More LoR

Thanks to all who sent submissions to the Letter of Reference contest. Here are some more interesting examples, some of them clearly intentionally obnoxious and offensive:

*****************

Dear Admissions Committee:

I am heartily pleased to recommend to your graduate program Ms. Rebecca Hartley.

Ms. Hartley first came to my attention during my course, "The Music of the Spheres," during which time she tried to emulate some of the music we were analyzing, using her iPhone for texting. In 12-tone. I thought at the time that was an indication of a high degree of independence and creativity. Alas, although her enthusiasm was unbounded, her earned grade, which you can see in her transcript, was a C+.

I next interacted with Ms. Hartley when she asked to join my research group. Always willing to work with new people, I happily agreed. Ms. Hartley soon proved herself adept at such tasks as keeping the laboratory's Facebook page (which she instituted) up to date (however, not the lab's webpage). Whenever a volunteer was needed, Ms. Hartley was often ready to do the task, particularly if it involved a trip to Starbuck's. Ms. Hartley's research has made great strides since she's learned to use the laboratory instruments properly. Indeed, she is working on a poster to present her results at the next Sphere Musicology Workshop in 2010. I can't help but feel that Ms. Hartley's manuscript would be ready for submission by now had she only decided not to join her family on Lake Como for the 5 weeks of winter break (after having gone home for 2 weeks of Thanksgiving break), but then when one's mother calls, what can one do?

As for the rest of her undergraduate achievements, I know they are spelled out in her application and listed on her transcript: president of Delta Delta Phi sorority, head of the cheerleading squad (for football, basketball, and fencing), president of the Resident Life Food Committee (coffee division), food writer for the school newspaper (coffee bar reviews are her specialty), president of the iPhone Apps Club, and person-in-charge of the undergraduates' collective Facebook page, "Dickeyville College Experiences." Last year she had the lead role in the annual show, a salute to Dickeyville. It was quite the memorable performance.

In summary, I enthusiastically endorse Ms. Hartley for admission to your graduate program. She will make an outstanding student, in more ways than one. Yours is the program she is most interested in; she is not applying anywhere else. If she is denied admission, she has asked to stay on here, with me, for her Master's degree.

Professor Wimberly Wade
Dickeyville College

***********

Dear Acceptance People,

I am writing to you to extol the virtues of one Mr. Joe Stone. Jim has been an undergraduate researcher in my laboratory since 1996 (?). Since graduating near to the top of his class in 2006, he has worked in my laboratory intermittently (during?) that time.

Jack is a hardworking and very bright individual, who has made numerous positive contributions to our team. As well as being extremely studious, she is a social individual and always manages to lighten the intense atmosphere that permeates a prestigious laboratory such as my own. A butterfly, one might say. This is a refreshing aspect to his personality. One flaw that could be a potential problem for John (especially in a world‐class laboratory with dangerous chemicals at his disposal) is his difficulty in resolving internal conflicts. His sociopathic tendencies could potentially negate his future interactions with colleagues, but since he has overcome his pornography addiction – I believe that this should not be a major issue. However, I feel you should ask him this directly. Joe is a fantastic brain. However, he does need to find the testicular fortitude within himself to succeed. His luck with the inferior sex has also improved exponentially, as has his general taste in aesthetics. I have noticed this personally. He is like a hybrid and good with the animals, however he should be monitored.

His particular research interests have meandered considerably throughout the time I have mentored him. However, I find a lack of ideological consistency within his train of thought. I have placed much responsibility on Joe. He has not broken yet. I admire a man with convictions, especially a man with a thetan level such as Joe’s. He has worked hard to improve this (by successfully calibrating an old e‐meter) and invests a significant amount of time in his faith. Indeed, he is president (?) of our university’s dance troop (? further clarification needed). He has a penchant for cycling and is quite good with the PCR machine.

I am convinced that with Joe’s natural vigour and eternal robustness, she will reach the pinnacle of whatever goal she decides to make. I will support this wholeheartedly. She is the creme de la mer of our crop. In conclusion, x is an ideal candidate for your programme for the reasons I have outlined above. I believe x will be an asset to your department and will thrive at an institution such as yours. I hope you will see x in the same light as I have, by granting him/her a position on your course.

With kind regards and kindred spirits,

CHARLES
Professor Sir H. Charles A. Ruddimutterigenered IX
BA MA PhD DSc MB BS ChB FRS FMedSci FRSL KD CBiol PhD (h’c) (Oxon)
Established Chair and Distinguished Professor of Freudian Zoology
University of Michael Jackson, Neverland, USA
Board Member, BAAADAAAAAAAAASS, Nobel Institute
hcaruddimutterigenerediiv@michaeljackson.edu
‐‐‐END DICTAPHONE TRANSCRIPT.

******

To the Admissions Committee:

I am so excited to write this letter supporting Tommy Terrific’s application to your most prestigious graduate program. Although I am not an expert in your field of Science, I am an accomplished and world-renowned Harry Potter scholar and know a thing or two about magic. My work has earned me an endowed Professorship at a university even more prestigious than yours. Importantly, I also know a thing or two about Tommy, whom I have known since he was 2 years old. From this time, it was clear to all of us on the block that Tommy was not only the happiest toddler on the block, but also the smartest. His true gift is an unparalleled SCIENTIFIC INSIGHT. This gift exceeds even that of his parents, both of whom are world-renowned physicians at my university.

In closing, I urge you to admit Tommy to your graduate program in Science. Based on all that I know of him and his family, he has no choice but to solve the most important problem in Science during his research training. This will bring fame and fortune not only to Tommy, his friends and family, but also to your university.

Sincerely,
The Scholar Next Door

*******

REFERENCE LETTER FOR STEVEN P MORRISSEY

Morrissey is applying to your graduate program and has asked me to write a letter of recommendation. I am quite happy to do so.

My interaction with Morrissey is limited to one course during the Spring term last year, Intermediate Hot Science, which he took as part of the requirements for his Science major, and which I taught. Although I cannot say I know him well, I can say with confidence that, unlike others who are just a hatful of hollow, he is an extraordinarily serious person.

I will be frank and say that my course is a difficult, quantitative, and rigorous class. Nevertheless, although not the top student in this or, likely, any class, Morrissey never seemed to lose the thread of my lectures, which are all very rigorous, despite his propensity to stare blankly at his shoes during class. Furthermore, he persevered in the course despite enduring an unusual personal tragedy; his girlfriend was in a coma for much of the term.

Based on my limited interaction with Morrissey, I would say that his main shortcoming, which might be overcome in a highly structured graduate program, is that he tends to be rather pessimistic. For example, when he asked me if I remembered him from the course last year and if so, would I be willing to write this letter, he said (and I quote): “I don't mind if you forget me. Having learned my lesson, I never left an impression on anyone.” In Morrissey’s case, this apparent pessimism might actually be an unusual form of modesty, as he has also been known to state “I’ll never be anybody’s hero”. I believe he also sings well.

In writing this letter, I find, much to my surprise, that Morrissey has become a central part of my mind’s landscape, at least for the moment. I take that as a positive sign of the strong impression that this young man makes on people who encounter him. Whether that is an indicator of success in graduate school is anyone’s guess at this point, but I strongly encourage you to admit him to your graduate program anyway. Even if you come to regret the enormous investment in time and money involved in trying to foster the graduate career of a dysfunctional person, I have no doubt that you will find the experience an interesting one.

I apologize for the possible lateness of this letter relative to your deadline. When Morrissey gave me the information for submitting the letter, he was vague about when it is due, saying only "How soon is now?", which I prefer to interpret as a profound rhetorical question rather than sarcasm.

