A Galactic Spectacle

A Galactic Spectacle (8/5/10)

The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.

The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas.

The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets.

Antennae Galaxies – click for 851×864 image

More: here, here, here

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Raising the Bar

Does anyone else feel that the standards for achieving something -- a position, an award etc. -- change when you accomplish that thing? That is, something that is considered prestigious becomes less so if you achieve it?

From my correspondence and other experiences, I think this may be a common situation for women, and possibly also for minorities: that somehow, by achieving something, that something can't possibly be as significant or special as it used to be.

The question is: How much of this is self-inflicted impostor syndrome at work, and how much of it is a systematic redefining of what is prestigious? -- i.e., by those who really do think that a particular award no longer means what it used to when it was only given to (white) men.

Either answer is troubling, in part because impostor syndrome may stem from the second scenario.

I am going to have an extremely busy day today, although I can't prove it to you by posting my schedule online, but I'd be interested to read anecdotes and other examples of the Continually Raised Bar Effect, and will moderate comments when I can.

These stories can be something from your professional life, or from the rest of your life.

For example: I once went on an extremely strenuous hike, and told someone about it later. That someone (an older man) said "That's strange. I used to think that was a really difficult hike, but it must not be anymore."

Yeah.. right.. maybe they paved a gentle trail and put in escalators and lots of cushioned benches with lemonade stands at strategic places? Or maybe, despite my frail femaleness, I somehow managed to haul myself up and down that mountain anyway?

That's the kind of thing I mean. Does anyone have similar stories?

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Don't Take It Personally

So, how's everyone feeling after the release of the NRC rankings? Did you sit by your computer, waiting for the magic moment when the results appeared on the internet? Or did you torture your department chair (and/or dean) to tell you the results last week, when most of them got a preview of the results? Did you get any gossipy emails before or after from colleagues in programs that were ranked higher (or lower)? Or are you wondering what the NRC is (Nuclear Regulatory Commission? National Ranking Committee?) and why you should care?

My answers: No, I was busy for much of the day until late afternoon; when I had a chance, I read an un-illuminating e-mail from the chair. I knew that he knew the results last week, but I also knew that he would not break under torture, and so I did not try. I did get gossipy emails, mostly before, including from a department chair at another university, but these emails were quite vague so all I knew was that my department would be/should be pleased. National Research Council. I don't know why you should care; I actually don't care if you care, but I'm going to write about the NRC rankings anyway because it was an Event in Academe that happened today.

And in fact my department seems to be reasonably pleased with the results, even though our department has changed in some important ways in the 5 years since the data were collected.

I joined my current department after 1995, so this was the first time the department has been NRC-ranked since I've been here. Of course, other faculty have come and gone since 1995 as well, and these rankings aren't about any particular individual. Nevertheless, to the extent that we semi-care about rankings and to the extent that we can even interpret the new NRC rankings, it's hard not to take such things a little bit personally and hope that our illustrious presence will help our program in some quantifiable way.

As I was thinking about how I feel about rankings as an individual in a program being ranked, I remembered an incident involving a report written by a visiting committee just before I arrived in one of my tenure-track positions. I was hired after the retirement of a professor who had never published much but who was much loved by students and colleagues. I also liked this man very much; he was extremely kind to me as a newly arrived assistant professor, and went out of his way to help me get started.

From my (egotistical) point of view, I believed I was going to be an asset to the department because I was an active researcher and I cared about teaching. Maybe I wouldn't ever be as beloved as Professor X, but I hoped I could contribute to the department and university in some important ways.

I was therefore kind of hurt when the report said that hiring me didn't result in any net gain to the department because I was in the same field as distinguished Professor X, whose retirement was a great loss to the department, and it was too soon to tell if I would amount to anything. Considering that I had already published more than Professor X and was arriving with a grant, I thought they could have been a bit more optimistic about me. Indeed, I kept hearing the phrase "big shoes to fill" whenever someone commented on the fact that I had "replaced" Professor X. It was depressing.

General rankings are less personal, but the publications and scholarly reputation of each of us contribute to the rankings, so it's hard not to take the results somewhat personally, for good or bad.

Of course, there are different ways you can view the results, depending on the results and on your perception of your role in your department relative to your colleagues; for example:

- If the results of the NRC or other ranking of your program are good, you may feel quite good about your contributions to this ranking.

- If the results are not so good, then you have at least two options, assuming that you care enough to have an opinion: (1) You can be annoyed at the flawed methods that resulted in the underestimation of your program; or (2) You can be annoyed that your under-performing colleagues are dragging you down with them.

So which is it? Who is happy/unhappy with the NRC results for their program? (And would you rather have A Specific Number, or do you like the way these new results are presented?)

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Selected readings 9/28/10

Interesting reading and news items.

Please leave some comments that indicate which articles you find most interesting or that identify topics you would like to read about, and I will try to include more articles of a similar nature in the future

These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account.

Convincing a Young Scientist that Dark Matter Exists

So I was in favor of dark matter, but I wasn't entirely convinced. I wanted a "smoking gun" piece of evidence for dark matter. Something that was an entirely new prediction that we could look for -- much like that 1919 eclipse was for general relativity -- and decide whether dark matter predicts what we're going to see. [Starts with a Bang, 6/24/10]

How blind to change are you?

This failure to notice what should be very apparent is something we unconsciously experience every day as our brains filter the barrage of visual information which we are flooded with. And apparently it has a name; it is called change blindness. [BBC News, 6/11/10]

New data suggest a lighter Higgs

New data offer evidence that the heft of the Higgs particle lies somewhere in the low end of the range being probed by particle colliders on two continents. The results also hint that the particle’s mass may be consistent with supersymmetry, a theory that gives every particle in the standard model of physics a much heavier partner. [Science News, 7/26/10]

Jellyfish eye genes suggest a common origin for animal eyes

Jellyfish may seem like simple blobs but some have surprisingly sophisticated features, including eyes. These are often just light-sensitive pits but species like the root-arm medusa have complex ‘camera’ eyes, with a lens that focuses light onto a retina. Not only are these organs superficially similar to ours, they’re also constructed from the same genetic building blocks. [Not Exactly Rocket Science, 7/27/10]

Astronomy and particle physics race to replace Standard Model

If energy issues seem to be attracting the attention of a lot of physicists, the Large Hadron Collider seems to be drawing the attention of many of the rest of them, including people in fields like cosmology, which deals with items on the opposite end of the size scale. In turn, the people working on the LHC and other particle detectors are carefully paying attention to the latest astronomy results, hoping they'll put limits on the properties and identities of the zoo of theoretical particles that need to be considered. [Nobel Intent, 7/28/10]

Genetics tells tall tales

Studies scanning the genomes of tens of thousands of individuals for gene variants associated with height have come up short: around 50 variants have been identified, but together they account for only 5% or so of height's heritability. ... This heritability may not be missing — it may simply be buried deeper than previously thought, in a multitude of genetic variants that have tiny effects individually. [Nature News, 6/20/10]

Dark matter eldorado

Observations confirm that a faint group of stars in the Milky Way’s backyard has the highest density of dark matter — the invisible material thought to account for 83 percent of the mass of the universe — of any galaxy known. [Science News, 7/30/10]

Searching through the LHC data flood for dark matter

Although the Standard Model has needed some minor tweaking to deal with recent observations, Gross said that there are three major issues that suggests it's due for a major overhaul. One of these is that we have convincing evidence that dark matter exists, and comes in the form of particles that are heavy and stable to at least the life of the Universe. Unfortunately, the Standard Model provides nothing that meets these requirements. [Nobel Intent, 8/1/10]

Two New Paths to the Dream: Regeneration

Animals like newts and zebra fish can regenerate limbs, fins, even part of the heart. If only people could do the same, amputees might grow new limbs and stricken hearts be coaxed to repair themselves. But humans have very little regenerative capacity, probably because of an evolutionary trade-off: suppressing cell growth reduced the risk of cancer, enabling humans to live longer. A person can renew his liver to some extent, and regrow a fingertip while very young, but not much more. [New York Times, 8/5/10]

