Shadow CV

Welcome to my "Shadow Curriculum Vitae", here you will find the collection of my failures, my rejections and my unfinished projects (which I still plan to finish when I have more time...)

EDUCATION (my unsuccessful attempt to do my Ph.D. abroad)

2017 CNPq Ph.D. Sandwich Scholarship, University of Oxford: I applied for this scholarship so that I could spend 6 months in Oxford to analize the data collected suring my Ph.D. and to finish up my manuscripts. Although this scholarship was denied, I ended up going to Oxford by myself. This was only possible because I saved money during my two years working as lecturer at UFRJ and also because my advisor Bruno Rosado invested on me!

2014 CNPq Ph.D. Fellowship, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain: I tried very hard to get this Brazilian scholarship to do my Ph.D. in Spain with the renowned Prof. Fernando Valladares. I knew that was a very competitive fellowship and my chances were low. However, I was completely devastated when the CNPq said that my application was rejected because the CV weblink of my potential advisor was out of service!!! I contested that result, but no success... I am sure that working with Valladares would have been great... but I feel very fortunate that I ended up doing my Ph.D. in Brazil with my supervisor and friend Bruno Rosado <3

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (rejected applications)

2019 Schmid College Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chapman University, CA, USA: This was my second application for a postdoctoral position abroad (outside Brazil). I did not get this one, but I was finally sucssesful in my third attempt (as you can see in my brigth CV). It is funny that I ended up doing my Postdoc in California (UC Berkeley).

2018 Postdoctoral Research Assistant, University of Edinburgh and University of the Witwatersrand: I was close to finish my Ph.D., so I started applying for some Postdoctoral positions outside Brazil (I really wanted to have some experience abroad). This was my first attempt (so, of course it was rejected), which would involve a lot of fieldwork (which I love!) in African grasslands.

PUBLICATIONS (rejected or never submitted manuscripts)

Matos IS, Eller CB, Binks O, Zorger BB, Meir P, Dwason T, Rosado BHP. Integrating foliar water uptake into plant community ecology: This one was definitively the most painful rejection so far... After being invited by the Journal of Ecology Reviews editor to write a review about the role of foliar water uptake at the plant community level, our manuscript was rejected due to very negative comments from the reviewer 2 (why it is alwaus the reviewer #2?!). We were invited to reformulate and resubmit the manuscript... so, there is still hope for this one!

Matos IS, Gouveia WF, Oliveras I, Rifai S, Mantuano D, Rosado BH P. A causal trait-based model for explaining foliar water uptake capacity: The fourth paper derived from my Ph.D thesis. Rejected after resubmission to Functional Ecology (in 2017), then rejected after peer-review by Plant, Cell, and Environment (in 2020). Now, we are editing the manuscript for submission in another Journal. I will keep you posted about our next rejection (or hopefully acceptance!).

Christmann T, Rosado BHP, Delhaye G, Matos IS, Roland H, Moraes Y, Drummond J, Oliveras I. 2021. Functional assembly of tropical montane tree islands in the Atlantic Forest is shaped by stress-tolerance, bamboo-presence and facilitation. Ecology and Evolution: Rejected after peer-review by Ecosystems (in 2020) and by Journal of Vegetation Science (in 2021).

Matos IS, Flores BM, Hirota M, Rosado BHP. 2020. Critical transitions in rainfall manipulation experiments. Ecology and Evolution, 10: 2695– 2704: The third paper derived from my Ph.D thesis. Desk-rejected by Methods in Ecology and Evolution (in 2019), then rejected after peer-review by Journal of Applied Ecology (in 2019).

Matos IS, Oliveras I, Rifai SW, Rosado BHP. 2020. Deciphering the stability of grassland productivity in response to rainfall manipulation experiments. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 29: 558– 572: The second paper derived from my Ph.D thesis. It was desk rejected by Nature Ecology & Evolution (in 2019), then rejected after per-review by Global Change Biology (in 2019). In the following year, it ended up being published in GEB, and was recommended by Prof. Ph.D. Alan Knapp in Prime F1000!

Matos IS, Rosado, B. H. P. 2016. Retain or repel? Droplet volume does matter when measuring leaf wetness traits. Annals of Botany, 117(6): 1045-52: The first paper derived from my Ph.D thesis! In 2015, it was desk rejected by New Phytologist, then by Plant, Cell and Environment, then by Journal of Experimental Botany. In all cases, the editor acknowledged the excellence of our work, but rejected it due to lack of originality.

Matos IS, Landim MF. 2016. Morpho-functional ecology of seedlings of 15 species from a remnant of Atlantic Forest in Sergipe State. Scientia Plena, 12: 1-15: This was my first first author publication. As expected, my first experience was a rejection after submission to Iheringia Botânica (in 2015).

Matos IS, Andrade ACS de. 2014. Microclimatic Amelioration inside Vegetation Patches as a Mechanism of Facilitation in a Semiarid Sandy Coastal Plain of Brazil: This is the first chapter of my Master dissetation, which is pretty much ready for submission, but was never submitted to any journal... maybe some day in the future...

Matos IS, Andrade ACS de. 2014. Facilitation on seedlings’ performance in response to light and water limitations: trade-off between increased survival and reduced growth: Second chapter of my Master dissertation, also never submitted...

Matos IS, Andrade ACS de. 2014. Functional traits linked to facilitative responses of seedlings from a coastal sandy plain: Third chapter of my Master dissertation ... I think you can guess what happened.

Matos IS, Andrade ACS de. 2014. Morphological phenotypic plasticity and integration of seedlings from a coastal vegetation in response to light and water: Oh yes! My Master dissertation has four chapters, all of them in paper format and written in English... but this one was also never submitted :(

AWARDS & GRANTS

2020 CAPES best Ph.D. thesis award: as my Ph.D. thesis was considered the best thesis of my Postgraduate Program, it was automatically running for this National (in Brazil) award. I did not received this big prize, but you can check here who did it.

2015 Idea Wild Small Grant - $1500: I applied for this small grant to buy sensors for my Ph.D. field experiments. After this (and other) rejections, I and other member of my lab started learning how to build our own sensors to determine soil moisture and temperature.

COURSES

2016 II Course on Plant Functional Traits, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia: I applied to this course mainly because this would be a great opportunity to see the Amazon Forest for the first time (and to learn more about plant functional traits of course). I feel so ashamed that I am a Brazilian that has never went to the Amazon...