Sincerely,

Theo Smiths
Bob R. and Sheila C. McTruffle Professor of Rigorous Science


*******

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is a strong endorsement of Student X, who is applying to your graduate program. Student X has enormous potential for creative graduate study, and in fact has already amply demonstrated many important skills required for success in graduate research in Science.

My first indication that Student X was special came when I was supervising him in a research project to test the hypothesis that cats are more likely to sleep on top of a warm radiator than on a tray of ice cubes. Student X not only did the assigned tasks in a competent and cheerful way, but also moved the research in new and exciting directions by proposing that we include a variety of felines in our study; in our original plan, we proposed to confine our research subjects to orange tabbies.

Student X continued to exceed my expectations in every way. On numerous occasions I expected Student X to quit, whine, stare at me with an incredulous and/or sullen expression, or start writing a hostile post to his blog when I proposed what many would consider an unreasonable task or deadline, but his response instead was to get right to work, in some cases whistling a tune that surely was of his own invention. And if that wasn’t proof enough that Student X has got what it takes to do mindless tasks for years on end without complaining, consider this: Student X does not have an iPhone and does not even want one.

Student X presented the results of her research at the recent Thermofelinics conference, is intensely focused and motivated, and has outstanding communication skills (including writing!). In sum, Student X is the kind of person you want in your graduate program.

Morris Boltzmann
Professor

(note from FSP: I tried to slip this one past the FSP Editorial Board, without success, so I might as well confess that I wrote it. And the Morrissey one. But that's all, just those two.)

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LorR Results, continued

The following are apparently real Letters of Reference, but I think they are worth including here for their entertainment and/or horror value:

REAL LoR 1 (from "seat-of-the-pants scientist"):

XX is a student in my lab. She has made progress this year.

REAL LoR 2:

APPLICANT may be mediocre but her personal problems make it impossible to tell.

MOSTLY REAL LoR 3:

Marc X is a student whose self-perception of achievement is inversely proportional to his actual skill level. He is incapable of teamwork and unable to understand criticisms of his own work. I have had to put up with him in three classes. He likes to ask questions that he thinks demonstrates his superior understanding of the course material. He has an issue with handing in work on time and has had to hand in a second term paper in one of the classes, as the first one was a gross plagiarism. He particularly requested that I give him this letter of recommendation, although I twice said that I didn't think that this would be a good idea. We will be glad to see him graduate, just to get him out of our hair.
EuropeanFemaleScienceProfessor

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Letter of Reference Contest Results

Below is the unanimous choice of the FSP Editorial Board for our favorite of the Letter of Reference Contest submissions. The letter, written by Wendy Panero, has some of the classic elements of the LoR genre: a strong recommendation that is not backed up by anything in particular in the text of the letter, which was written based on little information.

To Whom It Might Possibly Concern:

I hope you accept the letter even through it comes two weeks after your deadline.

I would like to give Susie Student my highest possible recommendation for Your Program. She told me yesterday she was planning to apply, and since she begged me and said she gave me a really good teaching review, I agreed to write the letter.

Susie took my class, Introductory Rock Appreciation, this quarter. She earned a C, but I gave her a B- when she told me that the only reason she did so badly on the final was that her grandma died. Susie is among the top half of the students I have encountered here in my two quarters teaching at Massive State University, so I really would have enjoyed seeing Susie’s full potential in this class. She was working as a dog sitter for much of the quarter, however, so that took her attention from rock appreciation. While clearly disappointed that the course addressed actual rocks rather than the music she expected when she enrolled in the class, she did attend class most days.

I know Susie Student is an excellent match for Your Program.

Signed,

Super Junior Faculty Member
Department of Inferiority Studies
Massive State University
Middle of the Country, USA


more tomorrow.. and the next day..

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The Ring Nebula - Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory

The Ring Nebula - Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory

The diversity of colours, shapes, and sizes of planetary nebulae make them fascinating objects. In this photo release Calar Alto presents a rather unique view combining both optical and near-infrared data of the Ring Nebula (M57). ...

Planetary nebulae represent the final stage in the evolution of stars whose masses are smaller than eight times that of the Sun. The approach of the final energy crisis that marks stellar old age transforms the star into a red giant whose stellar winds fill their surroundings with a thin envelope composed mainly from hydrogen gas.

Ring Nebula (M57) – click for 1600×1169 image

More: here, here

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LoR Week

To get everyone in the mood for the theme of this week: Letters of Reference (for graduate school applications), consider first the dreaded Ranking Form that accompanies many such Letters of Reference.

Starting tomorrow I will post the results of the Letter of Reference contest.

**********
REFEREE FORM

Please rate the applicant to the best of your ability, making it clear what your frame of reference is (examples: all students you have ever known; students who took a certain course that you have taught at least 7 times; students who fit certain arbitrary biophysical parameters that you believe are significant even if this indicates something quite negative about you, not the candidate; etc.). In the space below, please also indicate how long and in what capacity you have known the candidate.

In your numerical rating, use the following categories:

Top 1%, top 2.5%, top 5%, top 8%, top 8.5%, top 10%, top 25%, top 50%, lower 50%, lower 25%, lowest of the low and/or scum of Earth.

Research ability:
Intellectual ability:
Scholarly capacity:
Ability to form thoughts:
Creative skills:
Capacity for innovative work and/or thought:
Potential for deep thought:
Ability to work independently but not too independently:
Ability to work well with others:
Ability to work well with a diverse group of people:
Social skills in a variety of academic settings and pubs:
Ability to express ideas in spoken form:
Ability to express ideas in written form:
Ability to express ideas using appropriate images and color schemes:
Clarity of thought:
Motivation:
Depth of commitment to chosen field of study:
Level of focus:
Depth of focus:
Degree of focus:
Quantitative skills:
Qualitative skills:
Analytical skills:
Graphical skills:
Ethical standards:
Integrity:
Morals:
Leadership:
Followership:
Maturity:
Emotional stability:
Knowledge in chosen field of study:
Knowledge of world geography:
Can he/she spell?
Potential to be a good teacher/TA:
Overall recommendation:

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Planting seeds of science interests in kids of all ages

Let’s say you’re the parent/mentor/teacher/tutor/friend of a kid super-excited about some aspect of science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). You want to nurture that interest and keep that child engaged, especially during the dull times of school breaks, after-school and perhaps even for school-related projects. Whether you’re an educator or not, sometimes an adult needs reinforcements to help a child or teen find his/her own interest path.

Fostering science, math, and engineering interests in young people is the goal of several organizations, including many of our nation’s publicly funded agencies like NASA and NSF. Informal science education programs and institutions run the range. Some supplement traditional K-12 education lessons. Some provide opportunities for families to spend time together, learning, exploring, and having fun. And still there are some that specifically target under-served audiences to introduce them to pioneers and exciting career opportunities.

STEM Outreach Programs that rock!

2009 was definitely the year science initiatives! It was hailed as
* The Year of Science – with each month focusing on a different science topic;
* The Year of the Gorilla – to raise awareness of the threat of extinction to this beautiful primate;
* The Year of Darwin – to celebrate the 200th year of Charles Darwin’s birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of his book; and
* The Year of Astronomy – to celebrate one of the oldest fields of science

To help spread the word of these science initiatives, Science Cafes really took off, especially here in the United States. Often hosted at fun meeting places like restaurants where pizza and beverages are served, people can meet local scientists and learn about interesting topics. Since local communities organize these events, the topics might be related to science initiatives or any other hot topic in the news like sports, herbal medicine, love or health.

But my absolute favorite science outreach efforts are the hands-on organically-grown science and nature outreach programs in individual communities. Here in St. Louis, Missouri, I’ve been involved in a few. My most recent experience was this past summer in the Forest Park Summer Youth Program with Boys & Girls Club kids.

