Transformative PUI Research

I promised sometime ago to come back to the topic of Transformative Research at PUI institutions.  Please keep in mind that I am focused on synthetic organic chemistry for the most part, so folks from other areas of the science will have differing perspectives.

In developing a PUI research program it is critically important to 1) keep in mind who you are working with, 2) your equipment and instrumentation resources, and 3) your own sanity.  And if you want funding make it transformative.

We synthetic folks tend to get very focused on making specific molecules and can forget about the bigger picture of the science we create.  If you are not careful the only science you move forward is how to make some obscure molecule in a new way.  This can be of value to the other person in the world who wants that molecule, but may not be fundable since there is only one other person in the world who will benefit from your work.  If have seen many early career faculty get funded only to then fall into the trap of only making molecules.   Once the New Faculty bloom is off the rose they find the molecule maker has very limited funding opportunities.

In my opinion, to be transformative a project must make the reader of the grant or paper think that the results in some way change their perspective on the broader field.  The extent to which it changes the perspective will/should dictate the reviewers evaluation of the work.  Every time I think about my own projects I catch myself asking, where the hook is.  I can come up with very cleaver ways to make molecules, but if they don't have a element that helps us understand organic molecules better to give us a new general tool for the toolbox I can't get funded.

As a synthetic organic person I don't think we can find federal funding to just to make molecules.  There may be some speciality pharma or industrial application that might make your targeted synthesis fundable, but those sources have been hard for me to find and fall outside our "transformative" discussion.  The synthetic project must break new ground or at least tell us something about the ground that has previously been covered that enables us to rethink the earlier ideas about the chemistry.

You have to have an idea, and as organic chemistry has become a mature science over the last fifty years, the transformative ideas get harder to find and exploit.  I have come to believe that you need to develop a bigger picture question that you will develop expertise over a lifetime rather than going after the method or molecule of the day.  If your interest is, for instance alpha-hetero anions, you can explore the fundamental nature of the beast, methods to make them and their application in synthesis.  Having a range of things to do will allow you to tailor the projects to the students you have and allow you to establish your own reputation within the field.  

One of the challenges for the PUI researcher is not just developing a transformative idea, but one you can move forward at a reasonable pace.  Undergraduates will typically spend less than ten hours per week doing anything that is actually useful.  (Some would say, far less than ten hours.)  So your project plans must take their time and skill into account.  In their early days of their development students can generate data.  Research programs that need data to study a mechanism or looks at the influence of a variable on yield or selectivity are manageable.  Plus getting numbers and making a table or graph helps the student gain confidence.  If the trends seen by these students can inform the synthetic work and add to the general understanding of the topic under study there can be pubs and presentations which will support the program at grant time.

PUI's have limited resources and in tough economies start-up packages tend to shrink.  In looking at schools check out the instrument holdings and when you interview find out about the upkeep and condition of the instruments you will need.  I have had to upkeep just about every instrument I have ever used in the lab, and have see the guts of NMRs, GC, GC-MS, HPLC, Stirrers, Hotplates, etc.  Instrument upkeep can become the black hole that sucks up all your lab time.   

Don't despair if resources are limited.  I have made many trips to RO1 institutions to use libraries and instruments.  What your school lacks a neighbor might have.  If you develop a collaboration with an RO1 partner you might be able to bypass much of the cost of using instruments on that campus.

In protecting your sanity I will remind you that teaching and service will absorb much of your time.  You will not have as much lab time as you think.  At the same time without you in the lab your students will wander around pouring expensive reagents into waste bottles and breaking glassware for amusement (maybe not, but it seems that way).  You need to develop project that don't require your expertise.

Lastly, a word for those preparing to enter the job search in the Fall.  Develop your idea now!  Start thinking about funding sources.  Start writing your research plans now.  August will be here before you know it.

T. S. Hall

Research Mojo

There is an excellent column in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week under the title of Maintaining Your Research Mojo.

My first thought on reading the column was that every mid-career PUI faculty member should read this insightful piece.  Then I realized that for many it may be a bit late.  It might be better if all you folks about to be or just tenured should read it too.  The loss of research mojo for many of us happens little by little and Drs, Harvey and Thompson have written how it happens, so be forewarned.

For those looking to break the spiral of mojo loss I recommend the path I have taken in the sabbatical at an RO1 institution.  It has helped me to refocus and regroup my research strategy and in the end it will have given me the time and resources to finish up a couple of papers, which might help me get back on the granting train.

I do need to offer a warning though.  If waning expertise gives you pause when your back home at your PUI, it could crush your spirit when you are among the fresh faced grad students and postdocs.  Every group meeting I go to and every seminar I attend and every time I talk to the labmates I am reminded that reading the literature is not enough.  I have been kick to the ground a few times by the realization that while I was once considered a sharp young scientist, my physique is not the only thing time has taken a toll on.  Thankfully I still have a few skills at the bench, a delight in learning, and a willingness to admit what I don't know even if it is embarrassing.  