Sponge genes surprise

A complete genetic catalog of the sponge Amphimedon queenslandica suggests that the first animals already had a complex kit of genetic tools at their disposal. Sponges harbor between 18,000 and 30,000 genes — roughly the same number as humans, fruit flies, roundworms and other animals. [Science News, 8/4/10]

Plentiful and Potential Planets

Two planet-hunting telescopes - CoRoT and Kepler - are keeping astronomers hard at work cataloging far-distant planets that orbit other stars in our galaxy. The search for distant planets is essential for astrobiologists who are hunting for habitable, Earth-like worlds beyond our solar system. [Physorg.com, 6/23/10]

World’s Most Intense X-Ray Laser Takes First Shots

The world’s most intense X-ray laser may soon be the fastest strobe-light camera ever. Two of the laser’s first experiments show the device will be able to take snapshots of single molecules in motion — without destroying them first. [Wired Science, 6/30/10]

The origin of life: putting chemistry inside a cell

In Szostak's view, interesting chemistry is easy. He also said that Darwinian evolution also makes things easy, since it's possible to take what you've got and radically improve it. So what's bugging him these days is the transition in between the two. How do you move from interesting chemistry to something that can evolve? He's doing this by trying to engineer a system that can make the transition. [Nobel Intent, 6/28/10]

Why weather != climate: the engine behind climate models

In this article I take a look at climate modeling and in particular why the comment "They can't predict the weather, therefore climate models are not good" is just plain wrong. It represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what climate modelers are trying to achieve, what is achievable and why the weather is unpredictable. [Nobel Intent, 7/9/10]

Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

The habits of mind that our culture has instilled in us from infancy shape our orientation to the world and our emotional responses to the objects we encounter, and their consequences probably go far beyond what has been experimentally demonstrated so far; they may also have a marked impact on our beliefs, values and ideologies. We may not know as yet how to measure these consequences directly or how to assess their contribution to cultural or political misunderstandings. But as a first step toward understanding one another, we can do better than pretending we all think the same. [New York Times, 8/26/10]

Stem Cell Biology and Its Complications

Stem cell biology turned out to be more complicated than they anticipated. Besides the stem cells from embryos, there are so-called adult stem cells found in all tissues but with limited potential because they can only turn into cells from their tissue of origin. And there are these newer cells made by reprogramming mature cells. [New York Times, 8/24/10]

Scientists Square Off on Evolutionary Value of Helping Relatives

For the past 46 years, biologists have used Dr. Hamilton’s theory to make sense of how animal societies evolve. They’ve even applied it to the evolution of our own species. But in the latest issue of the journal Nature, a team of prominent evolutionary biologists at Harvard try to demolish the theory. [New York Times, 8/30/10]

Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

There may be few things more fundamental to human identity than the belief that people are rational individuals whose behavior is determined by conscious choices. But recently psychologists have compiled an impressive body of research that shows how deeply our decisions and behavior are influenced by unconscious thought, and how greatly those thoughts are swayed by stimuli beyond our immediate comprehension. [Time, 7/2/10]

Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits

In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying. The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on. [New York Times, 9/6/10]

Gene networks underlie disease?

An international group of researchers have developed a novel method for identifying entire networks of genes and their association to disease, providing a more accurate picture of the genetic risks associated with specific diseases than single genes can provide. [The Scientist, 9/8/10]

Collider gets yet more exotic 'to-do' list

As if the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) didn't have enough to look for. It is already charged with hunting for the fabled Higgs boson, extra dimensions and supersymmetry, but physicists are now adding even more elaborate phenom­ena to its shopping list — including vanishing dimensions that could explain the accelerating expansion of the Universe. Some argue that signs of new and exotic physics could show up in the LHC far sooner than expected. [Nature News, 7/20/10]

Under Pressure: The Search for a Stress Vaccine

Chronic stress, it turns out, is an extremely dangerous condition. ... While stress doesn’t cause any single disease — in fact, the causal link between stress and ulcers has been largely disproved — it makes most diseases significantly worse. The list of ailments connected to stress is staggeringly diverse and includes everything from the common cold and lower-back pain to Alzheimer’s disease, major depressive disorder, and heart attack. [Wired Magazine, 7/28/10]

Why some memories stick

A study published in Science this week indicates that reactivating neural patterns over and over again may etch items into the memory. People find it easier to recall things if material is presented repeatedly at well-spaced intervals rather than all at once. For example, you're more likely to remember a face that you've seen on multiple occasions over a few days than one that you've seen once in one long period. One reason that a face linked to many different contexts — such as school, work and home — is easier to recognize than one that is associated with just one setting, such as a party, could be that there are multiple ways to access the memory. This idea, called the encoding variability hypothesis, was proposed by psychologists about 40 years ago. [Nature News, 9/9/10]

DNA 'Volume Knobs' May Be Associated With Obesity

When it comes to our expanding waistlines, we usually blame either diet or genes. But a new study fingers a third culprit: chemicals that attach to DNA and change its function. A survey of millions of these modifications has uncovered a handful associated with body mass index, a measure of height and weight. [Science Now, 9/15/10]

Astronomy and particle physics race to replace Standard Model

If energy issues seem to be attracting the attention of a lot of physicists, the Large Hadron Collider seems to be drawing the attention of many of the rest of them, including people in fields like cosmology, which deals with items on the opposite end of the size scale. In turn, the people working on the LHC and other particle detectors are carefully paying attention to the latest astronomy results, hoping they'll put limits on the properties and identities of the zoo of theoretical particles that need to be considered. [Nobel Intent, 7/28/10]

Sizing Up Consciousness by Its Bits

Consciousness, Dr. Tononi says, is nothing more than integrated information. Information theorists measure the amount of information in a computer file or a cellphone call in bits, and Dr. Tononi argues that we could, in theory, measure consciousness in bits as well. When we are wide awake, our consciousness contains more bits than when we are asleep. [New York Times, 9/20/10]

Translating Stories of Life Forms Etched in Stone

The Ediacaran fossils tell us that Darwin was being too generous. Our earliest animal ancestor probably had no head, tail, or sexual organs, and lay immobile on the sea floor like a door mat. [New York Times, 7/26/10]

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Woman of Mystery

Some people are happy to have their daily/weekly schedule posted where it can be seen by everyone or by a particular group, and this can be very useful for organizing meetings and such. For some people, having a viewable schedule is even required as part of their job.

I recognize the practicality of a viewable schedule, but I would never voluntarily and routinely post my schedule other than for the short-term purpose of scheduling a meeting or exam within some specified time frame.

Why not? Some of my reasons are somewhat rational, and some are not. The semi-rational reasons relate to the fact that my schedule is a moving target, with meetings, appointments, and urgent tasks appearing daily. I can set aside time for essential commitments as needed, but the apparent blank spaces on my schedule are not really blank and I don't want any more of them filled in than necessary.

My students can find me when they need to -- my door is almost always open when I am in my office -- and students know they can stop by whenever they have questions or topics to discuss. They don't need to see my schedule.

I can't really explain the irrational reasons (by definition?), but I did have a rather formative, early-career experience that may explain some of it.

One day when I was looking for one of my grad students in his office, which was at one end of a lab room, I saw something that looked like this on a chalkboard near his desk:

Monday/DATE

8:27 AM: FSP arrives in office, checks email
8:42 AM: FSP on phone with colleague X
8:55 AM: FSP at computer/typing
9:00-10:00 AM: FSP teaching (SCI123, room 10)
10:00-10:06 AM: FSP outside classroom, answers question from students
10:06-10:09 AM: FSP talks to Z in office, checks mailbox
10:10 AM: back in office, checks email
10:20 AM: FSP goes to library
10:55 AM: FSP returns (not carrying any books)
etc.