Ocean Discovery Institute of San Diego, California, (formerly Aquatic Adventures) is an awesome program! Diverse young people from this very urban community are engaged in science exploration marine research, and environmental conservation education. This happens to be one of my dream jobs.

Plus, the 2010 San Diego Science Festival sounds like it will be the most anticipated science showcase of greater San Diego. Offering a wide variety of programs and events inspire all ages, “with a special focus on building a pipeline of future scientists and STEM thought-leaders” – festivities include supplemental K-12 Programs, Scientist Speakers series at local schools, a science Exposition, and Scientists in Residence Program. College student scientists represented from disciplines such as Biomedicine, Pharmacology, Engineering, Green Technology, Oceanography, and Astrophysics will work in partnership with San Diego county schools for 6 weeks and create joint project that will be showcased in the 2010 Festival.

Science Chicago hosted the world’s largest science celebration. Being the home of several private businesses like Alberto Culver and institutions like the Shedd Aquarium, all of Chicago had a chance to get a closer look into how science impacts our lives and our health.

I recently discovered ME4E – Multidisciplinary Education for the Environment – also out of the Chicago, Illinois. This organization provides outdoor hands-on activities for schools, scouts, and public groups to learn more about ecology and local wildlife. They seem to have a full calendar of events such as bird counts, wildlife watching, making cast of animal tracks, wetlands and woodlands lesson plans, and urban gardening programs.

The Harris Foundation Summer Science Camp is a free, academic program offered in over 20 different cities in the United Sates. Middle school students participate in a variety of recreational, social, and STEM educational activities at local college campuses. Founded by Dr. Bernard Harris, it is designed to support historically underserved and underrepresented students with limited opportunities.
Finally, no matter where you live, here is a program for any student in 3rd- 6th grade. Pulse of the Planet Kid’s Science Challenge is a nationwide competition for kids to submit experiments and problems for REAL scientists and engineers to solve. The website is also a fun place to play science games, watch videos, and enter to win awesome prizes and trips! Plus, the site also offers educator resources for teachers and parents, such as pod casts and downloadable curricula.

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Selected readings 12/25/09

Interesting reading and news items.

These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account.

The Psychology of Climate Change Denial

Even as the science of global warming gets stronger, fewer Americans believe it’s real. In some ways, it’s nearly as jarring a disconnect as enduring disbelief in evolution or carbon dating. And according to Kari Marie Norgaard, a Whitman College sociologist who’s studied public attitudes towards climate science, we’re in denial. “Our response to disturbing information is very complex. We negotiate it. We don’t just take it in and respond in a rational way,” said Norgaard. [Wired.com, 12/9/09]

Immune System vs. Cancer

The comeback of an old idea in immunology prompts a rethink of cancer progression and approaches to treatment. [The Scientist, 11/1/09]

How epigenetics is changing our fight with disease

Sequencing the human genome was supposed to answer our questions about the genetic origins of disease but the burgeoning science of epigenetics is telling us it's a whole lot more complicated. [ABC Science, 10/1/09]

Accelerators and Light Sources of Tomorrow (Part 1: From Linacs to Lasers)

From their humble beginnings as offshoots of the ordinary electric light bulb, particle accelerators have evolved in surprising directions. Among the most productive and promising developments have been light sources, first in the form of electron storage rings -- of which the Advanced Light Source is the world's premier source of soft x-rays -- and increasingly as versatile and sophisticated free electron lasers, the next generation of light sources now being studied at Berkeley Lab. [Physorg.com, 12/22/09]

Accelerators and Light Sources of Tomorrow (Part 2: Accelerating with Light)

Accelerators are far from achieving the highest energies their builders aspire to, but size and cost may limit the kinds of facilities funding agencies can support. In the future, new kinds of machines will be needed to make further progress. Perhaps the most promising is the laser plasma accelerator. [Physorg.com, 12/22/09]

Stars Fueled by Dark Matter Could Hold Secrets to the Universe

The first stars in the universe may have been very different from the stars we see today, yet they may hold clues to understanding some of the mysterious features of the universe. These "dark stars," first theorized in 2007, could grow to be much larger than modern stars, and would be powered by dark matter particles that annihilate inside them, rather than by nuclear fusion. [Physorg.com, 11/3/09]

Like built-in GPS, brain maps help you find your way home

Scientists have long known that a small, seahorse-shaped region in the brain, the hippocampus, contains neurons called "place cells" that specialize in geography. In recent years, working mostly with laboratory rats, they've discovered additional types of neurons in or near the hippocampus known as "grid cells," "head-direction cells" and "border cells." Taken together, "these cells form a map of the environment," said Edvard Moser, a leading expert on brain mapping. [McClatchy, 10/30/09]

Herschel Space Observatory sees stars being born

Peering into the heart of a dust-covered stellar nursery, a new infrared observatory has spied some 700 stars in the making. At the moment, the soon-to-be stars are just clumps of dust and gas. But about 100 of the clumps are protostars, embryonic bodies about to initiate nuclear fusion at their cores and become bona fide stars. The other 600 objects are less mature but will ultimately develop into new stars. [Science News, 12/21/09]

Building a Search Engine of the Brain, Slice by Slice

Brain dissection is a craft that goes back centuries and has helped scientists to understand where functions like language processing and vision are clustered, to compare gray and white matter and cell concentrations across different populations and to understand the damage done in ailments like Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. [New York Times, 12/21/09]

Search for extraterrestrial life gains momentum around the world

The instruments, the initial phase of the planned 350-dish Allen Telescope Array, are designed to systematically scan the skies for radio signals sent by advanced civilizations from distant star systems and planets. Fifty years after it began -- and 18 years since Congress voted to strip taxpayer money from the effort -- the nation's search for extraterrestrial intelligence is alive and growing. [Washington Post, 12/22/09]

Starring Intelligent Aliens

When scientists search the heavens for habitable worlds beyond Earth, they don't necessarily know what to look for. A new study has found that the most probable place to find intelligent life in the galaxy is around stars with roughly the mass of the sun, and surface temperatures between 5,300 and 6,000 Kelvin (9,100 and 10,300 degrees Fahrenheit) - in fact, stars very similar to our own sun. [Physorg.com, 11/5/09]

Old discovery could bring new cancer therapies

The reason for cancer cells’ peculiar metabolism - and the question of whether it plays a key role in driving cancer - remained largely mysterious to scientists. Over the past few years, however, biochemistry research has led to a resurgence of interest in cancer cell metabolism - the ways in which cancer cells generate energy to function and grow. [Boston Globe, 12/21/09]

At a Mine’s Bottom, Hints of Dark Matter

An international team of physicists working in the bottom of an old iron mine in Minnesota said Thursday that they might have registered the first faint hints of a ghostly sea of subatomic particles known as dark matter long thought to permeate the cosmos. [New York Times, 12/17/09]

Two events hint at impact of dark matter particles

Two talks from members of the CDMS consortium, which runs a detector designed to spot the presence of a likely dark matter candidate, have indicated that they've spotted two events that bear the signatures of something called a neutralino, a hypothesized particle that has many of the properties of dark matter. With only two of these detections, however, there's still a 23 percent chance that random background events produced the signals. [Ars technica, 12/17/09]

Researchers show off functional single-molecule transistor

As semiconductor manufacturers continue to push down the size of their products' wiring, a number of research labs have started looking into whether they can simply take the process to its logical conclusion: a transistor made from a single molecule. A number of these items have been demonstrated, and they do manage to control the current flow through the molecular transistor, but they do so through a variety of tricks that have nothing in common with the methods used for the semiconductors in our electronics. In today's issue of Nature, an international team reports producing the first voltage-gated molecular transistors. [Ars technica, 12/23/09]

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Psychic killer qu'est-ce que c'est?