One thing I hope to do when I return to my home institution is work on the culture of scholarship within the department.  I will seek out others who want their mojo back or who who want to keep what they have.  At our Mojo Meetings we will talk about your research programs, helping each other get the papers and grants out.  If two or three of us set a goal of getting one colleagues work published, talking about the data and the writing each week may start everyone's mojo flowing.  

T. S. Hall

The Grant Site Visit

I attended a PhD Thesis defense the other day which made me think about a recent grant site visit.

I am a PI on a reasonably large federal grant to support efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented groups in the sciences.  As part of the review of our renewal we had a site visit from said federal agency.  Having never participated in one of these it was interesting.

Of course we got ourselves into panic mode as the day of the visit came closer.  We scrutinized our grant to the point were we had analyzed every flaw and cursed ourselves for the poor job we did on in the planning and writing.  We were pretty sure they would hand us our heads.

And then site visit day came.  The panelists ensconced themselves in a conference room to be visited by the PIs, current students, former students, the outside evaluators, administration officials, etc.  At the end of the day the PIs assembled before them again for final questions.

The thing was, there was no blood bath, and all those questionable issues that we were sure would sink our grant didn't.  The questions asked were reasonable and sometimes even a bit unexpected, but nothing that we could not handle.  We knew all the details of what we wrote and why (pretty good for a grant with three PIs but in which six people contributed material), and all the pros and the cons.  

In the end I came to view the site visit team as I advise my students to view the audience at a talk or a thesis committee.  Their job is to be skeptical, but behind that, they are rooting for you, so just recognize that you are the expert in the room and show them what you know.

As I sat in the thesis defense I found myself thinking that seminars, grants, papers and thesis defenses are all the same. Although, as Marie Curie put it, "There are sadistic scientists who hasten to hunt down error instead of establishing truth.", reviewers do hope you will excite their intellect with your work and will reward you accordingly when you do.

T. S. Hall

P.S. I am happy to report that our score on the grant was below 200, suggesting that we will get the funding.

Business Model

There is much hub-bub about applying a "business model" to higher education.  While this gives some academics reason to rant, I don't reject the discussion out of hand.  I actually see Higher Education as a business.  We have managed to convince nearly everyone that we have a product they must buy.

I only ask one question.  What is our business ?

Vocational training.  Induction into the life of the mind.  Purveyor of diplomas.  Warehousing the sex crazed, beer swilling part of the population until they mature.  Training league for the Business of Sports.  "Service to the community".  Basic research institute.

Too often I hear people talk about the business model in a sense that indicates that the job of higher education is to send people into the world with diplomas in their hands at the cheapest cost per unit.  Unfortunately, the quality of the product never enters the conversation for most people who decry the cost of higher education.

We need to escape the "units produced" and "cost of production" mentality before we find ourselves with lots of low cost poor quality units that no-one wants or needs.  After all, based on units produced and cost of production the Yugo was a great car.

So to borrow from Bill Maher, this week's New Rule is:  If you are going to argue for a business model for higher education, you must identify what business.  What is the product?  How is quality measured?  How will you ensure that the costs of production are met?  If you can't at least address those questions, you can't participate in the conversation.

Now, we can have a conversation free of bile, which will potentially move us toward resolution of the education business problem.

Unfunded Mandates

Yes, I know I promised to finish one of those topics in the pile, but when outrage takes over the bile must flow.

I have been informed that back at the ranch a new edict has come down indicating that faculty must now pay for all long distance calls.  For context, in the region I live there are so many people and area codes that a place ten minutes drive from your office or house is probably a long distance call.

Department operating and expense budgets have been cut back so frequently that in most years the department has to use donations from alumni and industry support for basic operations like the copier.  Any time there is any disruption of normal starvation funding the State provided operation and expense budget disappears all together.

Since student lab fees may only be used for "consumables" things like balances, hotplates, stirrers, pH meters, heating mantles, and stuff like that must be purchased from O&E money, which we don't have.  So, every year the equipment gets in poorer shape, but we can't replace it.  In the end we can't do the job mandated by the state, because the state won't provide the resources needed.

When you need to ask for grant money for stirrers, mantels or rotovaps you get comments about how the university should be providing this basic laboratory equipment.  Well, not when they can't afford copier paper or white board pens for your classes.

Some years ago I switched to exams in blue books because I could save paper by eliminating all the spaces on the page that student would write the answers in.  Unfortunately this means that the students often need to redraw structures, which reduces the number of questions I can ask in an exam.  But I saved money.

I was never provided an office phone and had to go buy one.  It peeves me to now have to pay for the privilege of returning calls to students.   So, next Fall I will put in to my syllabus that I can't return student calls unless they are local calls, and that the reason the lights are off in my office is to keep my office electric bill down.

If you own a dairy and you don't feed the cows well enough you will only get a small quantity of poor quality milk.  At some point you need to either feed the cows better to get the milk that provides the money to buy feed and other things, or shoot the cows and stop buying feed.  Of course in the latter case you don't have cows any more, so tomorrow you have no source of income.