My first thought was: OK... so maybe he was trying to find a time when we could meet (????). As far as I knew, we never had trouble finding a time to chat, so I wasn't sure why the detailed accounting was necessary. I asked him about it, and he said he just liked to keep track of things. I decided not to worry about it. I was more worried about the fact that he was making no progress on his research.

I got more worried when a colleague asked me if I knew that this student spent a lot of time just standing outside my office door, out of my sight, apparently listening to my phone conversations and taking notes.

And then this student, some others, and I visited another research lab for a few days. When we were done and I was checking over the car, I saw an unfamiliar notebook and I opened it to see whose it was. It was my student's, and, on the first page, I saw that he had itemized the things in my suitcase. At some point, he had opened my suitcase while we were traveling, and he had written down what was in it.

When I asked him about this, he said that he was very interested in what it was like to be a professor, and he was accumulating as much information as he could, including what I brought on research trips. He also said that I wasn't doing a good job of being a mentor. A good mentor would tell him these things so he didn't have to get the information himself. He did not think he should have to ask. He saw absolutely nothing wrong with going through my suitcase (secretly).

Our adviser-student relationship went downhill fast, and it was all very unpleasant, especially since I was an assistant professor and had not yet established a track record of successfully advising students, sane or otherwise.

This student wanted to know what it was like being a professor: how much time I spent on certain tasks, how I organized my files, what was I doing when I was in my office, how many socks did I bring on research trips etc. He was much less interested in doing research, although being a professor at a university happens to involve quite a lot of research.

You can wear the same pair of socks every day on a research trip if you want, but more important is why you are making that trip, what you do on the trip, and what you take away from the trip. He was not so interested in those aspects of being a professor, and that may explain in part why he never became a professor.

My ex-student wondered: What do professors do with all that time when they weren't in a classroom teaching or in a faculty meeting seething? Although his methods of finding out the answer were disturbing, it's a fair question, and one that lots of people ask.

Yet I think my student realized that carefully documenting my activities still didn't give a complete picture, and thus his methods escalated. I had some suspicions that he was also rummaging around in my computer when I wasn't in the office, probably just to find out what I was doing (and not to steal anything or destroy anything), but even then I think there were still gaps in his knowledge of What Professors Do All Day.

I value the fact that, on at least some days, I have a bit of flexibility in my working hours. I like that I can decide whether to spend a certain 'free' hour preparing for class, meeting with a graduate student, talking with colleagues, or working on a paper.

Perhaps I would be more OK about routinely posting my schedule if (1) none of the people viewing my schedule were bizarre intrusive sneaks; and (2) there were a way to label time in which I am extremely busy, but just not with any particular thing.

Mostly, though, I'd rather just reveal my schedule as necessary to find a time for a meeting or other event. Other than that, I'd prefer to be mysterious, leaving everyone wondering what I'm really doing while I'm glaring at my computer, talking with a colleague in a cafe, or wandering around campus.

By producing papers, proposals/grants, and students, I think I show well what I am doing overall, and that seems like more important information than what I am doing at 3:00 on Wednesday.

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Quilts, Cowgirls & Lilacs

Attempts to get a National Women’s History Museum bill passed in the Senate are stalled because two Republican Senators have put a hold on the bill, which would allow plans to go forward to build the museum, at no cost to taxpayers. In the NY Times on Saturday (9/24/10), Gail Collins describes the bizarre situation in which two conservative Senators have (for now) put a stop to the bill, which is sponsored by a Republican, because.. well, that's where things get kind of strange.

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, says that he objects to the museum because “.. it duplicates more than 100 existing entities that have a similar mission.” There are more than 100 museums devoted to women's history? Yes, indeed, and these apparently include:

.. the Quilters Hall of Fame in Indiana, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas and the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Washington.

Wake up and smell the lilacs, Senator Coburn. By that reasoning, perhaps it makes sense to dismantle the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History because there is a Pro Football Hall of Fame in Ohio and it is possible to take a tour of Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthplace. Oh yes, and you can also go to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, see the very bed in which Nixon was born, and then buy commemorative golf balls in the gift shop. What else do we need to know about men and their role in American history? That sounds like more than enough to me, speaking as a concerned taxpaying female.

What are these senators really worried about? That supporting a women's history museum will be seen as supporting a liberal cause because "women's history museum" might be secret code for "feminism"? It's hard to say, but it's too bad these guys feel the need to protect their hard-core conservative reputations by being against a history museum. And it's too bad if they really think that quilts, cowgirls, and lilacs are sufficient to tell what Gail Collins calls "the whole, big amazing story."

I don't feel rabidly enraged about a lack of a national women's history museum, but I also can't see any sane reason why anyone would object to one. If such a museum existed, I would definitely visit it, especially if they had Susan B. Anthony golf balls and Ida B. Wells snow globes in the gift shop.

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Overscheduled

There has been much angsty press in recent years about how kids don't have much free time to kick around and just be kids anymore. Those of us who grew up in an era when our parents sent us out the door to walk 3 miles in a blizzard to school or let us run around outside with our friends for hours are surely more creative and independent than those of you who (mis)spent your youth being shuttled in a mini-van from violin lessons to soccer to Mandarin class every day.

But what about today's overscheduled professors? If we have absolutely no 'free' time to think and muse and contemplate and play pretend games, will we lose our ability to be creative and independent?

That's actually not what I want to talk about today. A more practical consideration that is related to the issue of overscheduled professors is that it is very difficult to get more than 2 (or even 1?) professor together in a particular room at a particular time for a graduate student's preliminary exam or thesis defense. Anyone who has been involved in the scheduling of one of these events, either as a student or as one of the professors, surely knows how complicated this can be.

These exams are mandatory for the student and the professors, but they have to be squeezed into the interstices of our days, and finding a 3+ hour block of time when everyone is available is exceedingly difficult, as dramatically illustrated by this e-mail from a graduate student:

I am a graduate student at the stage of writing my thesis and planning my defense. Right now I am having a very difficult time scheduling my thesis defense. Some of my committee members have additional responsibilities at other universities or significant administrative duties. While it is possible for a committee member to Skype the defense if attending in person will be too hard, it's still been very hard to find a date and time that works for everyone (and for which a seminar room is still available). And some of my committee members are reluctant to commit to any dates at all, because they are worried that some of their other obligations will come up. (And at the same time, the other members who are able to be flexible are getting mad at me for not scheduling something already.) I have had similar difficulties with every committee meeting I've had. This time it is especially frustrating because I would like to defend before the university-wide deadlines for this graduation cycle. I am not alone in this situation -- nearly every other graduate student at my university has had similar experiences with difficulty scheduling committee meetings.

I know that faculty have a lot of other responsibilities and often find serving on thesis committees to be burdensome and a low priority. However, I am only asking for at most 2-3 hours of their time, and this will be the last time I need to do so. I also feel that once a faculty member has agreed to serve on a student's committee (which they are not obligated to do), they should accept the responsibility of making time for the requisite committee meetings, qualifying exams, and thesis defense to the best of their abilities. What do you think is the best way to alleviate this situation? How can I politely convey to my committee that while I understand the difficulties they face in attending/Skyping my defense, I really do need to schedule a date as soon as possible? Also, what policies do you think universities could adopt to make this process simpler and less burdensome for both faculty and students? Personally, I wonder if limiting the number of committees (possibly all committee not just thesis ones) a single faculty member could be on would help lower the burden. Also, perhaps it would be worthwhile for the university calender to build in meeting/defense times -- i.e. no departmental seminars/meetings/classes/etc during 1-2 weeks each semester to allow for committee meetings, qualifying exams, and defenses? This would also benefit students because it would give them a set schedule at which milestones need to be met, and it would make things easier for the registrar's office and university administration because it would ensure that defense dates are properly tied to graduation deadlines.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts involve sympathy for your situation. My own PhD completion was delayed by months, resulting in my degree having the next year's date on it, because one professor was unable to find time to read my thesis, much less agree to a defense date.

I also appreciate that you realize professors are very busy. However, it isn't necessarily the case that the inability of some professors to find time for your defense means that you are a low priority or a burden. That doesn't help you get your defense scheduled, but I think it's important to realize that, for some professors, particularly just before the end of a term, finding ~3 free hours during the work day is simply not possible.

