EPSCoR
Centers Development Initiative
IGERT Workshop
Boulder, Colorado August 12, 2002
Paul Russo – Louisiana State University
Outline
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Stumbling onto IGERT
Getting religion—writing the preproposal
Getting confirmed—writing the full proposal
Living with IGERT
Looking ahead
Stumbling onto IGERT
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Failed CCLMS IGERT
LSU hires administrative talent
Macromolecular Studies Group Briefing
Pre-proposal panel
Jelinski: “Good, now you will see all the
annoying things people do so you will
know how to avoid them when you write
your own proposal.”
Initial Impressions
• Huh? Training? Integrative?
• Another big science program
to suck money away from the
little guy.
• More $$$ for those fat cats at
Northwestern, UCLA, MIT.
• More social engineering.
• Wow! Only 8% indirect!
Preproposal Panel Day at NSF
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Training explained, but I didn’t get it.
Integrative explained, but I didn’t get it.
Value added!
Really good panelists.
Panel dynamics—a.k.a. luck.
Hastily-prepared proposals lose.
Follow the guidelines!
Leveraging great education.
Dinner with Peter.
Wondering why “they” invented IGERT?
• Probably hatched in mid-1990’s
• Science education / research crisis
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Cold war era closing
Post-modern era: info economy eclipsing science
Very different students…and dwindling domestics
New employees not ready to contribute quickly to interdisciplinary,
team-based research.
NIH and even NIST perceived more relevant than NSF
Faculty chasing fewer $$$, NSF reviewers overwhelmed
PI’s holding back on their most risky ideas
Complaints about “big science”
Ethics crises
• Solution: Integrated Teaching / Research
– team research, new core curricula, off-campus participants,
diversity, ethics training, retain “small science” flavor somehow,
make it easier for (most) faculty
– Supplements, does not replace, traditional support
– requires faculty who are “pre-qualified” by more traditional support
Mulling it Over: Finding Selfish Reasons
• Only 8% indirect! Stick it to the administration!
• Interdisciplinary means a physical scientist can share into all those
organic & bio scientists! And learn something new besides.
• Leverage teaching excellence (of my colleagues).
• Guidelines are somewhere between pure and puritanical—martyrdom
has a rich history of success.
• You would have to be nuts to do this without getting a boost from your
administration!
• The big, high-ticket professors LSU always hires to make a name for
itself have failed.
• IGERT’s support science but they also should be science: each site can
be an experiment. A different, fun kind of experiment.
• At a minimum, a great chance to sort through ideas about graduate
education. Those ideas will at least reach some power brokers in the
NSF panels.
• These IGERT people are very serious about changing graduate
education…and clearly know how the academic system works.
Getting Religion—Does Grad School Need Change?
A person
worth emulating.
NIH
“I don’t want to be like you.”
Rough seas and my slippery
slope to IGERT
“Christ, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!”
“The only thing that every
really worked with Mark was
when we found an instructor
who just told him, ‘Follow me
and do what I do.’”
Apprentice-Artisan-Craftsperson Ladder
New craftsperson (wizard)
Finishing school, or “predoc”
Community service
General exam
Old craftsperson
New apprentice
Magical Ladder turns into spiral staircase
New craftsperson seems like
wizard to new apprentices
Writing the pre-proposal
• Choose participants carefully
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Throw friendship out the window
Everyone active (funded) in individual research
A role for everyone
The rule of 10%
• Write website
– Sample resume’ in right format
– Other forms & info about proposal
– Guidelines
• Identify participants in table
• Make resume’s useful
– Show $$$$
– Show collaborations
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Identify a few focus groups, or subthemes.
What is the rationale?
Value added, value added, value added.
Get some friends to read it and follow suggestions
MSG Faculty & Projects
selected for IGERT
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14 participants, all externally funded.
$5 Million Annual Research.
NSF, NIH, DOD, etc.
Basic & applied research.
Good industrial & other off-campus contacts.
Biomedical to genomics to polyolefins, but all require common
knowledge of large molecules.
