First, a few words about operating an IGERT
Getting students
Launching Students
Getting professors to change
Devising solutions to idiotic regulations
Writing nastygrams and (less often) love letters to administration
Managing 13 accounts (Florence does)
Hosting visitors & learning from them
Chancellor’s Taskforce on Administrative Efficiency
A larger role in university and state econ. development affairs
Working with other universities on APTEC
Supervising the Creation of Interdisciplinary Technology Apps.
Stepping aside…gracefully if possible
Outline (Outsquiggle?)
Optimism
Research
Solutions
Courses
Impressions
General
Problems
My part
Time during talk
Dooley’s part
Publications
IGERT Publications
Publications
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Year
JOURNALS
AIChE Journal
Biomacromolecules
Analytica Chimica Acta
Macromolecules
Proteins: Structure, Function and Bioinformatics
Journal of Polymer Science, Part B: Polymer Physics
Physical Chemistry: Chemical Physics
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science
Analyst
Future Research Prospectus
No good way to summarize.
The following grants & submitted are
based on IGERT preliminary results.
Funded, rejected or pending
Karsten Thompson
Modeling of bacterial transport through microfiltration membranes, Millipore Corp.,
$63,380.10, (funded)
Modeling of polymer transport in fractures, Schlumberger Corp., $36,000, (pending)
Thomas Moore
Role and Regulation of Membrane Lipid Biosynthesis in Chlamydomonas
reinhardtii, NSF (pending)
Grover Waldrop
The Catalytic Mechanism of GDP-Mannose 4,6 Dehydratase, NIH
The Catalytic Mechanism of Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase, NSF
Randy Hall
Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Natural and Synthetic Beta-Sheet
Polypeptides”, NCSA, 2004-2005, 10,000 SU of computer time
Dooley/Knopf
"Catalytic hydrogenation using an actively forced microreactor" NSF-GOALI , 2005 .
Hammer/McCarley/Russo/Gilman
“Inhibition of b-strand aggregation with b-strand mimics” NIH, $2,907,190, reject &
repeat.
Enough about Research-let’s get to the tantalizing problems.
T is for Troubles—Almost all IGERT’s
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Teams are HARD in academia. Try to learn from pros in industry.
Students can fool you; some are just in it for money.
Faculty can fool you; some are just in it for money.
Some in either camp may only appear to be in it for the money,
but actually have deeper problems and may yet contribute
much. An IGERT PI should be a good judge of character.
IGERT’s can be perceived as an elite, protected group by students
with just as much talent but not IGERT-eligible. Only solution:
IGERT students must excel.
Two-year funding limit.
Faculty motivation.
Assistant professor problem: can they afford interdisciplinary
activity?
Change tens or hundreds of years of academic tradition in a fiveyear time span?
LSU IGERT
The #1
complaint
from students
may be that
we’re horribly
disorganized.
Problem
NSF itself is experimenting with IGERT
They change the rules
It’s their football, so…
Solution
Adaptation…sometimes painful
Constant thinking/tweaking
Talk to other IGERT’s
Write a new one with a better plan
Problem
Faculty Incentives, especially to complete the
apprenticeship phase.
Senior faculty lead a life of interruptions—hard to
focus on even a two-week, side-by-side
experience, despite good intentions.
Solutions
Get away! -- National & international lab trips.
Easy for physical research, possible for synthetic/bio
Minigrants & global supplements can be written to
require faculty presence
Farm the student out on internships
The USM solution!
Problem
IGERT A burden to the home department.
It moves a lot faster, does unusual things
(like today).
Solution
Use the available resources better.
Get hands on and use the tuition.
Staff resources for research should flow to
departments that need them. Why does a
Chemistry department get a FTE for travel,
for example?
Problem
Mechanical engineers in graduate chemistry
class? Really?
Solution
Mix the material.
Students work in teams, chosen carefully for
mix of talents.
Be tolerant.
Enough depressing problems and
putative-if-probable solutions.
Maybe core courses will shine a
few rays of sunny optimism.
Core Courses
Chem 4010, Macromolecular Systems I
Chem 4011, Macromolecular Systems II
Chem 7010, Macromolecular Systems III
Chem 7011, Macromolecular Systems IV
Speaking of Macromolecules
Science & Technology in Service to the
Community
Red tape, but same at any university
How it
sometimes
seems
students want
us to teach
them.
Leuven, Belgium
Macro Studies Courses Teach
Real-world Skills: Here’s one from
“The Web Workbook”
Reduce that Huge MALDI data set
In a previous problem set, many of you found that
the downloaded MALDI data set was huge.