In general, the times that work best for me are: (1) final exam week, unless there is a conference, although, even if there isn't a conference, sometimes during finals week I have all-day meetings that are scheduled at this time specifically because classes are over; and (2) the time slot reserved for faculty meetings in a week when there is no faculty meeting (although if you have professors from other departments that have faculty meetings on different days/at different times, this window of opportunity doesn't exist).

I can also sometimes squeeze in an exam or defense by canceling (rescheduling) an office hour, research group meeting, or committee meeting. If that's the only option, I am willing to rearrange my schedule. Also, now that my daughter is older, I have more flexibility in the very early morning and the very late afternoon, but these times used to be more difficult for me for scheduling early/late exams, especially if my husband was out of town.

I'm not implying that the grad student who wrote to me does this, but some students will write to professors and say "Please tell me what days/times will work for you so I can schedule my defense." Clearly that is too open-ended. Other grad students will write and say "I'd like to have my defense on Tuesday, May 19 at 3 PM." Clearly that is too restrictive (although maybe it's worth a try in the unlikely event that one particular day/time will be open for all), and tends to result in a cascade of subsequent e-mails, each one specifying a different day/time.

Only once in my career has a grad student scheduled an exam first and then told me when he expected me to show up for the event. He checked in advance with the other (male) professors, but not with me. He was also on record as having stated that he didn't think women should be Scientists, so I quit his committee, as I didn't think I could be objective in the face of his lack of respect. He didn't want me on his committee anyway, so if his strategy to get me off his committee was to be rude, this strategy worked.

A reasonable first-try method for scheduling an exam/defense is for the student to send everyone an e-mail listing a few (3-4) possible days/times and asking everyone one which, if any, will work, and specifying that you need a reply by a certain day. If you don't get an e-mail reply by your stated deadline, go find the person(s), call them, e-mail them again, haunt them until they reply. Be aggressive but polite.

You can also be manipulative (but polite); for example, telling one person "Tuesday, May 19 at 3 PM is fine with all the other committee members. Does this time work for you as well?" (Don't ask if it is convenient -- no time is convenient -- ask if it is possible). If they have another commitment that cannot be changed, so be it, but at least you will have this specific information and can then work on another day/time.

If you are trying to finish before an urgent deadline, you can mention that, but only if you have left plenty of time between your scheduling attempts and the proposed exam date. Otherwise, if you suddenly have a crisis and need to finish soon and you ask your committee to rearrange their schedules for you, some of the crankier committee members might get a bit hissy.

I don't like being constantly badgered about scheduling, especially if I have already provided information about the possible times when I can/cannot meet, but there is a difference between a polite, organized, assertive effort to get an exam scheduled and a disorganized, obnoxious campaign by a student who assumes we professors should drop everything to help them defend at exactly the time they want.

There is probably a magic time in advance when scheduling is optimal. If you ask me in October about a May defense, I cannot commit to a day/time. If you ask me 2 weeks in advance, my schedule will likely be totally full. I can, however, figure out something 1, maybe 2, months in advance. There may be some graduate program policy on how far in advance an exam must be scheduled, but I have found that any such policy is routinely ignored owing to the wide availability of waivers and exceptions.

I have not found the advent of Skype etc. to help much with exam/defense scheduling. If I don't have three hours to spare, I don't have three hours to Skype either. Skype does help if I am at my home university and need to be at an event at another university (saving me travel days), but when I am traveling, the need to be in a quiet place with an excellent internet connection for several hours, taking into account time zones and unforeseen travel glitches, can be very stressful.

I like the idea of having some designated days when there are no classes or other meetings; I can't imagine that a week or two would be possible, but 2-3 days might be doable. If those times also coincided with a time when I had no proposals due, no conferences, and no other major deadlines, I wouldn't mind a few concentrated days of examining, with maybe 2 exams/day.

Another way that universities could help would be to extend the possible time in which a student can defend and still get their degree in that academic term or year. That won't help some people who need to leave and start a new job right away, but it might help some.

Maybe being over-committed on committees is a problem for some faculty, but I don't think that problem can be solved with a new rule limiting committee participation. A committee-max policy might actually create more complications -- what if everyone you wanted/needed on your committee was at their committee limit? And I don't think overscheduled professors are overscheduled because of student committees. It's all the other stuff that fills the days completely.

Somehow everyone gets their exams scheduled, even if it takes a while to accomplish and even if the process is highly non-linear. The process could be simplified if there were exam slots set aside, reducing the problems for at least a few people, but there are always going to be schedule collisions and moving-target schedules and professors who aren't organized enough to know what they are supposed to be doing a month or two from now.

Even if it makes you crazy, please try to be patient with us, continue to be very proactive in getting your defense scheduled, consider removing any extraneous committee members who are unresponsive (after documenting the history of uncooperativeness and discussing the situation with your adviser and/or the graduate program director), and.. good luck. You're almost done!

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Call for Submissions for Diversity in Science Carnival - Hispanic Heritage Month

September 15 marks the beginning of Hispanic/Latino American Heritage Month.  Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15 - October 15, annually.  What better way to celebrate this diversity awareness month than with blog articles about the people who make a difference in the world?   In Diversity of Science Carnival style, bloggers are invited to celebrate the people who make contributions to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).  Write and submit your posts about a mentor, friend, historical figure, teacher, or student who makes contributions in STEM to society.

Already, there is buzz among some in the science blogging community to write post about important science and education mentors.  So what will you share?  No matter your blogging niche, you can contribute to the carnival.

Submission deadline: Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Carnival posted: Friday, October 15, 2010
Published at SouthernPlayalisticEvolutionMusic.

Submit your post via this link (or if it's acting up, leave a link in the comments field below).

Upcoming Carnivals include:
November: Native American Heritage Month
Submission deadline: Saturday, November 22, 2010
Carnival posted: Monday, November 29, 2010
Host needed.

Want to participate or host an upcoming carnival? Email me.

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Listen Up

Imagine that you have been making one particular not-very-complicated point for many years in various faculty meetings, individual discussions, memos, and e-mails. This point is about an administrative matter, not something related to your research; say, something involving the undergraduate curriculum (for example).

In recent years, you have made this point many times because your department has been discussing the curriculum a lot. When relevant and necessary, you say something like "Science 201 is an important class because it lays the foundation for every other Science class. It is the only one that involves concepts related to the dynamics of kangaroos, the moons of Saturn, and the novels of Willa Cather."

Most of your colleagues are convinced, but for some reason, the issue keeps coming up again and again: Is Science 201 still an important class, or is it a relic to which some of us are clinging because we hate change? Does this class integrate different aspects of Science? Is it broad or narrow? Is it fundamental?

These are important issues to discuss for any class. It is worthwhile to reexamine the curriculum from time to time and make sure that it meets the needs of the students. You don't mind in general having to justify this course and its continued place in the curriculum, but you do find it frustrating to make the same point again and again because certain people either don't believe you or aren't paying attention.

Furthermore, it isn't actually your own *special class* you are defending, although you have taught the class, so no one should discount your opinion on the grounds that you are just defending turf.

Now imagine that one of the colleagues who has most often brought up the issue of whether Science 201 is important (or not), and who is one of the primary reasons why you have to repeat yourself so often about the importance of this class, stops you in the hall and enthuses about an interesting talk he heard by a brilliant senior scientist at a conference. This brilliant man said that Science 201 is an important class because it is the only one that involves concepts related to the dynamics of kangaroos, the moons of Saturn, and the novels of Willa Cather! Did you know this? Maybe you could incorporate some elements of this idea into the class when you teach it?!

And maybe, if you use some of Brilliant Man's ideas and methods, the course could become as interesting and relevant as your colleague's courses are.

Question:

Does this mean that you have finally won because your colleague seems convinced that the course is relevant and important?