• Shared equipment.
• Demonstrated track record of working in teams.
• Our strongest tie is need to educate.
Writing the full proposal
• Clear the decks—this will take some time.
• Negotiate something for yourself (or your favorite cause).
• Get commitments for the proposal. No funny money for
match; try to make it all real.
• Grow website to include sample projects.
• These should speak to the lay person and yet appeal to
the expert.
• Cultivate: put weaker/smaller projects on the website
and just provide capsules for these in the proposal.
• A few visuals when they really are worth 1000 words.
• Eliminate chit-chat! (Surprisingly, if you don’t, I think
some reviewers are currently immune to bad writing.
However, don’t blame me if you are turned down.)
• Get a friend to read it.
LSU’s IGERT As Proposed
Teaching Craft for Macromolecular Creativity
• The first IGERT in Macromolecules or Polymers/Biopolymers.
• Departments: Biology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Textiles, Veterinary Medicine
• Yes, there must be good research--but everyone has this!
– Discuss what we’re trying to change and what to keep
– Apprentice/Artisan/Craftsperson Ladder--Hands First!
– Value added to excellent track record in diversity
– Ethics training plus community service
– Faculty researchers, not financiers of research
– Faculty teams fund high-risk projects neither could do alone
– Faculty work with students side-by-side
– Minigrants / Finishing School / Off-campus Advisors
– Off-campus: MPI-Mainz, METU/Turkey/ DSM/Geleen /Others
– Sustainability plan—after five years, what?
– Incentive plan—why should students participate?
LIVING WITH IGERT
Getting students
Taking advantage of flexibility
Getting professors to change
Devising solutions
Filling out forms
Writing nice and sometimes nasty notes to administrators
Sucking up to bureaucrats
Managing 12 accounts
Hosting visitors
A larger role in university and state affairs
Sources of Students
New arrivals to your department
Summer interns who maybe are or maybe
are not interested—no strings attached
Altogether new and better applicants from peer
or better institutions—for Florida, UCLA, etc.
What we constantly tell students…
and remind faculty
It’s an experiment!
Do not commit to it lightly.
You don’t get something for nothing.
Create something new!
If you need it, you can’t have it.
AAC Basics
Apprentice (Spring Yr1 – Spring Yr2)
Perform the side-by-side experience
with your Ph.D. team.
•Write the minithesis. $$$$$$
•STSC class
•Be a “normal” student for awhile.
•Pass Ph.D. candidacy exam (general). $$$$$$
Rewards!
AAC Basics
Artisan (Years 3 & 4, typically)
•Continue executing the team project
•Write minigrants to exercise your creativity
•Supplies or equipment for a sole-authored
paper or preliminary results for grant
•Travel (meeting, scout a postdoc, co-op)
•Execute community service project
•Prepare for data defense
Teamwork is not an end unto itself.
Use minigrants to escape into something
YOU want to do on your own.
Top of the AAC ladder
Craftsperson (Year 4 or 5)
•Professional Conduct & Opportunities Course
•Survive data defense
•Apply for “finishing school” (predoc)
•Final report on IGERT experience
•Final defense of thesis
The Steady Background
•Core Courses
•Weekly seminars
•Monthly meetings
•Annual retreat
•Industrial outreach
•Annual & semester reports
•Working in a team environment
•Working to escape the
team environment
IGERT Students Do More
• Work in a team
• Off-campus
participant
• Four core technical
courses
• Ethics/Community
Service
• Yes you WILL attend
seminar
• Report to our evaluator,
Dr. Kennedy
• Lab books done right
• Take a bigger role in
defining your project
• Required teaching
Projects such as...
Rods in supercrit fluids
Composites
Chem/ChE/Physics
Chem/ME
MPI Germany & Wyo.
Southern U.