The service described in the upper right of this sign is a bit chilling, no?

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Merry Christmas Happy Birthday

According to Google, I remain at the top of the page for the phrase "Christmastime birthday". That's nice, and I am also strangely pleased that the little blurb that appears with the googled phrase is:

In fact, I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for the creator of "For Your Christmas Time Birthday" cards.

Although that sentiment is a bit extreme, it sort of captures the mood of how I used to feel about my birthday, which was seen as an inconvenience by some members of my family.

For a professor, though, it is a truly excellent time of year to have endless celebrations. The grades are in, the "I can't possibly have gotten a grade other than A" e-mails from students have subsided, and the next term is not looming too considerably large quite yet.

I will be traveling and relaxing and recreating and working intermittently on a proposal and some papers, will post an interesting but disturbing photo tomorrow, and otherwise will be back with the results of the Letter of Reference* contest in a week or so.


* Don't forget to send your entries to me by email (femalescienceprofessor@gmail.com) on or before 24 December.

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Hubble Image Showcases Star Birth in M83, the Southern Pinwheel

Hubble Image Showcases Star Birth in M83, the Southern Pinwheel

The spectacular new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83.

Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus. The sharp "eye" of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiants.

M83 – click for 995×1000 image

More: here, here

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Christmas Wish List

Happy Holidays,

Today is Winter Soltice, the shortest day of the year. Plus, Christmas is coming. I would normally get all excited heading home to see my family and seeing friends to celebrate New Year's Eve, but I've been pre-occupied. I am really cranking out the dissertation. That's why I've been a little quiet. My goal is the finish the whole thing by this Thursday, December 24th. Chapters one and two are done. These two chapters are the meatier of the manuscripts. Chapters three and four are lighter because I could not reject any of my hypotheses. That's not so bad, it happens sometimes. It just makes the discussion of the results short. There's not much to say, if not much happened. I need to write the Discussion for chapter 3. Chapter 4 is half done, just a little jumbled now. But I feel confident I can meet my deadline.

So my first Christmas wish is to be highly productive and proficient. I want to complete my manuscripts with no major over-hauls requested by my advisor or committee.

Everything else is just sweet bonus, but these T-shirts caught my eye.

AAAS was offering a free T-shirt with a year's subscription to Science Magazine. This one is about completing the dissertation. This is SO me right now. I have a subscription and I think it's good until next year (but now that I think about it, I'm not sure when it expires). So a gift subscription would be sweet, too.

This is another free T-shirt offered by AAAS with a subscription to Science Magazine. This one is about explaining your research at a party. I've actually done everything diagramed in the T-shirt except puppet show. Sweet idea! I think hand puppets of voles would actually make a pretty good props for my general public presentaions. I don't know if both shirts are beign offered, but I like both equally.

This next selection is just too sweet. Since I rock a big fro, I thought I this shirt might be perfect for me to wear - along with my picked out globe of hair at Science Online 2010. I came across it on Uncle Funky's Daughter Natural hair Salon & Boutique by way of Fly Girl Blog. By the way, their curly hair products looke divine, so while I'm wishing, I might as well go big. I'd love some Curly Magic - Curl Stimulator, as well as moisturizing cleanser and conditioning styling creme.

Finally, I'm always willing to accept the generic gift of kindness. If you feel so inclined, then please donate to your heart's content and wallet's capacity.

Happy Winter Soltice!

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Selected readings 12/20/09

Interesting reading and news items.

These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account.

Mammogram Math

The panel of scientists advised that routine screening for asymptomatic women in their 40s was not warranted and that mammograms for women 50 or over should be given biennially rather than annually. The response was furious. Fortunately, both the panel’s concerns and the public’s reaction to its recommendations may be better understood by delving into the murky area between mathematics and psychology. [New York Times, 12/10/09]

Introns: A mystery renewed

The sequences of nonsense DNA that interrupt genes could be far more important to the evolution of genomes than previously thought. ... Scientists say introns are inserted into the genome far more frequently than current models predict. The scientists also found what appear to be "hot spots" for intron insertion -- areas of the genome where repeated insertions are more likely to occur. And surprisingly, the vast majority of intron DNA sequences the scientists examined were of unknown origin. [Indiana University, 12/10/09]

Science at the petascale: Roadrunner supercomputer results unveiled

The world's fastest supercomputer, Roadrunner, at Los Alamos National Laboratory has completed its initial "shakedown" phase doing accelerated petascale computer modeling and simulations of a variety of unclassified, fundamental science projects. [Physorg.com, 10/26/09]

Scientists use world's fastest supercomputer to model origins of the unseen universe

Understanding dark energy is the number one issue in explaining the universe, according to Salman Habib, of the Laboratory's Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group. ... The model is one of the largest simulations of the distribution of matter in the universe, and aims to look at galaxy-scale mass concentrations above and beyond quantities seen in state-of-the-art sky surveys. [Physorg.com, 10/26/09]

A Delicate Balance of Sexual Identity

The difference between male and female is smaller than one might think--at least on a cellular level. Researchers have found that they can change ovary cells into testicular cells in mice by turning off a single gene. The discovery provides new insights into the evolution of sex differences. [ScienceNOW, 12/10/09]

One gene keeps ovaries female

Knocking down a single gene in an adult mouse makes ovaries develop the characteristics of a male gonad and produce testosterone, according to a study published today (December 10th) in Cell. The study suggests that the signal is required to maintain the female phenotype throughout adulthood. [The Scientist, 12/10/09]

How a new muon experiment can advance physics

In recent years, particle physicists have increasingly turned their attention to finding physics beyond the Standard Model description of the building blocks of matter and how they interact. ... Many theories exist to explain the origins of suspected “new physics” and extensions to the Standard Model, the current theoretical framework.A new Fermilab-based experiment, the Muon-to-Electron Conversion experiment, or Mu2e, could shine light on those gray areas. [Symmetry Breaking, 12/9/09]

New evidence links sirtuins and life extension

Ever since he first discovered the lifespan-extending effects of proteins called sirtuins 15 years ago, MIT Professor Leonard Guarente has been accumulating evidence to demonstrate a link between sirtuins and the effects of calorie restriction on lifespan. [MIT News, 12/15/09]

Higgs in space: Orbiting telescope could beat the LHC

Evidence for the Higgs boson could be pouring down upon us from deep space. If so, an orbiting space telescope could upstage the Large Hadron Collider in the search for the elusive particle. [New Scientist, 12/14/09]

P vs. NP -- The most notorious problem in theoretical computer science remains open

In a 2002 poll, 61 mathematicians and computer scientists said that they thought P probably didn’t equal NP, to only nine who thought it did — and of those nine, several told the pollster that they took the position just to be contrary. But so far, no one’s been able to decisively answer the question one way or the other. Frequently called the most important outstanding question in theoretical computer science, the equivalency of P and NP is one of the seven problems that the Clay Mathematics Institute will give you a million dollars for proving — or disproving. [Physorg.com, 10/29/09]

Study: Earth's polar ice sheets vulnerable to even moderate global warming

A new analysis of the geological record of the Earth's sea level, carried out by scientists at Princeton and Harvard universities and published in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature, employs a novel statistical approach that reveals the planet's polar ice sheets are vulnerable to large-scale melting even under moderate global warming scenarios. Such melting would lead to a large and relatively rapid rise in global sea level. [Physorg.com, 12/16/09]

High testosterone linked to miserly behaviour

If you're looking to haggle, steer clear of big, beefy salesmen. The same hormone responsible for their brawn may also reduce their generosity, new research suggests. "Our broad conclusion is that testosterone causes men essentially to be stingy," says Karen Redwine, a neuro-economist at Whittier College in California. [New Scientist, 10/26/09]

A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at Its Task

People talk of getting their “dopamine rush” from chocolate, music, the stock market, the BlackBerry buzz on the thigh — anything that imparts a small, pleasurable thrill. Familiar agents of vice like cocaine, methamphetamine, alcohol and nicotine are known to stimulate the brain’s dopamine circuits, as do increasingly popular stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin. [New York Times, 10/26/09]

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Why Even Care?