Or have you lost because your colleague, to this day, does not recognize that you have been making this same point to no apparent effect until it was said by a Brilliant Man?

The answer is: both. You may now have less trouble justifying a course that you feel is essential to the undergraduate program, thereby benefiting students (if you are right about the importance of the course), but you are still just a yapping female (in this case) with nothing of significance to say, even about topics with which you have some expertise.

Too bad that Science 201 is likely to be somehow flawed whenever you teach it because how could you do it right when you are not a Brilliant Man?

Of course one must consider the possibility that the Brilliant Man made a more compelling, eloquent case than you were ever capable of doing, but, after careful consideration, you find this explanation insufficient.

And perhaps the most depressing thing of all is that the Colleague Who Doesn't Listen To You is a junior colleague.

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Wordless Wednesday: Water Quality

This Saturday, September 25, 2010, many communities around the world will celebrate World Water Monitoring Day.  Citizens - young and old, will come together to test the quality of the water they live near and depend on for sustenance.  The quality and cleanliness of our local waters matter because we need water to survive: drinking, cooking, bathing, for our animals (both pets and livestock), for our food (the vegetables that eventually make it on our dinner plates.  Water is so vitally important for our personal healt and the health of our planet.


I'll be at Spring Valley Park in Kansas City, Mo leading water quality monitoring activities with the families that come to the Kids Fishing Derby for Urban Outdoor Day presented by Urban American Outdoors and Kansas City Missouri Parks & Rec.  I hope people see the obvious connection between the activity - fishing - and the importance of maintaining healthy waters for wildlife and future outdoor recreational activities.  I also hope they make the next obvious connecton to their own daily habits and how that might relate to water quality.

Water Quality can be monitored in two different ways: abiotic monitoring and biotic monitoring.

Abiotic monitoring involves measuring the important physical parts of the water environment such as

• the pH of the water: how acid or basic it is
• the amount of dissovled oxygen in the water
• turbidity: how clear or cloudy the water is
• temperature: how warm or cool the water is

Each of these physical parts are indicators the health of the water.  Biotic monitoring quantifies the type of living organisms in a water way and then deduces the health of the water because we know that certain organisms can only survive within a certain range of each of those measures.

Macroinvertebrates are very good indicators as to the health of a stream, lake, or pond

The presence of many different species and other predatory invertebrates is a good sign that the water habitat can support many food chain levels.

Healthy fish species are also a good sign. Remember, vertebrate species like fish and birds ultimately depend on invertebrate, microbe, and plant species for their survival, too.

Are you celebrating World Water Monitoring Day?  If so, how? Tell me about your adventures.

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Those Happy Golden Postdoctoral Days

Subtitle:

Happy Postdocs : Not An Oxymoron

Disclaimer: I have no direct experience with postdocs in biomedical or other life sciences fields. My point of view derives entirely from experiences in the physical sciences.

Context: In the physical science academic niche with which I am familiar, postdoctoral fellowships are desirable, respected positions. Doing a (successful) postdoc gives the additional experience needed to make the transition from being a student to being a professor at a research university.

My experience: Aside from a few harassment issues I could have done without, I was happy as a postdoc. I enjoyed the responsibility, respect, and higher salary, and, although I had a lot of freedom in my research as a grad student, I felt even freer as a postdoc because I finally had the time and ability to develop some of my own research ideas at a more intellectually satisfying level.

Nevertheless, being a postdoc is not 24/7 good times. To help examine some of the pros and cons, let's compare the professional lives of postdocs and assistant professors:

Job security: Although some postdocs (or equivalent positions) have a contract of a similar duration as that of an assistant professor before tenure evaluation, postdocs live with more uncertainty about whether all these years of training will lead to the career they want. Although most postdocs who do well in my field ultimately get a faculty position if they want one, you never know. And, more typically, postdoc contracts are only for 1-2 years. Assistant professors may have some anxious years before tenure evaluation time, but they can achieve job security with tenure. Assistant professors clearly have the advantage in this respect.

Salary: Assistant professors typically make more than postdocs, although the difference narrows for more senior postdocs. In addition, assistant professors with significant postdoctoral experience can typically negotiate a higher starting salary, so the postdoctoral years 'count' in determination of future salary.

In what might be a rare situation, a former postdoc of mine recently took a pay cut (to $48k) when moving to a teaching position at a small university. He wanted a teaching-focused job, but was worried that the lower salary would make life more difficult for his family of four (his is the only income), but, when he asked me for advice, I said that I hoped he would take the job anyway because of the career opportunity and potential future job security. He did, and so far he is doing fine and is very happy in his new job.

Assistant professors in general have an advantage over postdocs with respect to salary, but not in all cases.

Benefits: In my field, health insurance benefits are typically similar for both postdocs and professors, but situations vary from institution to institution regarding whether the institution/PI contribute to retirement benefits. Some institutions make no retirement contributions for postdocs or assistant professors in the first year or two; some contribute to the retirement funds of assistant professors but not of postdocs; and others contribute to both. I am currently contributing to the retirement fund of a postdoc, as are many of my colleagues for their postdocs, so it certainly does happen. This factor works out about equally for postdocs and assistant professors in the institutions/departments with which I am familiar.

Independence: This one varies a lot. Many of us had a lot of independence as postdocs to pursue the research we wanted, but others are mostly/entirely confined to doing a project conceived and directed by a PI. Assistant professors have freedom to take the lead on research projects, although with that freedom comes a lot more responsibility (and management tasks) than postdocs typically have to deal with.

I think this factor is comparable for postdocs and assistant professors. There are certainly very controlling PIs who restrict the independence of postdocs, but there are also assistant professors whose research topics are constrained by various factors.

Time: Many of us think back on our postdoctoral experiences as the time in our academic careers when we had the most uninterrupted time to focus on research. One colleague of mine says that, for him, being a postdoc was even better than having a sabbatical (without the career anxiety, I suppose) because the professional service expectations and time spent managing grants and people was so much less.

According to that postdoc world view, postdocs are fortunate because they are not afflicted with the stresses of being a student (exams, classes) and typically doesn't have to do the same kind of professorial time management feat of balancing research, teaching, advising, managing, service etc. As a postdoc, you may help mentor grad students or undergrads in a research group, and you may also manage your own grant and start to be asked to review manuscripts and reviews, but all of this ramps up to a higher level when you become a professor. That's part of why spending time as a postdoc is a good transitional experience between being a student and a professor.

As a postdoc, I definitely felt anxious about the future. There were very few academic jobs in my field at that time, and I was very aware that I might not get one of those few.

Nevertheless, I was doing what I wanted to be doing. I enjoyed the intellectual freedom and the unrestricted time to think and write and do research. I was relieved to be taken (a bit) more seriously as a scientist than I had been as a grad student, and I enjoyed starting to gain visibility and build connections in my field. I was not ready to start a faculty position at a research university directly after finishing my PhD, but my postdoc time, followed by a teaching position, gave me the experience I needed once I was fortunate enough to get a tenure-track job.

Postdocs win in the 'time' category.

Summary: Being a postdoc has its stresses, even in the best of systems, but there are also very positive aspects of being a postdoc. Many faculty take seriously their jobs as mentors of postdocs, and many postdocs use well their year (or two or three) of research experience to launch their subsequent careers.

Happy postdocs exist. That fact doesn't help those who are in a postdoctoral form of hell; some fields clearly need to reform their postdoctoral systems. Nevertheless, I think it is important to present a positive case for postdocs, at least in some of the physical sciences, and to stop equating all postdoctoral fellowships with all the worst aspects of academia.

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Spelling it Out

As I have been writing letters as part of the tenure and promotion evaluation of assistant professors at other institutions, I have been struck by the great variation in the "tenure code" documents I have been sent to help me write my letters. Typically, these documents outline an institution's or a department's criteria for tenure and promotion, but the level of specificity of these documents varies a lot.

At the vague end of the spectrum are documents that state that the candidate must show evidence for "scholarly achievement" (or words to that effect). This is useless for my purposes, and I just write my evaluation however I think best. In my experience, these documents are the most common type.