Alzheimer’s
Chem/Bio
MIT, Wisconsin, NIH,
NHFML
Protein
Structure/Function
Complex Fluids
Chem/Bio/Phys
Chem/Chem/Physics
Physical & Polymer
CAMD, Stanford,
Brookhaven
Molecular Recognition
Chem/Chem Synth &
Analytical
Dupont
Or create your own!
English & History Ph.D.’s do!
Drilling muds/
Chem/ChE
Environment/Composites
Schlumberger
Many more projects at:
http://macro.lsu.edu/igert
Becoming an apprentice
• Find a willing faculty team.
• Devise research concept of interest to every
member.
• Must be vector cross-product of research with
finite magnitude.
• Write small proposal in a standardized format
available from the website.
• That includes commitment on the part of
professors to do the apprenticeship.
• Approval by 3-man leadership team.
Nadia J. Edwin
Major: Chemistry
Home: St.Croix, USVI
Undergrad: B.S. Chemistry, UVI-St.Thomas (2000)
Years at LSU: 2
CMC-IGERT Rank: Apprentice
Faculty Team: Russo/McCarley/Hammer Off-campus: Andrea Liu, UCLA
Project: Inhibiting Alzheimer’s Research
Apprenticeship Project: Light Scattering Characterization of Dow Particles
(completed)
Minithesis completed? Yes
Current career objective: MD/PhD Academic Professor
Hobbies: Traveling, Reading, Writing, Being Serious!
Matt Balhoff
Major: Chemical Engineering
Home: Baton Rouge, LA
Undergrad: 2000
Years at LSU: 3
CMC-IGERT Rank: Artisan
Faculty Team: Thompson-Daly Off Campus: Schlumberger
Project: Flow Through Porous Media
Apprenticeship Project: Schlumberger
Minithesis completed? Yes
Current career objective: ???
Hobbies: Sports
Demographics d’jour
• Females: 6
• Males: 7
• African-Americans: 5
Impressions
Science & Technology in Service to
the Community
http://macro.lsu.edu/stsc
STSC
William Daly, polymer scientist
and occasional professional
consultant, lectures on:
•property infringement
•tax liability
•when to tell a lawyer “no”
•when a student sues us
Students are a little blurry on why they
have to hear lectures on legal aspects
of sci-tech, but they enjoy this subject.
Global Friendships &
Portuguese CD’s
Ties to regular
track Ph.D.
students and
undergraduates
Recruiting can be fun
LSU CMC-IGERT ACCOUNTS (As of August, 2002)
MAIN ACCOUNTS (5)
Account#
Allows
115-20-XXX1
Florence @ 8%
Equipment @ 0%
115-20-XXX2
Travel foreign SAXS
115-20-XXX3
Participant support
Travel @ 8% dom
Speakers @ 8%
115-20-XXX4
Participant support
Subsistence @ 0%
Minigrants
115-20-XXX5
Participant support
Tuition & Fees @ 0%
Stipends @ 8%
Cost Sharing ACCOUNTS (7)
127-10-XXX6
Chemical Engineering
some restrictions
115-20-XXX7
Chemistry
some restrictions
115-20-XXX8
Office of Research & Graduate Studies
restricted
115-80-XXX9
Biological Sciences
unrestricted
115-90-XX10
Basic Sciences
unrestricted
127-99-XX11
College of Engineering
unrestricted
168-XX12
Center for Applied Microstructures
Development
restricted
Working lunch: filling out Milestone and Landmark reports
Coordinator in Action
Coordinator in Action
Summer intern joining REU/Hughes poster session
Ethics Training Backlash
Integrative Training:
DIY Legacy Building
Problem 4. A few weeks ago, Professor George Newkome of the University of Akron
lectured on self-assembling hexaruthenium terpyridyl clusters. A sample molecule
appears below:
Shortly after his return to Akron, Dr. Newkome sent a related sample that we took to
Laboratorio Nacional Luz Sincotron (LNLS) in Campinas, Brazil, where small angle Xray measurements were made. You can download a typical SAXS data file at:
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Does the presence of Ruthenium aid or interfere with SAXS?