When discussing issues about teaching and teaching evaluations, there are always comments along the lines of:

- Why would a tenured full professor care about these things?

and

- Why even read teaching evaluations if they are so flawed?

The first part is easy to explain. Many professors at major research universities care about teaching. I am by no means alone in this respect. Getting tenure is a huge relief, but it doesn't stop us from caring about being good teachers and caring about whether our students learn what we try to teach them.

But why care about teaching evaluations? That question has a less obvious answer, in part because there are many possible answers. Speaking only for myself, I suppose I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I mine teaching evaluations for whatever useful information they might give me about how a course went and I look for clues as to what worked and what didn't. Even for courses that I teach many times, I change things from year to year, and I am interested in new input each time.

Furthermore, although I am a full professor who has been teaching reasonably well for decades, my teaching evaluations are examined as part of a post-tenure review process. At many universities, every professor is evaluated every year or so for research-teaching-service activities. When there is money available and university/union policies permit, the evaluation is used to determine merit raises. These are primarily based on research, but not entirely. You can get a merit raise for being an outstanding researcher and a mediocre teacher, but the raises become smaller or non-existent if teaching performance is dismal.

The evaluation of my teaching evaluations may also be considered as one component of the Chair's decisions about what I will teach.

Furthermore, some of my committee work involves evaluating professors who have been nominated for awards. Some awards are entirely for research, some are entirely for teaching, and some are for 'scholar-teachers' (or 'teacher-scholars'). For any award involving teaching, we look at teaching evaluations as one component of our deliberations, no matter how senior the professor.

Teaching evaluations never go away. You can ignore your own if you want, but if there are going to be people scrutinizing mine and making decisions about me, I want to know what is in them. If I am going to revise a course in format or content, I want to have some indication of what the students thought about the course.

Even my colleagues who are more interested in research than in teaching and who would be content to teach only 1 course/year nevertheless care a lot about the quality of their teaching. I know there are uncaring professors out there who would just as soon not teach at all and spend as little time as possible on their classes, but, as I've said many times before, I have only encountered a few of these. They may loom large to the students who are unfortunate enough to encounter them in a classroom and they may be favorite characters for the media to skewer when writing about research universities, but I am convinced they are a small and dwindling population.

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Hubble's Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies

Hubble's Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made the deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are galaxies that formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. No galaxies have been seen before at such early times. The new deep view also provides insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the universe's history.

The image was taken in the same region as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), which was taken in 2004 and is the deepest visible-light image of the universe. Hubble's newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) collects light from near-infrared wavelengths and therefore looks even deeper into the universe, because the light from very distant galaxies is stretched out of the ultraviolet and visible regions of the spectrum into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the universe.

Very early galaxies – click for 1280×1113 image

More: here

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Letters of Reference: The Contest

At about this time last year, we here at FSP had a contest to see who could write the best (= worst) Statement of Purpose to accompany an application to graduate school. The winning entry was spectacular in many ways, and other entries were also entertaining and/or scary.

This year, I would like to have a contest to see who can write the best (= worst) Letter of Reference for a student applying to graduate school. Letters of reference in general have a certain.. sameness to them, but letters of reference for students applying to graduate school have some special aspects to them, especially when written by a professor who doesn't really know the students particularly well.

The challenge is to capture that certain something about letters of reference, but feel free to let your creativity run wild in unexpected and horrifying ways.

There are no rules.

But there are a few instructions:

- Send your entry to me by email (femalescienceprofessor@gmail.com) with the subject heading clearly labeled as an entry to the LoR (Letter of Reference) contest.

- Deadline: 24 December 2009

Entries will be examined by the highly caffeinated FSP Editorial Board and results will be announced before the expiration of 2009.

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What To Do?

Doctoral students work hard for a few to >> a few years, focusing intently on research and, at many US universities, on taking classes for the first few years. It is an intense time, and for many it is a very stressful time, in part because there may be uncertainty as to whether there will be (appealing) job opportunities at the end of all the years of graduate study.

Graduate students and postdocs in science, engineering, and math have an array of possible career paths, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out what is the best option. Although some doctoral students know from the beginning that they want an academic career, some are less sure about this. Those who are uncertain are not necessarily less dedicated to education and are not destined to be lousy teachers.

Whether or not a grad student's career goal involves academia, many graduate students are teaching assistants for some or all of their time in graduate school. In the sciences, this typically means teaching labs or leading discussion sections. Being a TA is an introduction to teaching, but it isn't sufficient preparation for many who later become professors.

Some universities offer courses or workshops for graduate students and postdocs who are considering an academic career. Some of these courses also discuss aspects of acquiring a job, and some are devoted to teaching preparation (writing a syllabus, the mechanics of teaching). These courses are useful, but, again, are not sufficient preparation for teaching an entire class as a professor.

Considering these constraints and issues -- that doctoral students do need to focus quite a lot on research during their graduate studies and do not necessarily know that they want a career involving teaching -- is there a better way to prepare doctoral students and postdocs to be professors who both teach and do research? Being better prepared to teach would benefit both professors and students.

For now, let’s not worry about money or institutional resistance to dramatic changes or other major obstacles to reforming the system and consider whether there are ways in which we can reform graduate education to better prepare future faculty for the teaching component of their jobs. The money aspect is of course important because time = money, and adding teaching training would add time. Who would pay for this? How much would it cost? Let us ignore those questions for now.

If time/money were not issues, graduate students who wanted to prepare for academic positions could get more teaching experience, not just as teaching assistants in labs, but also as student-teachers responsible for the lecture component of a course (with close mentoring by an experienced faculty member), and eventually as instructors of a course (with some but less intense mentoring by a faculty member).

This would not be mandated, but it would need to be made clear that participating in such training is important for those considering an academic career. There would need to be a well-developed program of graduate advising that provided students with the information they needed to make informed decisions about this, and there would need to be departmental oversight so that advisors did not get to decide whether or not their advisees participated in such a system. There would need to be higher-level oversight of departments to make sure that grad students weren't simply being used as cheap teaching labor but were participating in a carefully organized career development program.

To learn to teach, you have to teach. I personally do not believe that courses that focus on pedagogical techniques are particularly useful. I have participated in teaching workshops and have found them to be quite useless, perhaps because these particular workshops were led by people who had absolutely no experience teaching the kinds of courses I teach in the type of environment in which I teach them and who were willing to toss out most course content in order to “teach students to think”. I'm all for teaching students to think, but I would also like to give them interesting things to think about.

But this is not a teaching workshop rant. I mention it here to explain why I am not proposing that grad students rush over to the education department/college and start taking courses there. And I hasten to add that I have colleagues in the education department, that I have worked with them on developing teaching modules, and that I am not totally against education specialists. I have, however, had some bad teaching workshop experiences.

In any case, in this unrealistic no-money-worries system, the teaching component would be an integrated aspect of graduate school, not something tacked on at the end. Professors have to balance their time between research and teaching (and other things), and it is important to learn some successful strategies for doing this. The current sink-or-swim approach of seeing which new professors will make it through tenure with their sanity, health, and families intact is not a great one. An integrated research-teaching experience in grad school or during a postdoc would also emphasize that teaching is not an afterthought or just something else we professors have to do so that we can focus on something more important.