At the definitive end of the spectrum are documents that state that the candidate must have x papers every n years in "respected journals" and at least y grants from external funding agencies. In these cases, which I rarely encounter, I don't really understand the point of an external letter. If the candidate met the criteria and is going to get tenure, why ask for anyone's opinion? Does it matter if I think the x papers were flawed and uninteresting? If not, then don't waste my time. If it matters, then rewrite the document to include some vague statement about "scholarly achievement".

The definitive tenure criteria likely result in fewer tenure appeals than the vague tenure "criteria", and the vague ones surely result in higher levels of anxiety and uncertainty for tenure-track faculty, but the definitive ones have problems as well. For example, unless there is a way to specify the quality of the "respected journals" (probably by impact factor, for lack of a better measure) and the contribution of the candidate to a multi-author paper and whether it is good or bad to have lots of co-authors (including students), there is little point in specifying the number of papers that must be published in n years unless that really is all that matters.

In that case, these documents might as well just say: To obtain tenure, a candidate must have their name somewhere in the author list of a paper published in some journal that someone respects.

I am actually ambivalent about these documents, speaking from the point of view of a letter writer. I know they must exist, but there really is no good way to construct them to be useful to the letter writer (or the candidate): too vague is useless, and too specific is strange and leads to more questions (most of which can't be answered).

As a candidate, you have to find out the 'unwritten' information by figuring out the norms of your department and institution. This is typically accomplished by having an effective mentor, by talking to other assistant professors, and by having a candid talk with your department chair and mentor at various stages along the road to the tenure evaluation. You can also attend informational talks given by deans or deanlets, although, as an assistant professor, I found such workshops disturbing because the information in them conflicted with what my department chair had told me about some issues (e.g., the selection of letter writers). Even so, I identified these conflicts of information, talked to the chair about them, he talked to the dean, and all was eventually sorted out.

As a letter writer, I don't know the 'unwritten' information, and I'd rather not guess. All I can do is try to write a fair letter based on what is in the record and on my perception of the quality of the candidate's research. The people at the candidate's institution will have to sort the rest out for themselves, depending on what they think my criteria/standards for tenure are likely to be; i.e., they can discount my letter (if my criteria seem too harsh), take it seriously (if they think my opinion is well supported), or pick out the parts that agree with their own opinion.

Mostly, I just need to finish these letters so I can stop obsessing over them (one in particular is much more difficult to write than I expected), and then I can move on to my next adventure in Professional Service Activities.

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(Un)appealing Option

A few weeks ago, I discussed writing letters as part of the tenure evaluation of assistant professors at other universities. Another tenure-related topic is what happens when tenure is denied.

My understanding of how tenure-denial appeals work is limited, but growing by the day, unfortunately. Perhaps the process varies (a lot?) from institution to institution, but here are some things I have learned so far:

The basis for a realistic appeal can be (1) discrimination, or (2) violation of procedure. An appeal based on an "I was misjudged" is less likely to be successful, although I know of some cases in which an appeal of this sort was successful, typically based on the issue of the relative weights given to teaching and research excellence.

Even if there has been blatant discrimination or a violation of procedure, the various stops along the tenure trail designed to catch such things may not catch them, or may even be the source of the problem. Hence the appeal process.

Things can get complicated at large institutions in which there are many intermediate steps along the road to tenure during the evaluation and voting process. At each stage, there is the possibility of a decision that is different from preceding ones, although this gets less likely as the process moves up the administrative food chain.

Nevertheless, voting and decision-making bodies/people at a university can include

• a departmental promotion & tenure committee,

• tenured faculty in the department (perhaps in more than one department for interdisciplinary faculty with multiple tenure homes),

• the department head,

• a committee at the college level (e.g., College of Arts & Sciences, School of Engineering),

• the Dean (± an Associate/Assistant Dean),

• various Provostial Beings ± Vice-Presidents for Whatever,

• the President/Chancellor, and, in some cases,

• a Board of Trustees.

Many of these steps are necessary to provide checks-and-balances. For example, departments might be "too close" to a candidate, using criteria that are not objective or fair. This can work for or against a candidate; e.g., a well-liked mediocre candidate might get a yes vote. It's not supposed to work that way, of course, but since the evaluation metrics are typically not spelled out (more on that tomorrow), variability is inevitable.

If all of these people/committees vote overwhelmingly no, that's not good (and makes an appeal very unlikely to succeed), but what if some say yes and some say no, or what if there are mixed votes in certain committees?

According to legend, once you get past the department and college/school committee with a positive vote, you're fine, but there are rumors of candidates who had positive votes up to the Dean or Provost or President and then.. zap. There are also sad stories of people with majority positive votes at various stages but not a supermajority of positive votes, leading to cascades of negative votes at later stages of the process.

The appeal process appears to be highly structured (= bureaucratic), with lots of steps and lawyers and invocation of an institution's "tenure code" or criteria by both sides.

If the process leading up to the tenure evaluation works as it should, the results of the tenure evaluation itself should not be a big surprise. There can be a discrepancy between what a department/institution thinks of a candidate vs. what is expressed in the external letters, but even this should be evident in advance if the pre-tenure evaluation process works as it should.

Whether evaluation of probationary faculty is at one intermediate time (e.g., 3rd year) or every year, there should (ideally) be a paper trail that documents how an assistant professor is doing in terms of the various job components, with specific suggestions for improvement if there is a problem, and additional assistance/mentoring given where needed.

Having a well-functioning, fair, and informative system is essential to the tenure-track faculty member and to the rest of the institution. When that system breaks down, owing to incompetence, indifference, or malevolence, and the tenure decision is negative, the grounds for an appeal are laid.

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Dodging a Postdoctoral Bullet

In general, I am not a particularly sadistic person; at least, no more than the average professor. Every once in a while, though, as I am mulling over a potential blog post topic, I think to myself "This one is going to freak out the [select one or more: undergrads, grads, postdocs, assistant professors, associate professors, professors, administrators, adjuncts, social scientists, reptiles]", and then I do the post anyway. With a few exceptions, I don't deliberately try to upset anyone, but there are certain topics (letters of reference, tenure, interviews) that lend themselves to freak-outs among certain segments of the academic population.

Today's target topic: postdocs, as told from the point of view of a supervisor of postdocs.

First, some context: In my field, postdoctoral researchers are well respected, are paid a decent salary with benefits, have a lot of independence, and typically spend 1-3 years in this position before moving on to another job: a faculty position, a job in industry, a researcher position at a national lab or a government agency, or something else entirely.

Postdocs can be hired in a number of different ways. In my case, I can either acquire funding and then seek a postdoc, or I can identify a postdoc candidate (possibly when one contacts me) and then one or both of us can seek funding for a project.

Sometimes I get e-mail from postdoc candidates or I meet one at a conference. Some of these possibilities are interesting enough to pursue further.

You would think that it is easy to identify excellent postdoc candidates -- or, at least, easier than trying to guess which applicants to graduate school will succeed and which will not -- but it is surprisingly difficult. For example, I have supervised apparently promising postdocs who never published anything, or did so only under torture (or if I wrote most of the paper). How did they get a PhD in the first place? Did their advisers write their thesis and/or papers and not happen to mention this in the recommendation letter? One wonders.

I have been thinking about this recently because a few times in the past year I have had semi-close calls with postdoctoral aspirants who seemed quite promising, but on further inspection turned out to be much less so. If I hadn't happened to find out some information that is not typically included in a reference letter, I might have ended up with a(nother) disaster postdoc.

Some of you may be thinking: What if this so-called "information" about these prospects was wrong? What if these were really talented people and you denied them a career opportunity for no good reason? These are valid points, but be assured that I wouldn't dismiss a person based only on a vague rumor from someone I didn't know.

Example 1: A postdoc candidate e-mailed me, I wrote back asking some questions to get a better sense for what his ideas and interests were, and he responded a while later.