Guesstimate the size of the molecule from the drawing above, using what you
know about C-C bonds, the diameter of benzene rings, etc.
 Analyze the SAXS data by the method of Guinier to obtain the radius of gyration,
Rg. There are 3 columns of numbers: q in inverse Angstroms, intensity I, and
uncertainty in I. For the present purpose, you can ignore the uncertainty.
 How does the Rg value compare to the "ring" diameter for this self assembly?
 Would you expect Rg from SANS to be the same, larger or smaller?
 Estimate the translational diffusion coefficient of the molecule.
 Do you think the real translational diffusion coefficient will be larger or smaller
than your estimate?
 Estimate the rotational diffusion coefficient of the molecule.
 Would it be possible to measure Drot by polarized (as opposed to depolarized)
light scattering?
 Would it make sense to do zero angle depolarized dynamic light scattering on the
molecule?
These data on a novel synthetic material are less than one week old so this problem
provides, just in time for summer, a natural transition to real research.
Integrative Training
•Visitor’s seminar
•Collaboration established
•SAXS trip to Brazil
•Analyze data for team exam
•All in one month
Integrative Training: Semester-long programming
assignment for inter-group research
Macromolecular Systems II, Homework #3 (shortened)
Our group and some others here are getting into DOSY and Prof. Butler
wants a friendly CONTIN, like our ANSCAN. Some translation is
needed, but of course the two programs are totally unconnected. Butler's
program is on a Mac (what else?) and gives output that looks like this:
PS2150_500_31_2
7.2122 ppm
Polystyrene containing MW standards of 500 and 2150
298 K
1.00000000E-03 % little delta (seconds)
1.00000000E-01 % big delta (seconds)
g(gauss/cm)
q^2(big_delta - little_delta/3)
expt_signal
6.65000000E-01
4.40750917E-02
1.00000000E+02
1.66200000E+00
2.75303652E-01
9.88369747E+01
2.65900000E+00
7.04671340E-01
9.57348015E+01
Some
header information (7 lines)
3.65500000E+00
1.33144949E+00
9.25603053E+01
Then: row after row of
4.65200000E+00
2.15689670E+00
8.80876912E+01
G (gauss/cm) Something
y(x)
(etc. you can download the whole file later)
Write a limber, easy-to-use program (a high school student should be
able to use it) that converts Butler's DOSY output to ANSCAN input.
Looking Ahead (APTEC)
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LSU, Tulane, UL--Lafayette & 7 others.
Selfless investment to rapidly find the fundamental science in applied
polymer projects. Postdocs, not students. Little faculty support. Seed
$$$.
Convert those findings to FRG, GOALI, MRSEC, STC, or 2nd IGERT.
Shared polymer characterization, “clearing house” for industrially
relevant problems having a fundamental component.
Joint student recruiting using industrial partners.
Undergraduate polymer infrastructure and grad student pipeline.
Summer internships in industry for “sideline” faculty who can contribute
to macromolecular studies, but don’t do so now.
Promote biomacromolecules / respond to economic contingencies.
Example & competitor: EPIC in Ohio (Akron, Case, Cinci)
Other competitors: USM, UNC, VPI, UMASS, MINN, Stanford
Interdisciplinary Education Research Training
Needs Infrastructure
Interdisciplinary Infrastructure
Development
• CASE (Center for Active Science Education)
– 4 REU’s, Hughes, IGERT staff
– Manages & develops active demos with SAACS, SPE,
AIChE
• LOIS (Louisiana Office of Interdisciplinary Studies)
– Maybe…
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute Research Vice Chan:
– “I set aside $100,000 or so for each college, and then tell
them they can only spend it on some other college.”
What I meant to say
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The most fun I have had as professor.
Flexible $$$ for an important experiment.
Revolutionary or weird? Neither!
Resonates with students and (some)
faculty.
We are happy to provide copies of the LSU pre-proposal,
full proposal, reviewer comments, this presentation, etc.
Thank you
Two blocks east of Monaco on Colfax
Spare Stuff