This system would not be easy to implement because an instructor needs to convey confidence and must have the respect of the students, so the faculty mentors would have to be selected carefully and would have to know when to intervene and when to hold back, both for the good of the proto-professor’s training and for the good of the students in the class. The educational needs of the undergraduates in these classes are paramount, otherwise we are not replacing our current flawed system of letting inexperienced professors loose on undergrads with a better system.

I once offered to team-teach with, or somehow mentor, an assistant professor who was struggling with teaching. When I discussed this with the Chair, he said "If you have time to do that, you have time to teach the entire class yourself." He assigned the (large intro) class to me and gave the struggling assistant professor a break from teaching. This made me reluctant to volunteer to do such things in the future. In my hypothetical new system, mentoring activities would be factored into a senior professor's work load and would be valued by the department and the university.

I also think that such a system could be implemented without adding a substantial amount of time to a typical graduate program, but it would add some time. To pay for that time, funding agencies and universities would need to put more money behind so-called "broader impacts" involving graduate training.

- The importance of teaching, even at a research university, must be conveyed to graduate students and postdocs considering an academic career and must be emphasized during the faculty hiring process;

- Careful mentoring of professor in their first year, including peer evaluation of teaching, involvement in any on-campus teaching training that is deemed useful by the department, and possibly team-teaching with a sympathetic and helpful senior professor

- New professors should not be hurled into large introductory level courses unless they already have some experience with such courses.

Please evaluate this post by placing a check mark in one of the spaces below with a No. 2 pencil. Do not make stray marks.

The writer of this post seems like a person who might give me an A if I took a course from her.

_ Fervently agree because I am an A student and I would deserve that A.
_ Agree to some extent but I don't really want to commit other than being mildly positive.
_ Don't really have an opinion even though that indicates that I am a lame, spineless person.
_ Rabidly disagree because she is clearly an unhinged hysteric who hates snakes.

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Do They Know It When They See It?

This post continues with the theme of Teaching Evaluations.

As I've mentioned before, I write not only from the point of view of someone who is evaluated by students for my own classes but also as someone who, in the course of serving on various committees, has spent much time poring over other professor's teaching evaluations. In addition, I team-teach with various faculty, so I see them in action in the classroom once or twice a week for a term, and then compare notes with them later when we see our teaching evaluations.

Teaching evaluations are flawed in many ways and should be viewed carefully, but most students know a disorganized instructor when they see one. A large number of consistent negative comments about technical issues such as a professor's lack of organization during class, missed office hours, classes that go way over the scheduled time, assignments that are turned back very late (or never), and other logistical issues are surely accurate.

I doubt, however, that students can accurately evaluate a professor's level of knowledge, the depth of a professor's interest in being a good teacher and, in some cases, whether a professor means to be as rude as he/she seems.

I do not doubt that there are unambiguous cases of professors being rude and insulting to students. Professors who are deliberately rude to students should face negative consequences for this destructive behavior.

But consider these examples:

I team-teach with a professor who cares about teaching and who treats students with respect. He is not, however, a warm and nurturing person. His lectures are clear, he welcomes questions from students during class and answers all questions in a serious way, he conveys interesting and important information during lectures, and he gives exams and assignments that are fair and relevant to the material presented in class. Is he considered a good professor? Not really. Each term, there are comments in student evaluations that he is "unapproachable" and "arrogant". He gets comments about how just because he is so smart doesn't give him the right to look down on students. I can see how students would find him fierce in some ways, but I have been attending his lectures for years and have never seen him be rude to a student or discourage 'stupid' questions. And he works very well with undergraduate students in his research group. He hates reading his teaching evaluations at the end of each term because it is such a demoralizing experience. Why can't students see through the frowns and appreciate the atmosphere of learning and respect? To me, this is a prime example of flaws in the current system of student evaluation of teaching.

And here is an example of a student who interpreted insulting behavior where there was none: A failing student came to my office to talk about her grade. She was extremely upset, near tears, and convinced there was nothing she could do to get a passing grade. I showed her that her grade to date was within range of passing if she passed the final, or even if she showed improvement over her other exams, and I offered to go over the review questions and sample exam with her, question by question, in person or by email. She did not take me up on this offer, nor did her attendance in class improve. In my teaching evaluations, this student (who provided enough identifying and specific information in her comment so that she was the only possible person who could have written it) wrote that she was extremely insulted by how rude I was to her. Her evidence: When she was so upset about the possibility of failing the class, I smiled at her. My smile indicated that I thought it was funny that she was failing and that I was happy that she would fail. She was outraged about this. I should be fired etc. etc. I suspect that many professors have similar stories.

The difference between these two stories is that, in the first case, there is a consistent pattern of criticism. In the second, the student's negative comment was a hostile outlier in an otherwise positive batch of evaluations. Hostile outliers are painful to read, but they are easier to ignore than the other kind, which can look convincing if they persist over time.

I see many hostile outliers in other professors' teaching evaluations. Unless there are many negative reviews with specific comments, many of us who are professors who evaluate teaching performance, in part by examining teaching evaluations, don't consider the hostile ones as significant.

If there is a consistent pattern, we need more information, and we typically have more information -- in the form of peer evaluations, which tend to be quite comprehensive. Also, in cases where there is a clear lack of respect, there are typically many specific anecdotes. In the case of consistent comments along the lines of "He/she was intimidating" but nothing more specific, it's quite possible that the professor has not done anything overtly disrespectful to the students.

I am already anticipating my teaching evaluations for this term. Overall my classes went well (says me), but there was one student with whom I had a persistent communication problem that bordered on the bizarre at times. Another student in another class was sullen and angry the entire term; apparently not because of anything specific to me or the class, but who knows?

Do others anticipate negative comments from students after a particular incident or conversation? I wish I didn't, but it's hard not to.

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The Strangest Thing

Eventually I will finish a post that contains my thoughts on What Should Be Done to train new professors to teach, but it's not ready to go yet. So, in the meantime, inspired by a comment from Kim, I will ask my readers a question:

What's the strangest thing you have seen in a classroom while teaching?

I don't think I have seen anything too bizarre. I recall one student who needed to have a little stuffed animal on her shoulder during every class. She sat near the front, and I found the scruffy little dog a bit distracting. It just sat there, but for some reason its beady little eyes looked evil to me. [I just made that last part up; I thought the dog-on-shoulder thing was bizarre, but it didn't really bother me.]

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Selected readings 12/13/09

Interesting reading and news items.

These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account.

Massively collaborative mathematics

The 'Polymath Project' proved that many minds can work together to solve difficult mathematical problems. Timothy Gowers and Michael Nielsen reflect on the lessons learned for open-source science. [Nature, 10/15/09]

What Comes After Hard Drives?

The ability to store and retrieve data is an important component of today's computers, as well as other modern electronic devices such as cell phones, video game consoles, and camcorders. Since their invention in the 1950s, magnetic-based hard disk drives (HDDs) have been the primary method of nonvolatile storage. However, researchers are currently developing several new and promising nonvolatile memory (NVM) technologies, but for one of them to replace HDDs within the next decade, it will be a challenge. [Physorg.com, 10/23/09]

Why antidepressants don't work for so many

More than half the people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief. Why? Because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it aim at the wrong target, according to new research from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The medications are like arrows shot at the outer rings of a bull's eye instead of the center. [Physorg.com, 10/23/09]

Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Hallucinations

You don’t need psychedelic drugs to start seeing colors and objects that aren’t really there. Just 15 minutes of near-total sensory deprivation can bring on hallucinations in many otherwise sane individuals. Psychologists stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood. [Wired, 10/21/09]

It's natural to behave irrationally

Psychologists studying the issue say that the now-familiar warnings about climate change kick at emotional dead spots in all human brains -- but especially in American brains. Researchers have only theories to explain why people in the United States have done less than those in such places as Europe and Japan. ... No matter where the public's complacency springs from, psychologists have seen this kind of thing before, Ariely said: "That's why we don't exercise, and we overeat, and we bite our fingernails. . . . It's not something where we're going to overcome human nature." [Washington Post, 12/8/09]

Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock?