We need to balance our budgets, but across the board cuts only make it so everybody fails to meet their mission and never gets us out of the problems we are in.  The question must be asked as to which things we should continue to do well and which we should allow someone else to do.  Isn't this the point of having university system offices?  We don't need to get rid of the same things everywhere.  We need to build areas of excellence at each institution in the system so that over the entire system all resources are available, even in though times.  In better times, everybody can do everything.

Keeping the lions at bay

My friend the Gaussling admonishes me that if I am going to blog I must post on a regular basis to keep my readers interested (Perhaps "my reader" in my case. Hi Dad!).

Well things here in sabbatical land are quite busy.  I now have 10 reactions in various states of completion in the hood and have run out of round bottoms.  I am thinking about changing my research focus to temporal synthesis in which I will create more hours in the day.

So just to keep you readers on the hook I am doing this lame post listing the titles of the partially written posts in my edit box: More Hats than Stetson, Notes from the Hallogens, The Site Visit, Middle Skill Workers, PUI Transformative Research, and The Business Model.

So, back to the hood and hopefully a real post in the next couple of days.

On the Lighter Side

I had to check a price on something this morning and found the following video ad on the Analtech site.

http://www.analtech.com/adventuresofanna.html

It looks like the folks at analtech need to put that cyclograph in a hood where they won't breath the solvent fumes.

As a disclaimer, the fine folks at Analtech had nothing to do with my posting this, other than making me laugh with their ad.  I could use a couple 4 mm cyclograph plates though. 

Academic Job Fall 2010

I have been on a number of faculty search committees and have chaired a couple, so it has been interesting to talk to the graduate students and post-docs here at my sabbatical location.  Several of my lab colleagues have expressed an interest in finding an academic position for Fall 2010, so I thought I would make a few comments on preparing for a academic life from the perspective of the research active but non-research university.  I imagine this will be a reoccurring topic over the next few months.

My tendency is to think long-term.  My advice to students at any stage of their career is to think about where you want to be in future and start doing the things that people who are successful in that career do.  (With the exception of adopting the more annoying personality traits.)  With this in mind, you applicants for 2010 jobs should start working on those things that will ensure your success as a junior faculty member.  One of those things is an independent and externally funded research program that is appropriate to the resources and student body of the institution you are applying to.

By "independent" I mean a project that is not a rehash or slight modification of your prior work in your PhD or Postdoc.  I am not suggesting that there can not be some connection, but if the topics are too close there will be concerns that you don't have your own ideas, and that you will end up competing with your established former mentors, which rarely ends well for the junior person.  

Collaborations are a good thing, and in PUI institutions can facilitate your program's development and help get early funding support.  You must, however, make sure that your contributions in any collaboration stand out as contributions you were uniquely qualified to make.  When you get to the tenure review you don't want someone to suggest that your collaborator is carrying you.  I have known people who were denied tenure because the committee was not convinced that the candidate's contributions to the papers published showed that there was a viable independent research program.  When you engage in collaborations try to also produce some publications on your own to avoid this pitfall.

How do we know if your work has potential for external funding?   You need to have an identifiable bigger picture issue you are addressing in your research.  As students and postdocs it can become easy to focus on making that next compound and lose sight of the larger scientific issues.  I am the first to admit that I have fallen into this trap where I focused on making molecules rather than on a bigger picture of how these synthesis tell is anything useful about the larger science.  This does not preclude you from publishing your work, but it will make it more difficult to find funding.  There may be some utility in another synthesis of Prelog-Djerassi lactone or Oseltamivir, but unless you have a good scientific hook funding will be difficult to find.

So, to use NSF's term make your research "transformative".  It does not have to shake the world, but it must contribute to the field in a way that catches the interest of reviewers.  Again this is not a trivial task when you are working at a PUI, which I will get into in the next post on the Starting an Academic Career theme.

The Hammer Problem

The other day I was discussing a research problem with one of my RO1 colleagues.  At one point my research university counterpart pointed out that rather than killing myself trying to isolate my crossover experiment products, electrospray MS would give me the answer directly from the mixture.  It was clearly the right experiment for my system.  This left me thinking about why I had not seen the simple solution.  

Even though I do a decent job keeping up with the literature and I try to be aware of current techniques, after years of work with limited resources I had fallen prey to limiting my thinking to using the hammer I have.  I don't know when this happened and suspect that it was incremental.  I know I used to be embarrassed for my senior colleagues and their antiquated solutions to problems.  I suppose my junior colleagues may be embarrassed by me today.

I bring this up to make the case for strong seminar series which bring resource rich colleagues to campus and provide dialog between PUI faculty and your RO1 colleagues.  Too often visits with seminar speakers involve passing the time about textbooks used or the differences between our campus structures.  In the future if you come to my office expect to talk about my research problems.

Junior faculty have more modern experience but can be afraid of telling their senior colleagues that there is a more up-to-date solution.  We must keep in mind that the end goal is good science, so bring on your incites.  Being a useful colleague is better than being a deferential colleague.

Let me present my puzzles and my planned solutions.  Give me your good ideas if you have them.  If you have access to the instruments that will better address my puzzle, tell me how I can get access.  Old dogs can learn new tricks and will if the old tricks don't yield the kibble they used to.