That's because mass spectroscopists are
always interested in Dalton-level resolution. For
most polymer problems, we could be happy with
taking every tenth data point, corresponding to
10-Dalton resolution. Write a program
(QuickBasic, Excel Macro, whatever works for
you) to reduce the file to every tenth data point.
School for the Mechanically Declined
What they get from us instead
cavorite-lis
n
-fGET
tg/stores/d
communit
rate-item
cust-rec
just-say-no
true
m/justsay
James Rucker’s TurboCad Drawing
6.000
5.375
1.938
-
Rail,
see detail
8-32 tap thru
Supply knurled screws
0.5
1
2.375
supply 1/4-28 knurled ht.adj.screws
1/4-20 x 1/2"
tap & leave stub
0.75
R1
Innova 90 Laser Mount
Make Two (2)
Aluminum
Tol:1/64"
James Rucker
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.
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
Macro Studies I Enrollment
F99
F00
F01
F02
F03
F04
Enrollment
NonChemDepts Total Undergrad
14
2
16
2
Textiles, Bio,ChE 12
1
ChE
23
5
ChE,ES,NonMatric 15
2
BE, ChE, Biol
24
7
2001
4010 Enrollment since 1999
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1
2
3
4
2004
5
6
The old ACS Polymer Exam, used
as Entrance Exam for Chemists
Score on old exam over the years, all takers (out of 50)
Score of 5 takers, F03
Score after 4011 class, S04
Improvement (AvgDivByAvg)
“Pitiful, jus’ pitiful.”
12
12
16.4
1.37
Our New Macro Exam
after one semester
Entering Exiting
Improvement
14.8
23.6
1.59
A monkey could guess 8 on this exam.
They improved from Guess + 7 to Guess + 14
Macro
Studies I
Fall
Semester
2004.
=Chose Macro
= Already Macro
or IGERT
= Undergrad
Chinese chemist
American chemist
American chemist
American Chemical Engr.
American Chemical Engr.
American chemist
Who did
well?
American Biologist
A MS-I and MS-II “B Student” at
USM’s INSPIRE 2003
Problem
The meaty courses are still listed under Chemistry!
What about that new rubric? What about the
new Concentration?
Excuse
Waiting for LSU’s MS & E Ph.D. program.
Plausible Solution
1. Do the concentration—not all that hard.
2. Create courses with the same number in different
departments—e.g., ChE 4010 which could be a
different name but, in fact, would be team taught
with the MS series. This solves (or hides) the
issue of who gets what credit for teaching, too.
Impressions
Recruiting: Three Initial Sources of
Students
1. New arrivals to your department
2. Summer interns who maybe are or maybe
are not interested—no strings attached.
No summer intern program?
Write an REU site proposal!
3. The occasional new and fabulous applicants from
peer or better institutions—these will often leave you
for Florida, UCLA, etc.
4. A lot of first-generation college students tend not to
go so very far from home. You can get these, but …
Recruiting
Graduate student
recruiters with REU
student at
undergraduate fair
Rent Booth at National Meetings
Win National Football
Championship
All these help, but the most important thing is……
Feeder Schools: Better Sources of Students
Courtesy of our Advisory Panel
(copying the recruiting experts at USM)
Info
Let them eat cake!
Sugar-coating IGERT for REU’s
and other summer interns.
Chemical engineer at Chemistry
Department award ceremony
1. “Well, I never thought I’d see a
professor weigh something out.”
2. Influenza minithesis, synthetic
polymer thesis.
3. Quitting graduate school with MS!
Mechanical Engineer and High School
Science Fair Judge…in Chemistry
1. Scope on a Rope school demos….now going
beyond that.
2. With a teammate, spent a 2 hours (that is four
person-hours) at national lab trying to load tiny
cell with a high-surface tension fluid. A
“craftsperson” showed her how in 5 minutes.
This only looks silly.
Science & Technology in Service to
the Community
http://macro.lsu.edu/stsc
STSC class.
Teamwork meets its limits.
Minigrants work (sometimes)
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. Survive the drive home after
snowstorm.
Build machine not commercially
available.
Still under consideration—likely will require cost
sharing plus teaching/outreach component.
Virtual Infrastructure is Better than None at All
Interdisciplinary Technology Example:
Database-driven Student Tracker
To-die-for IT Example: Internet Scheduler
Web Seminar Sign-up With Negotiation
& Adjustable Talk Length
Speaker
Day
Friday
Friday
Friday
Date
2/20/2004
2/27/2004
3/5/2004
(Enter your
Name:
First & Last
Names)
Research
Group
Type of
Seminar
Michael
Baylis
Russo
CT
changde
Zhang
Daly
CT
Elena
Loizou
Schmidt
CT
Erick Soto
Cantu
Russo
CT
Jianhong
Russo
CT
Derek
Dorman
Russo
CT
Hyuk Yu
Russo
FT
Title or Subject
TBA
Email
TBA
Email
TBA
Email
TBA
Email
TBA
Email
Lipids and Dendrimers
Email
Polymer Scaling
Email
The one that got away.