Peter Mitchell was an eccentric figure. For much of his career he worked in his own lab in a restored manor house in Cornwall in the UK, his research funded in part by a herd of dairy cows. His ideas about the most basic process of life - how it gets energy - seemed ridiculous to his fellow biologists. [New Scientist, 10/19/09]

Six diseases you never knew you could catch

Twentieth century medicine was phenomenally successful at developing vaccines and antibiotics to fight infectious diseases, taming ancient scourges such as smallpox, tuberculosis and typhoid. In the 1960s and 70s, the prevailing view was that all diseases caused by microorganisms would soon be conquered, leaving only those caused by genetics, unhealthy lifestyles or ageing. That idea now seems naive, not least because of the rise in antibiotic resistance. And there's another reason that no one even considered back then. A growing number of diseases that were thought to be down to genetics or lifestyle turn out to have an infectious origin. [New Scientist, 10/20/09]

Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?

It is still not clear how well general relativity holds up over cosmic scales, at distances much larger than the span of single galaxies. Now the first, tentative hint of a deviation from general relativity has been found. While the evidence is far from watertight, if confirmed by bigger surveys, it may indicate either that Einstein's theory is incomplete, or else that dark energy, the stuff thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, is much weirder than we thought. [New Scientist, 10/21/09]

Timewarp: How your brain creates the fourth dimension

Perhaps the most fundamental question neuroscientists are investigating is whether our perception of the world is continuous or a series of discrete snapshots like frames on a film strip. Understand this, and maybe we can explain how the healthy brain works out the chronological order of the myriad events bombarding our senses, and how this can become warped to alter our perception of time. [New Scientist, 10/21/09]

Seven questions that keep physicists up at night

It's not your average confession show: a panel of leading physicists spilling the beans about what keeps them tossing and turning in the wee hours. That was the scene a few days ago in front of a packed auditorium at the Perimeter Institute, in Waterloo, Canada, when a panel of physicists was asked to respond to a single question: "What keeps you awake at night?" [New Scientist, 10/23/09]

The complex psychology of climate denial

If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it? ... Experts see several explanations for the eagerness with which so many dismiss climate change as overblown or a hoax. [Cosmos Magazine, 12/1//09]

New Model of the Universe Says Past Crystallizes out of the Future

What do you get when the past crystallizes out of the future? According to a new model of the universe that combines relativity and quantum mechanics, the answer is: the present. [Technology Review arXiv blog, 12/8/09]

Rethinking artificial intelligence

The field of artificial-intelligence research (AI), founded more than 50 years ago, seems to many researchers to have spent much of that time wandering in the wilderness, swapping hugely ambitious goals for a relatively modest set of actual accomplishments. Now, some of the pioneers of the field, joined by later generations of thinkers, are gearing up for a massive “do-over” of the whole idea. [MIT, 12/7/09]

Gremlin Fireworks

Why spend billions of euros to smash subatomic particles together? The physicist Frank Wilczek (a colleague of mine at MIT, though we haven’t worked together directly) shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for his contribution to the reigning theory of high-energy physics; his new book gives non-specialist readers a tour of the conceptual landscape. [London Review of Books, 12/17/09]

Secrets of a cancer-free rodent

Researchers have shed light on an unusual resistance to cancer displayed by the naked mole rat, a burrowing, long-lived desert-dwelling rodent. In these animals, a cell growth switch absent in more cancer-prone organisms turns off cell division before cells get too dense, as they would in a tumor. [The Scientist, 10/26/09]

Choosing Sex

The gonad is an amazingly labile organ where male and female signals vie for dominance in the developing embryo. [The Scientist, 10/1/09]

A Little Fellatio Goes a Long Way

Oral sex is surprisingly rare in the animal kingdom. Humans do it, of course. As do bonobos, our close relatives. But now researchers have observed the practice for the first time in a non-primate. During intercourse, female short-nosed fruit bats lick the genitals of their partner, a possible ploy to increase copulation time. The discovery suggests there may be a biological advantage to fellatio. [ScienceNOW, 10/30/09]

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Rage Against the System

Last week's discussion of teaching and teaching evaluations made me reflect more on my own experiences as a student and a professor.

As a student, I only had a few awful professors. When I ended up in a class with a professor who was a poor teacher, I was mostly disappointed rather than enraged about my wasted time or not getting my $'s worth or whatever. I was fortunate that most of these professors were merely inept teachers, not cruel or unfair. I had one cruel and unfair professor (during a year spent studying abroad), and that was more than enough.

I always got something out of a course, even if it was mostly from the reading. I recall one class that was dominated by neurotic students talking about themselves rather than focusing on the reading or general discussion topics. The professor seemed to encourage such behavior, and one day I couldn't take it anymore so I jumped out of the classroom window when the professor's back was turned (the classroom was on the ground floor) and escaped. Even so, I enjoyed the reading for that class and I got a lot out of being exposed to new literature and ideas.

As a professor, I see how hard my colleagues work at teaching (yes, even at a major research university ). And as a professor serving on committees that look at teaching evaluations for individuals over a multi-year period, I know that a common feature of the files of professors who start out as bad teachers is evidence for improvement, steady or dramatic (as discussed last week).

Outrage about uncaring and rude professors is justified, but I don't think that well-meaning but (initially) inept professors should be castigated in the same way. It's not as if every graduate student is encouraged to, or even given the opportunity to, develop teaching skills and somehow declines to do this. In most cases, the opportunities do not exist or are insufficient training for teaching a class as the major instructor. You can blame the system, but it's not fair to blame the graduate students who become the professors who have little teaching experience.

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Group Twitter?

There have been various times in past year or so when a current or recent member of my research group had some excellent and/or interesting professional news -- e.g., a job offer, a grant, a paper accepted/published -- and I have thought "Wouldn't it be great to tell everyone about this?"

Usually I end up mentioning it in an email if I happen to be corresponding with someone no longer in the department, or I tell the good news to current group members when I encounter them in the department.

This is a bit unsatisfying. So, should I set up a group on Facebook or use Twitter?

What are the pros and cons of each? I'd like various members of the group to be able to post their own news, so perhaps Facebook is more versatile that way?

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He Should Be Fired

'Tis the season for teaching evaluations (yet again, yet again), so in the spirit of this special time, I shall continue my intermittent evaluation of evaluations and teaching.

On quite a few occasions in my career, I have been a member of various sorts of evaluating committees that examine the research, teaching, and/or service activities of faculty within and beyond my department. In some cases these committees look at a single year of activity, and in some cases they consider a longer record. The latter cases can be quite fascinating, particularly with respect to an individual's teaching experience, because these multi-year records demonstrate in a dramatic way a very important but not surprising thing:

Most of us start out as not-great teachers.

I can't really defend my use of "most". Perhaps I should use "many", as I have not conducted a systematic study of this, but my impression from years of evaluating teaching evaluations is that "most" is probably correct.

To our students: We are sorry. Most of us don't mean to be lousy teachers when we first become professors.

But here's something cheering: Most of us figure out how to improve our teaching after just 1-2 classes within each level of course.

The worst evaluations I have seen for new professors have been for introductory level classes. Introductory level courses for non-majors at a university may be the most difficult kind of course to teach because of the (typically) large number of students, each with different priorities, interests, and learning styles, and because the physical environment (large lecture hall) may not be conducive to positive interaction between professor and student.

