I'm back! And Federal funding of science

To be honest, I haven't really gone anywhere, but I haven't posted on this blog in ages.  Now, after a 40 month hiatus, I decided I would like a public forum to talk about some things.  Without further ado, something that is on my mind.

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Today I received an e-mail from FASEB (Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology) asking me to send e-mails to my senators and representative, urging them to approve the FY2016 budget that includes a $2 billion increase in National Institutes of Health funding and a $50 million increase for the National Science Foundation.  So I did, and if you are a scientist or just a concerned citizen that wants to see science research supported in the US, please do so as well!

Now, I admit a tiny part of me is doing this because, well, I am a researcher myself, and more funding benefits me directly, if only in a very small way.  But mostly I care about education.  See, when the Federal government gives a grant to a researcher at a university, a large fraction of that money goes to supporting graduate (and sometimes undergraduate) students.  It pays tuition, offers a small stipend for doctoral students, and covers material costs for students of all levels to conduct research.

Why is this important, and why do I feel the need to mention it?  I can't count the number of times people have asked me why it is worth tax dollars to study zebrafish (which by the way are awesome model organisms for a lot of biological processes relevant to humans), or what is the point behind some of the (seemingly) more esoteric research conducted at universities.  What I tell them, and what I want to say here, is that aside from all the potential practical applications that could eventually derive from research, a big part of research at a university involves training a technically literate workforce and scientifically aware citizens.  I have had undergraduates, high school students, master's students, and doctoral students all work in my lab.  Some labs have primary / secondary school teachers and just interested citizens doing research in the lab.  In all cases, they learn stuff. And they take what they've learned and use it to contribute in myriad ways long after they've left the lab, and in a wide variety of settings -- not just research labs and academia (in fact, those are only a small minority).  From my own experience as a student, I learned more doing research -- knowledge, skills, ways of thinking and solving problems -- than I ever learned in classrooms.

So when the Federal government gives more money to the NIH and NSF, they're not just funding science -- they're helping prepare people for professional and public pursuits of all kinds.

P is for Professor

My thesis for this particular blog post is this: Ph.D. graduate study and post-doctoral training do little to prepare you for being a professor.

Of course, they do something.  A Ph.D. is a prerequisite for any tenure-track faculty position.  Post-doctoral training has become a de facto requirement for getting a faculty position in the sciences and engineering.  Both provide you a strong background in doing research.  These are important for becoming a professor.  But what does a professor do all day?  Well, what I have discovered as a new tenure-track assistant professor is that I do the following (in no particular order of importance or time investment):

• Attend committee and faculty meetings
• Meet with interested undergraduate and graduate students
• Prepare for and teach classes
• Write grants
• Advise my own graduate students
• Balance my lab budget

Sounds very different than the average day for a Ph.D. student or post-doc, right?  I do not do much bench science, except when I have been training my graduate students or lending a hand.  Instead, many of my responsibilities are largely administrative.  My contact with research is largely in an advisory role (in meetings with my students) or through the writing of grants, which are necessarily much larger in scope than what I normally encountered as a Ph.D. student or post-doc.  I spend a lot of time mentoring students, both my own graduate students, as well as students in my classes, and other students who are simply interested in what I do or what I have to say, apparently.

I am fortunate in many ways -- my Ph.D. and post-doc advisors gave me ample opportunities to write grants, mentor students, critique manuscripts -- so those aspects of my new job are not entirely mysterious to me.  But in other ways, I was totally unprepared for being a professor -- I have very little teaching experience, no management experience, and I do not have the intrinsic talent for navigating the tricky political waters of the university and academia at large.  But I am learning.

Since I can't do it over again, the best I can do is offer advice to graduate students and post-docs out there.  It is easy to keep your head down and focus on just your own research, but if you are serious about getting a faculty position, and want to be as prepared as possible for when you start (and even then you will still be woefully unprepared), I would take every opportunity you can find to participate in research-related activities separate from doing research, and to try and teach at least part of a course, if not two or three courses.  You will be glad you did -- and if you find you really dislike all these seemingly ancillary activities, then perhaps being a professor is not the profession for you.


P.S. If anyone has any suggestions for Q, I am in need of some help :)

E is for École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is one of two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, sharing that honor with the more famous Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ).  Situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Lausanne (the capital of the French-speaking canton of Vaud), EPFL is a world-class research university, with strengths in engineering, architecture, and life sciences.  EPFL has over 7,000 students; at the undergraduate level, the vast majority of students are Swiss, but at the graduate level, there are many international students.  The international flavor of EPFL is further reflected in its faculty -- more than 50% are from outside Switzerland.  All told, according to EPFL, there are 107 nationalities represented on campus.  EPFL is consistently ranked among the top universities in Europe and worldwide, particularly in the sciences and engineering, and yet I knew next to nothing about it when I moved there nearly five years ago.

