Writers of 2012 and included in the Best of Quora book;
• Zoology and palaeontology museum tour guides;
• Educational fieldtrips for nature-lovers;

Miscellaneous skills:

• Research paper curation: see a screenshot of my 100000+-paper collection as an example, or my Papers of the Week posts;
• 2D illustration, analog in pencil or digital vector-based;
• Scriptwriting and storyboarding;
• Basic macro photography;
• Basic web design, e.g. my NGO’s website;
• Basic electronic engineering, mostly for fixing computers and modifying electronic equipment;
• Considerable budgeting skills: living at €5/week for several months, running entomological research programs on shoestring budgets.

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