Some professors figure out how to improve their teaching with the aid of teaching development workshops; most figure it out just from experience. Student evaluations are important in the self-improvement effort because if something went really wrong in a course, many students comment on it. I always hope that among all the students writing comments along the lines of "You spent too much talking with your back to us while writing on the board", at least one, at some point during the term made a comment on this so that improvement could be made during the course. In many cases, logistical problems like that disappear from the teaching evaluation comments after 1 term.

In theory, some of us learn how to teach as graduate teaching assistants, but being a TA for a lab or a discussion section is very different from teaching a course, so, although TA experience does help, it's not enough. You have to teach a course to learn how to teach that course well.

So again, to the students: We are sorry, but unlike some other professions in which there is a training process for a major job component, many of us focus on research during our 'training' years and then are tossed in front of a class and expected to know how to deal with the complex logistics of teaching. You would think that, after spending many years sitting in classrooms, a person would know what to do and what not to do, but it doesn't work that way.

In some of my classes, students give presentations. These students are in the process of learning how to communicate clearly and effectively (in part by doing these presentations), but it always amazes me how common it is for them to do the very things that they no doubt hate in their professors: long text-filled slides (that they read), mumbling, lots of ummms, inability to answer questions on the spot, no (obvious) statement of the main point, or poor organization of complex information. Clearly, most of us need practice to learn how to convey information in an effective way to a particular audience.

And, unfortunately, we have a system in which professors practice on a class or two before eliminating some problems.

Years ago, I had a minor surgical procedure during which I noticed that the doctor was becoming agitated. He was also taking a very long time. I started getting nervous so I asked him if everything was going OK. He admitted to me then and there, while holding a knife that had already been used on me, that he had never done this procedure before by himself and it wasn't going as well as he had hoped. I asked, as calmly as I could, if it would be possible for him to get another doctor to help him, and he agreed that this was a good idea. A more senior doctor was sought and finished the procedure. I wasn't too happy about being the young doctor's first solo-surgery experience, but I figured: someone has to be the first patient.

I bet that now, years later, that doctor calmly does these procedures often and well. At least I hope that is the case. It is the case if the doctor analogy is at all applicable to professors whose first solo-teaching experience does not go very well. (The analogy does break down a bit after that, though, so go ahead and send your bitter anti-tenure rants and your "I had a professor who had been teaching for 47 years and was horrible" rants if you really must.)

I chose the description "not-so-great" above because, from what I've seen and read, most of the teaching problems are not course-destroyers. That is, most of us are not total disasters when we first start teaching as professors, and even among those who are, in all but rare cases there is improvement after a term or two.

I empathize with the students who are being practiced upon and who may have emotional scars (much like my little surgical scar that could have been avoided with a more experienced doctor), and I am always impressed by those who write evaluations such as "I know this is your first year teaching and [insert helpful suggestions]."

I even feel sorry for those who feel compelled to write, typically in all-caps: PROFESSOR X SHOULD BE FIRED. These students clearly spent months feeling angry, frustrated, and perhaps afraid of the effects of this awful course on their academic careers. I feel sorry for them, but I wish they could know that the professor needs advice (from both students and other professors) and experience, not firing. Advocating firing a new professor who is learning how to teach is not a very constructive suggestion, although perhaps in extreme cases such dire comments help signal the severity of the problems that need correcting.

That said, if someone has been teaching for many years and/or clearly doesn't care about teaching well and/or or has failed to learn how to communicate effectively and/or does not know how to deal well with student questions and course logistics, then such drastic comments are fair.

But in a professor's first year? No. Even though I appreciate how difficult it is for students who are in that first class of a new professor who is struggling to learn how to teach, I think we should all try to figure out a system that would minimize the painful disasters, try to be patient with annoying-but-not-too-terrible problems, and find constructive ways to make the teaching/learning experience better for faculty and students.

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Mentor v. Supervisor

For various reasons related to my serving on an insane number of committees that review an insane number of CVs from faculty in many different academic disciplines, I see a lot of different CVs that vary considerably in their content and style.

Fortunately, most such committees have diverse membership so that there is almost always someone who can explain certain 'cultural' differences in CVs.

Sometimes, however, no one knows what to make of certain elements of a CV. For example, lately I have been wondering whether there is a difference in meaning as to whether someone "mentors" or "supervises" a postdoc.

Are these synonyms? If so, presumably the word "mentor" is chosen to indicate that the faculty-postdoc interactions involved a range of activities such as one might encounter in the new NSF-mandated postdoc mentoring statement that accompanies proposals that include funding for postdocs?

Or does "mentoring" mean that someone worked with a postdoc who may have acquired their own funding, whereas "supervised" means that the faculty got the funding for an idea they developed in a proposal? In this case, could "mentoring" include a broad range of levels of interaction, from "I gave the postdoc some advice from time to time" to "I was the primary faculty member interacting with this postdoc"?

What started me wondering about this was a CV that involved the "mentoring" of some postdocs, but the "supervising" of others. Without additional information, it's difficult to know what that means. It seems likely that "mentoring" in this case means interacting with postdocs who are funded by some source other than the faculty member's grants, whereas "supervising" means that the faculty member was more involved in the hiring of the postdoc for a particular project.

But I'm not sure. Has anyone used these terms, either as synonyms or as distinct terms implying different types of interaction?

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Stimulate your Brain: STEM Scholarships & Internships

Middle school and High School are the preparation grounds for your future. But what happens after you receive your diploma? Graduating from high school signals the end of your childhood and the beginning of your adult life. This means the start of your journey to independence, bills and responsibilities. Most adults don’t expect you to leave home and be self-sufficient immediately; but you do need to be ready to accept the challenge. It’s never too early to prepare for post-graduation (or too late).

A post-high school education is your best plan for securing a stable future for yourself (Vo-Tech, Community college or university). For those of you interested in a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (STEM), a college education will be order. However, funding a college education is no simple matter. Getting accepted in the school of your dreams is not the end of the story. Financing your education takes planning – the sooner the better. When parents ask me about how to fund their children’s college education I tell them to start right now, even as early as middle school. The Federal Financial Aid form (FAFSA) is a perfect place to t start, but with the cost of education rising faster than inflation and the cost of living, Pell Grants and Students Loans will not be enough. Apply for competitive scholarships throughout middle and high school. If you’re in college, apply for additional scholarships as well as internship and mentoring programs.

Here are some announcements:

1. The Society of Wetland Scientists Diversity Program Undergraduate Mentoring Awards
This professional science society offers full travel awards to undergraduate students to attend its annual meeting. The 2010 meeting will be held June 27 – July 2, 2010 meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Thanks to generous funding by the NSF, undergraduate students from underrepresented groups can receive wetland sciences career mentoring for at the annual meeting. Students must complete an application. In order to maximize the opportunity for interested students to apply, the deadline has been extended to January 30. Visit the website for details and the application.

Students from the 2009 SWS Conference. (This could be you!)

2. The 2010 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
Dr. Anita Borg (1949-2003) devoted her life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling the barriers that keep women and minorities from entering the computing and technology fields.
Google is proud to announce the 2010 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, awarding a group of female students each a scholarship for the 2010-2011academic year. All finalists and scholarship recipients will also be invited to attend a 3-day Scholars' Retreat at the Googleplex in 2010. The Google Anita Borg Scholarship program is available to undergraduate or graduate female students studying computer science (or closely related field) at a university in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, New Zealand and the United States. The candidate must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale or equivalent. Deadline to apply is February 1, 2010. For complete details for this and more scholarships for diverse students, please visit Google Scholarships
h/t Blacks Gone Geek

Additional Scholarships and Fellowships in various disciplines can be found at these sites.
a. The Multicultural Advantage - lists of scholarships and fellowships with upcoming deadlines.
b. Planning and Preparing for College – updates of Scholarships, Internships, and the college application process.

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