For four years I was a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Mechanobiology and Morphogenesis, which later became the Laboratory of Lymphatic and Cancer Bioengineering, part of the Institute of Bioengineering (effectively our department) within the School of Life Sciences.  As I said, I knew very little about EPFL, beyond the lab I was joining, and I was very impressed with the superb quality of research at EPFL, the facilities (which are second to none -- truly exceptional), and the international flavor of all the labs.  In our lab, for example, at one point we had over a dozen countries represented!  So in addition to doing great science, I had the chance to learn about other cultures without even setting foot outside the lab.     

What else is there to know about EPFL?  Well, from the cafeteria (which also serves alcohol) on top of the computer science building, you have an incredible view of the Alps.  You are a 15 minute walk from the shores of Lake Geneva and the beautiful lakeside village of St. Sulpice.  The university is home to the provocative and daring Rolex Learning Center, designed by the Japanese architectural firm and Pritzker Prize-winning SANAA.  The campus bar, Satellite, has a good beer selection, especially if you like Belgian brews.  And EPFL was a major consultant in the design of the America's Cup-winning Alinghi yacht.

Depending on your research interests, I would definitely recommend giving EPFL some consideration.  The experience of living and working in another country is incredibly valuable, and the quality of research at EPFL means you can gain this valuable international experience without compromising on your Ph.D. or post-doctoral training.  As you might learn as this A to Z challenge continues, Switzerland holds a special place in my heart, and my time at EPFL is an important part of that experience.

A is for Academia

Wikipedia defines academia as "the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research" (incidentally, that Wikipedia entry also goes into the origin of the term and the histories of the institutions involved in academia, if you are curious). 

I suppose I have been involved in academia since I stepped foot on Penn's campus as a freshman almost 15 years ago.  But as a student, or even as a graduate student or post-doc, you realize that this is just a transition, and for most people at universities, this is a stepping stone to something other than a career in academia.  I was fully inducted into academia until I became a professor this past fall.  I probably decided I wanted to become a professor while doing research at Georgia Tech during a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in 1999.  Research up to that point had been a far cry and a refreshing change from undergraduate work: challenging, stimulating, and giving me the chance to actually create knowledge, instead of simply accumulating it.  Having a father that is an engineering professor did not hurt my motivation, though if he influenced me, it has been too subtle (or at too fundamental a level) for me to notice.

Since it ostensibly is one of the reasons I started this blog, I figured "A is for Academia" would be a good start to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  What is academia, beyond that Wikipedia definition?  Why do I like it (and why might you like it too)?  And what are the (very real) downsides?

It turns out that Wikipedia's definition of academia is pretty good, though I would rephrase it slightly.  It is a community of scholars (I consider students scholars as well, just at a different stage of development) engaged in knowledge creation and dissemination.  These are usually achieved through research and teaching, respectively, but dissemination of knowledge is an important part of research as well, and creating new knowledge can arise from the act of teaching, for both the teacher and the student.  This definition of academia also encompasses what I love about academia and being a professor:

• Working with intelligent, motivated, and curious people (I suppose I mean inquisitive people, and not strange people, though they may be both) -- the "community of scholars".
• A constantly evolving challenge -- because research always yields new questions, new conundrums, and new discoveries, you are forced to constantly learn and keep up.  I worked a couple summer desk jobs, I've heard other people talk about their jobs in both positive and negative lights, and for the most part other professions do not sound appealing to me. YMMV.
• The ability to chart your own path and indulge your own curiosity -- if you can convince a university to give you a faculty position, and convince granting agencies and foundations to fund your work, you can research whatever excites your imagination and stimulates your intellect.  Aside from perhaps artists, musicians, and the self-employed, I know of few professions that offer such unparalleled freedom.  I love this!
• The opportunity to mold future generations of scholars and experts in your field -- this is why I enjoy teaching, and also why I enjoy mentoring students and post-docs.  I want them to go out there and do well, I would like them to learn from my mistakes and my successes...and I like to feel like I am some sage dispensing words of wisdom to the supplicants that have climbed the mountain :)
• The Eureka! moment -- whether it occurs when a student finally grasps a difficult concept in your class, or when your graduate student makes a leap she could not have made three months ago, or when the data you are looking at just scream, "This is what is happening!", the Eureka! feeling is second to none.