There were some possible red flags in his e-mails. For example, when writing to a potential postdoctoral supervisor, it's probably not a good idea to complain about how much work you have to do and how busy you are and why you took so long to respond. Why would I want to work with someone who easily whines and is may already be having difficulty managing their time?

But these were little, ambiguous red flags, not big, obvious, glow-in-the-dark ones. Perhaps he was just trying to convey how industrious he is, and it didn't occur to him that he would seem to be complaining and incompetent. Maybe he thrives on being extraordinarily busy and is actually intensely intellectually engaged in his thesis research but just didn't express this clearly. I was willing to overlook the apparent whining and not over-interpret at this stage.

There was enough that seemed possibly promising in his academic background, so I wanted to know more about him. I asked a longtime, trusted colleague (and supremely nice person) who knows this student well, and, after a bit of reluctance and vague hmmming, he sighed and told me about this PhD student's bad attitude, laziness, apathy, poor quantitative skills, and marginal qualifications even to be a graduate student. There were also apparently some ethics issues. If I just went by my correspondence with the postdoctoral candidate and his CV and even the reference of his main adviser, I would never have known he was such a (potential) disaster.

Perhaps in the course of getting more than one letter of reference, some of this information would have come to light anyway, but I decided not to pursue this opportunity any further.

Example 2: A finishing PhD at Prestigious University with exactly the right background and interests for someone who could be a happy and productive member of my research group introduced himself to me at a conference. We had a brief chat that established that we had some mutual research ideas that might be the nucleus of a future proposal, and agreed to talk more. In the meantime, I casually mentioned this person to some people I know well at his current and past academic institutions, and every single one said "Hmm.... well.... there are some things you should know..." (there followed long -- but consistent -- lists of strange, unpleasant, disturbing behavior that resulted in great disruptions of research efforts by the student and everyone else in his immediate surroundings). Another dead end.

I know there are excellent postdocs out there -- I have even worked with some -- but it is not safe to assume that anyone who makes it through a PhD program and who wants to pursue an academic career is automatically well suited for postdoctoral research. And it can be very difficult to predict this just based on a written application or even a conversation or exchange of e-mail with the candidate.

I have brought postdoc candidates to campus for interviews in the past, but the applicant pool is typically international, and therefore some of the interviews are by phone or Skype, which is convenient, but not the same as spending a day or two with someone.

Letters of references are also not as candid as they should be. I know that various candidates for various positions spend a lot of time worried about their letters of reference, but 99.76% of such letters are positive. It is rare to find one containing the information that my colleagues divulged to me in person in the examples above.

Certainly we have to be careful not to ask the opinion of someone who is unobjective, uninformed, and/or vindictive, and we need to filter information for bias or personal views on issues or characteristics unrelated to a candidate's qualifications for a job (e.g., being female, having young children etc.), but candid, accurate information can be a life-saver for me and the rest of my research group, so that we don't spend large amounts of time and money on someone who cannot or will not be a productive member of the group.

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Jargonauts

My daughter is involved in a particular extra-curricular activity that has an incredible number of special terms, abbreviations, acronyms, and other words and phrases that are incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Just like Science! I have learned some of the terms, but there always seem to be more that I don't know. And no, this extra-curricular activity has nothing to do with athletics of any sort, so my ignorance is not related to my lack of interest in sports.

I will never learn all of this new activity-specific language, and that's fine. This is my daughter's activity, and it would actually be quite weird if I started hurling around the relevant acronyms in conversation.

When we were en route to visiting some relatives this summer, I said to my daughter "You know, you're going to get asked about Activity, and you should try as much as possible to avoid jargon and describe it using words that they will understand."

She was silent for a few moments, thinking about this, then said "You're right, but I'm not sure I know what is jargon and what isn't anymore. I should practice."

So we pretended that I was Great Aunt Milly and I asked her about her recent Activity activities, and my daughter started talking about this, trying but failing to avoid jargon. I listed the incomprehensible words she had just used, and she tried again. This time I made an obnoxious beeping sound whenever she jargonized, and then we both started laughing too much to continue for a while.

Later, we tried again, and she did much better, and by the time we were surrounded by Great Aunts and Not-Great Uncles, she did an excellent job of talking about her Activity, and our relatives were able to ask her questions instead of lapsing into stunned silence, which is what some people have done when she's gone into full-jargon mode in other conversations.

It occurred to me that I could use some help de-jargonizing my own descriptions of my work. I can easily give a 101-level description of my research, but in some cases (e.g., elderly family members) that doesn't work very well, probably because even the most science-phobic undergraduate has recently had some science in high school, whereas some of my relatives have not thought about even basic science concepts since Eisenhower was president.

So I started thinking about all the different 'levels' at which we need to talk about our general or specific fields of expertise; in this example, I will use Science:

- Great Aunt Millies: total non-scientists who don't know even the most basic words that we don't really consider jargon because they aren't particularly specialized are incomprehensible in this context.

- Non-scientists/non-students who can handle the basic vocabulary of science, either from K-12 classes or from watching shows on TV (or reading science fiction?) or maybe from some technical experiences related to their job of hobbies.

- Non-science faculty and administrators who read our internal grant proposals, award nominations, or other documents that are supposed to be jargon-free.

- Students in introductory-level Science classes (if not at the beginning of the term, by the end..).

- Students in more specific classes in Science.

- Science faculty or administrators who are in our department or our institution but who aren't in our specific field of research AND science faculty, students, and others who attend our invited talks at other universities (if the talks are supposed to be oriented to a general Science audience)

In grant proposals to programs in our field and certainly in articles in journals, we can typically go wild with the jargon because the people reading our text will understand these terms, although even here it is possible to go too far and use complex terms where a simpler one would suffice.

What about talking to the media? For those who aren't science journalists, I think it's best to go with the Great Aunt Milly level of simplicity, and for science journalists.. it varies.

My last experience with the media was with a science journalist who seemed to know the basic jargon of my field. Nevertheless, I kept having to decrease the Science level of the conversation because, although he knew vocabulary, he didn't really seem to know what these words actually meant in terms of processes or interrelated concepts. Although we talked for a long time and I asked him to repeat back some of the essential points (a suggestion that seemed to annoy him, perhaps understandably), the result was kind of bizarre. In fact, as I was trolling around the science news headlines, I overlooked the article about my research because the headline had absolutely nothing to do with my research. Only once I started getting e-mail about the article did I realize which headline referred to my work.

Clearly I need more practice de-jargonizing my Science speech. Fortunately, I know exactly the right person who will help me with this, most likely by making obnoxious beeping sounds when I use jargon, but that's OK.. that technique actually seems to help a bit.

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And a new Science Blog is born...SouthernPlayalisticEvolutionMusic

I was always in love with music. I learned how to change radio stations on our old school 8-track record player console by the age of 3. I knew what I liked: piano melodies, bass guitars, drum beats, and catchy hooks, also known as chorus.  And then I discovered hip-hop.  Like a scence from Brown Sugar, I remember when I fell in love with hip-hop.  It was 1985, and I was mesmerized by Whodini, and the rapper Jaleel - "Five Minutes of Funk" is still my jam! Many, many, many years later I got a chance to see them perform and lo and behold I heard the opening 8 beats to the song. Next thing I remember I cleared the stage landing in one step (wearing high heels mind you) and took the mic from Jaleel and rapped his verses to the song.

Yea, I love hip-hop and many might be surprised as how knowledgeable I am in all of the various hip-hop and rap demonimations.  I ham a Hip-Hop Maven....and I'm also a nerdy girl.  Proud to be both.  So that brings me to my newest blog project - SouthernPlayalisticEvolutonMusic.  It's a science blog about evolutionary biology explained via hip-hop music examples.  It's housed at Southern Fried Science Network.

Why a new blog?  It's a completely different topic - Evolutionary Biology; and it's new voice for me.  I'm primarily writing to an adult audience.  I'm not using foul language or anything, but the evolutionary topics of sexual selection and mate choice are thoroughly explored. Plus, I will likely be sampling some songs with colorful language.  I wanted to keep the voice clear and respect the following this blog has aquired.  This is an introductory science blog about urban ecology that reaches diverse and family-friendly audiences.

