NSF Mid-award Program Review
Outline
1. Craft for Macromolecular Creativity
2. People
Teaching Craft for
Macromolecular Creativity
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Macromolecules = large molecules
Small peptides (drugs)
Large composites (pipes)
Make ‘em
Measure ‘em
Process ‘em
Theorize about ‘em
Simulate ‘em
That takes 6+ Departments at LSU
Commonly shared need: education
I is for Integrative
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Research finds its way quickly to the classroom
Seminars that play off class, lab and research
Global experience that enhances E,R & T
Interdisciplinary
Infrastructure for interdisciplinary
Students as teacher/researchers/leaders/inventors
Teamwork
The program itself is an experiment: it integrates
physical science with social science.

Flexibility
• Add stipends to scholarships, internships
• Can spend some for recruiting
• Almost any legitimate need of students
can be funded (50 minigrants so far,
average is ~$2,000, high is $10,000)
• This advantage disappears in most private
universities (Score one for public
education)
Apprentice-Artisan-Craftsperson Ladder
(AAC)
New Ph.D.
“finishing school”
“predoc”
“quadratical”
minigrants
Craftsperson
Data Defense
Community Service
Artisan
General exam
Minithesis
Old craftsperson
New apprentice
Other Central Ideas
Faculty as active scientists.
Better than a bootstrap.
Small science, even if team-oriented.
Curiosity-driven science is OK!
Vector cross products of capabilities: what new
direction will the team go into that faculty
participants and their groups could not do
separately? The students become the agent
(arrow) of that vector cross product.
Fun.
Creativity development.
Formative & summative evaluation.
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!
It is getting hard to supply the extra rewards, because
The support from NSF outpaces everything else. Fortunately,
NSF has coerced other incentives…and minigrant interest is an
even larger incentive than we imagined at first.
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
Top of the AAC ladder
Craftsperson (6 months in 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/site visit
•Industrial outreach
•Annual & semester reports
•Working in a team
•Working to escape the team
What we constantly tell students…
and remind faculty
•It’s an experiment!
•Do not commit to it lightly.
•Tell the truth.
•You don’t get something for nothing.
•Create something new!
•If you need it for the status quo,
you can’t have it.
•If it’s risky and innovative, then you
probably can have it.
Projects such as...
Rods in supercrit fluids
Composites
Chem/ChE/Physics
Chem/ME
MPI Germany & Wyo.
Southern U.
Or create your own!
English & History Ph.D.’s do!
Alzheimer’s
Chem/Bio
Protein
Structure/Function
Complex Fluids
Chem/Bio/Phys
Chem/Chem/Physics
Physical & Polymer
CAMD, Stanford,
Brookhaven
Molecular Recognition
Chem/Chem Synth &
Analytical
Dupont
Drilling muds/
Chem/ChE
Environment/Composites
MIT, Wisconsin, NIH,
NHFML
Schlumberger
Many more projects at:
http://macro.lsu.edu/igert
Who’s in?
Department Faculty
Students
Biological Sci.
Chem.Engr.
Chemistry
Education
Mech.Engr.
Physics
Textiles
4
3
10
1
1
0
1
3
3
11
1
1
0
1
TOTAL
20
20
Current Trends
1. Enfranchisement: involve more faculty.
2. Interdisciplinary Technology
– Computer tools
– LSU administrative infrastructure
3. Student-led IGERT
Impressions
How it
sometimes
seems students
want us to
teach them.
Leuven, Belgium
cavorite-lis
n
-fGET
tg/stores/d
communit
rate-item
cust-rec
just-say-no
true
m/justsay
Integrative Training: Semester-long programming
assignment aiding 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.
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:


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
Working lunch: filling out Milestone and Landmark reports
Coordinator in Action
Coordinator in Action
Summer intern joining REU/Hughes poster session
Science & Technology in Service to the
Community
http://macro.lsu.edu/stsc
Sample Minigrants
Subject
Outcome
Grant-writing workshop
“PolyCommunity” non-profit corporation???
Langmuir imprinting
Supports NSF-CAREER grantee in new direction
Preliminary data for new grant at
Dupont/Univ. of Delaware
Grant submitted
Summer at NRL
Student quit graduate school
Experimental flow test apparatus
Simulation expert built apparatus with own hands
Set of tools like that at SAXS line
Real tools in that lab
Manifold for organic synthesis
Badly needed manifold for organic reactions in a lab
where synthesis equipment was dated
SAXS at Tsukuba
2 students to Tsukuba, Japan
Travel to NIST for SANS
Students learn contrast matching—new capabilities
for that research
Polymer processing tour
at ExxonMobil
Chem 4010 = MS-I
STSC class.
Teamwork meets its limits.
S
T
A
N
F
O
R
D
Does IGERT help recruit faculty?
Dr. Bin Chen Pre-LSU
3 generations of
Macromolecular Studies Group Students
Global Friendships &
Portuguese CD’s
Jason with beamline
scientist Tomas in Brazil
Ties to regular track
Ph.D. students and
undergraduates
Recruiting can be fun
With SSRL Scientist in Brazil
Ingenius!
Top 10 University Infrastructure Achievements &
Commitments to Interdisciplinary Activities
1.
2.
New VP position to oversee 3 colleges.
Biodynamics Institute Reorganized to Enhance
Chemistry-Biology Interface.
3. Travel Dollars for Groups of Five or More from Vice
Chancellor of Research.
4. Increased graduate stipends to compete with IGERT.
5. Department of Economic Development Fellowships
pegged to IGERT Levels.
6. Chancellor’s Taskforce on Administrative Policy—
Recommended Boosts in Indirect Costs Returned are
Directed Towards Interdisciplinary Activities.
Top ten…continued
7.
8.
MS&E Effort: on campus & across state.
Albemarle Campus Acquisition—Space and a
Pretty Face for Interdisciplinary Activities.
9. Chancellor Emmert, VC Research Smith, Dean
Silverman and (former) Dept. Chair Sinclair have
attended “IGERT School” at NSF.
10. IGERT-invented database-driven web solutions
for interdisciplinary groups are being picked up,
supported and improved by Chemistry
Department (Travel, Seminars) and BASC
(College Policy Website).
Interdisciplinary Technology
(the other IT)
IGERT students today
+
+
+
+
+
Part II.
People
A Military Organization Metaphor for
LSU IGERT
Deities
Chancellor-Athletic Director-Football Coach
#1 in Football (finally), Baseball (often), Track (almost every year)
#35 in Federal Research Support among Public Universities
Not nearly good enough. The deities want more.
Archangel St.
Gabriel,
Bearer of
Important
News &
Forgiveness
VP Silverman
Dean Egbelu
VC Smith
Tryfon Charalampopoulous, ME
Ludwig Prandtl
Leadership of Vital
Technical Units
Giulio Natta
Luigi Marzilli, Chemistry
Alexander Fleming
Steven Hand, Biol.Sci.
Military Organization Chart for LSU
IGERT PI’s & Co-PI’s
D
O
O
L
E
Y
B
R
I
C
K
E
R
The next generation
practices running the show…in
consultation with old people.
No, not West Point. West Point is for Weenies.
Procurement
Sergeant Bilko
Florence
Halloween 2002
On with it!
Florence will now show you to the appropriate table to
begin the interviews.
Take no prisoners—find out what you want to know.