If these things I have listed sound good to you, maybe a career in academia would suit you.  However, with the good comes the bad.  Some of these I knew going in, and some I have discovered in my brief time as a newbie professor:

• People's egos become more important than the science -- I do not understand how this happens.  Well, I understand it, because sometimes I can feel my own ego swelling, but science, particularly in research, is such a humbling endeavor.  You fail more often than you succeed, you (should) realize that you know very little and are guessing about a whole lot, and you are surrounded by extremely intelligent people with different perspectives and approaches that often outperform you.  So when people take criticisms of their research as personal attacks and fight back, I do not fully understand it, because that is what happens in research -- knowledge is created, hypotheses are tested and torn down, and most of the time your ideas are wrong, or at least incomplete.
• A lot of passive-aggressive personalities in science, and maybe all of academia.  Enough said.
• Though I said that charting your own intellectual path is a real positive, the reality is that getting funding for your pursuits has never been more difficult, and I am terrified just thinking about how I will fund my students and my lab for the next couple of years, let own the next couple of decades.  This is connected to the pressure you feel as you scratch and flaw your first five or six years towards tenure review, and it is the source, directly or indirectly, of most of the stress I deal with these days.
• Politics -- not that this surprises me, because politics arise any time a group of people get together.  But I would like to think that, as scientists, my colleagues and I would be more objective and rationale.  That is generally not the case, and goes back to my first point about egos in academia.
• The Ivory Tower syndrome -- people often talk about academia vs. the real world, as if academia is somehow disconnected from reality.  And it can be, especially if you are doing basic research, so it is important, I think, to ground yourself in something else, just as a reminder.  At the same time, I do believe in the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, so I do not think all academic pursuits must be obviously practical.  [As an aside, when someone in finance talks about the real world, and juxtaposes it against life as an academic (usually in a condescending way), I grit my teeth.  Really, moving electronic money around to make money, that is real, but my attempts at breast cancer research are "academic"?  Punch in the face.]

Wow, I wrote more than I expected.  And I am not sure it is coherent.  Or particularly informative.  But hopefully it gives a little bit of insight into why an academic career may or may not appeal to someone.

And so begins a month of blogging, from A to Z!  If you are wondering, there will be several themes running throughout, but overall I expect my 26 entries to be pretty eclectic.

Talking Science

I want to share with you two science experiences I had in the last 10 days.

The first occurred at the recently held Biomedical Engineering Society meeting in Austin, Texas.  Though the highlight for me was seeing many of my friends from Rice and EPFL, I also enjoyed a number of the talks.  What occurred to me, though, as I was sitting in yet another talk, is how important communication is in science, particularly in the form of presentations (whether a conference talk, a department seminar, or a plenary), and how woefully inadequate we as scientists generally are at preparing and giving them.  Black font on dark backgrounds, tiny and unlabeled graphs, spelling mistakes...and these are just the distracting Powerpoint slides.  The students, at least, seem to practice their presentations, though their inexperience and nervousness shows through, but the more senior people often seem to just wing it.  And most are not good enough to do so.

For some time, I thought that maybe most of the science at conferences is just average, with a few superlative examples shining through.  That may be the case.  But I am starting to wonder if perhaps it is just that so few scientists succeed at presenting their work at conferences, and what I take for average science is actually just mediocre presentation skills.  Clearly I need to become better at separating the two, but I hope that as I move forward in my career, I make sure to spend a lot of time and energy on improving my scientific communication skills, and those of my students and post-docs.

The second science experience occurred yesterday, when I met with several other professors to discuss two grant proposals that we want to collectively submit.  I was surprised by how much each of us knew about our respective fields, how little each of us knew about each other's fields, and how much I enjoyed the exchange. This interaction of ideas and scientific viewpoints may become one of my favorite parts of this job.

Wo ist die Wissenschaft?

This is a question I find myself asking...myself (though usually in English) quite frequently these days.  Since starting as a professor, I've done little in the way of what I would call 'science,' and a lot in the way of what I would call 'administrative drudgery.'  Trying to decipher the Machiavellian machinations of the procurement office is my current challenge.  I thought I would have more time to spend on, you know, trying to cure cancer.

Admittedly, I expected this, and I am just starting out, so the lab isn't ready.  But still -- why is the life of a biomedical engineering professor permeated with so much non-science?  This is a topic that I will definitely revisit.