I am keeping this blog and plan to re-assume my blogging frequency of 2-3 posts per week.  I'll be taking it easy over at the other blog, once per week as I build an audience. 

In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter as I talk about all things science - urban ecology, informal science education, evolution, and STEM diversity @DNLee5.

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Conference Tourists

Some conferences are so highly selective that a small fraction of conference-goers give presentations, but other conferences are less selective and the majority of attendees give presentations of some sort (talk or poster). These less selective conferences are excellent opportunities for students to present their research, but many senior researchers also give presentation.

If you have ever attended the type of conference at which most participants give a talk or poster, have you ever decided to just attend without giving a presentation, even though you easily could have submitted an abstract for review (with you as presenting author)? If so, why did you decide to be a Conference Tourist (CT)? Was it one of these reasons, or something else?:

A1. Fatigue. You have given so many presentations at so many conferences, you just wanted to go to the conference without having to prepare anything to present. Skipping one (or tw0?) conferences doesn't mean you are totally burned out; you just want a break and will enjoy the conference as a CT.

A2. Stress. This is similar to Fatigue, but in this case you decided against trying to give a presentation because doing so always stresses you out so much that you spend all the days and nights before your presentation feeling anxious, and you can only begin to enjoy the conference once your presentation is done.

A3. Lack of anything new to say (not that that reason stops some people from giving presentations). Somehow, a year has gone by and you don't have any new results. You will soon, of course, but you didn't have anything to write up in time for the abstract deadline and you didn't want to present old or recycled research. This is not the best of reasons to be a CT, but it might be fine to do once in a while. Not everyone's research projects fit exactly with conference submission schedules.

A4. Been there/done that.You are happy to let your students and postdocs present all the results from your group. Let the youngsters have all the glory (and stress). You can sit back and be the big cheese research group leader.

A5. None of the above.

And then, just to turn the question around: If you could easily go to a conference as a non-presenter but you never (or almost never do), why do you so often submit an abstract or conference paper for review?:

B1. You love giving talks. You are addicted to the thrill of presenting your research to a large audience. It would be painful for you to attend a conference and not give a presentation and be part of the action.

B2. You like giving talks. That is, you don't love giving talks, but you like it well enough that, if you have some interesting new research to present, you want to present it at the conference.

B3. You may or may not like or mind giving talks, but you feel compelled to give a presentation if at all possible because you want to show funding agency program officers and others that you are being productive.

B4. You have some great new research results and you want the world to know this now, not n months from now when (you hope) the paper is published.

B9+ Some of the above/none of the above..?

My answer for the latter set of questions would be one involving parts of B2-B4.

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Affirmative Action for Dead People

Someone wrote a letter of complaint to The New York Times, noting that there were typically about 8 times as many obituaries for men as for women.

The Times' obituaries editor responded that the newspaper only publishes obituaries for people whose former existence was of national or international interest. Most obituaries today are for people born in the 1920's and 1930's, when most important jobs were done by men. Ergo, most of the noteworthy people dying are men. The Times cannot right this historic wrong by publishing more obituaries for women and non-white men because there are fewer recently deceased women and minorities who did things of national or international interest. The number of obituaries for women is about 10-20%.

Apparently, there aren't enough qualified women dying.

The "public editor" (ombudsman) for The New York Times added his own comment, saying that he thought the Times could do a better job of finding information about remarkable women and non-white men; the Times researchers should try to find "a greater variety of subjects".

Is this situation analogous to arguments about the relative numbers of Great (white) Men vs. Women in literature, history, art etc., such as arguments related to why reading lists for classes on the Great Works of Literature are dominated by white male authors? That is, white men wrote the Great Works; that's just the way it is.

Some universities have addressed this issue by doing something similar to what the Times' public editor suggests: if you broaden your search, open up your definition of what is interesting and worthy of attention, you will find greatness.

Looking beyond the traditional definition of noteworthy for selecting candidates for obituaries in the Times is not affirmative action for dead people.

You can't right a historic wrong, but you can stop participating in the perpetuation of bias by focusing attention only only those who have succeeded in traditional ways in business, academia, government, journalism etc. Don't wait for the day when women and minorities succeed like white men in positions that were formerly the exclusive province of white men. Death to inequality!

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Summer activity recap - having adventures all summer long.

I have been busy.  As I am sure you all have noticed by my blogging frequency. (And let me say I am very thankful that you all have still been with me through all of this).  2010 is definitely becoming a breakthrough year professionally: defending the dissertation, graduation, working, presenting.

The truth is, the busy-ness I am experiencing in real life is the result of my online science blogging activities.  How paradoxal, huh? If you follow the blog on Facebook, you might have noticed the tick in professional activities. I've been trying to convert the blogging audience into an online community and so far so good.  I've been posted pictures and updates directly to the Facebook Fan page. (And if you're so inclined, please join, too.)

Quick recap of this summer achievements:

1. Submitted a video to the Oprah Winfrey Network contest to have my own televison show.  I didn't place, but I'm still proud that I finallyput my vision to words, pictures, audio and video.  Many thanks to my sister for editing and creating this audition video.  So, if anyon out there knows of a media outlet that would be interested in such a program (produced/hosted by me of course), please feel free to get at me.

2. Blogging While Brown Conference in Washington, DC.  Attending and speaking at this conference has spurred many other social media engagement opportunities.  I met some amazing bloggers (The Cubicle Chick and Glamazini) from St. Louis and we hosted a tweetup - a real life meetup of local area Twitter & facebook users and bloggers.  We plan to have more tweetups in the future. Plus, one of my co-hosts is hosting her own blogging conference: Show Me the Blog on Saturday, October 23rd.

3. Forest Park Summer Youth Program job.  Oh, I had a blast working with the kids this year, and the staff.  I worked as a counselor last year and got a chance to use alot of the lessons learned in Experiential Education - that I also promote here on the blog - in real life.  Plus, I was proud of my professional growth.  I was the program supervisor this year and the staff seemed to enjoy themselves and no kids were injured....so I'd say I did alright.

4. St. Louis Magazine.  Earler this summer I was recommended by the St. Louis Academy of Science to answer the "Big Question: If you had $10 million dollars, what idea would you fund to transform St. Louis".  If you're able to secure a copy of the September 2010 edition of the magazine, you'll see I'm one of 45 people who answered the question.  I'm really honored because I share some print space with some local heavy hitters like Economic Developer John Edwards and Beer Hier Adolphus Busch IV.

5. Featured in the Science & Tech Section of the Charlotte Observer.  Each Monday, a new science blogger is interviewed and featured in the newspaper.  Here is the link to my interview in the August 23, 2010 paper:  City dwellers can see science all around town by TD Beeland.


6. I got a job! Perhaps this is the single biggest accomplishment over the summer.   I believe in the Law of Attraction  I asked for an opportunity to do science outreach for pay and it happened.  I'm presently sharing science and consulting on matters related to STEM diversity and outreach for a fabulous St. Louis-based non-profit - SCOPE (Science & Citizens Organized for Purpose & Exploration).

7. Upcoming speaking engagements.  Actually the presenting started in the summer when I was invited to Miami University in Ohio.  I presented part of my dissertation to the Biology Department for their Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.  Also, I'll be presenting at the Urban Outdoor Summit in Kansas City on September 24 & 25th.  It's a great meeting to discuss the recreational and career opportunities in outdoors and nature for diverse audiences.  It is a free meeting which culminates in a Kids Fishing Derby at Spring Valley Park.  Plus, I've been invited to present at The Missouri History Museum as apart of the Perspectives on Science and History Lecture Series for the Exhibit: Home Lands: How Women Made the West.  If you're in St. Louis, Missouri on the evening of Tuesday, October 19, then feel free to check out the lecture on Homestead Earth: An Evening with Women Environmentalists.


See, I told you I've been busy.

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