Current Trends in LSU IGERT
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Enfranchisement: involve young faculty more deeply.
Dissemination begins at home: developing other LSU IGERT’s
Strategy IS execution.
Student-led IGERT.
Cohort teaching.
Interdisciplinary Technology
–
–
–
6.
7.
Computer tools (some progress)
LSU administrative infrastructure (well…)
Staff support (well…)
Economic development.
Planning renewal with sharper scientific focus (with someone
else as PI, because dissemination begins at home).
IGERT Fellows—the next generation of IGERT PI’s—
practice running the show…in consultation with “old”
people. Leaders earn some special opportunities.
No, not West Point. West Point is for Weenies.
Student-led IGERT – Agenda for a First Tuesday Monthly Meeting
IGERT Meeting – 1/4/05 (Tuesday Monthly Meeting); 12:00 noon in 28 LSB
AGENDA
Lunch – Pizza (I think?)
Update Email Addresses and phone numbers
Committee Updates
New Committee Leaders
Social Committee
Logo – to be approved by IGERT members or other suggestions
Upcoming Social Events
Career Development
Resumes – need to be finalized and posted on website (ASAP)
Suggestions from Career Services
Online Information for internships/post docs/etc.
Opportunities for Practice Interviews
Computer
Who has access to the current IGERT website?
Website Layout
Setting up of Individual accounts
New members/pictures need to be added to website
Update member information on website (phone number, status, etc)
Community Service
Rhonda – Girl Scout Event Info
Colleen – Update on Christmas Gift to needy family
Other Community Service Ideas??
Update on Minigrant for Macro Lab
Dr. Russo’s Announcements
IGERT Retreat (Internal Panel Review) – 1/13/04 – 1/14/04
Concerns/Questions from IGERT Members
IGERT Monthly Meeting
January 4, 2005
Minutes taken by Kristy Brumfield
12:00pm-1:30 pm
Allison started the meeting by making sure that everyone signed the check-in sheet.
Established New Committee Members
Social Committee- Derek
Website Committee- Nadia
Community Service- Rhonda
Career Planning and Development- Colleen
Presentation of gifts to Dr. Russo and Dr. Florence
Committee Updates
Social
Logo Design
Possible Canoe trip
Outside Campus Meeting at a restaurant
Vote carried out for logo design- Derek’s design gained the majority vote- It will become the next Igert design
Career Planning and Development
Gather an on-line list for jobs, post-docs, and internships- this list will then be given to the website committee to form links for the website
Completion of resumes is needed ASAP- send all resumes to Matt by Wednesday
Visit to career services to gain information about mock interviews
Possible suggestion: Ask an individual in industry or professor to give mock interviews to prepare students for future jobs in industry or academia
Possible grant writing workshops through NSF or NIH
Website Committee
Mark and Nadia are working on finding a person to build the server
Gave information about the Student-Lead IGERT website: personal webpage, student legacy link, mission statement of each committee and its
members roles
Community Service
Girl scout project will take place on Jan. 29 at the Girl Scout Council from 9am-12pm (Directions will be sent)
40 girls will be participating
Possible lab coats for the girls
Bags, Jars for crystals, paper, and Logo must be purchased (eg. Hobby Lobby)
All other ideas for community service will be accepted
Collen brought the toys and over $150 dollars worth of items to a needy family for Christmas. Family was adopted through the Catholic Community
Service organization. Thanks to all who participated.
Mini-grant items for the Macro lab have arrived and can be used for set-up for community service on a weekend
Barbara Decuir at LSU lab school can be contacted for possible community service opportunities with high school students.
Dr. Russo’s Announcements
January Meeting with Evaluators
CV’s/resumes must be completed ASAP
ii. Fly-by presentations will be integrated with a virtual tour
of the campus in a powerpoint presentation
iii. Please add mini-grants, number of publications, presentations at meetings, and community service
projects to the individual’s Fly-by slide
iv.Need volunteers to pick up evaluators at airport (Dr. Florence has the list)
Dr. Mathias of Southern Mississippi IGERT will give a brief presentation about the
China trip- approx. 5 CMC Igertians are interested in attending
vi.Turn in Mini- thesis, Apprenticeships, Milestones, and Landmarks by the end of this week
Meeting minutes.
vii. If you need a poster made go to CEBA on the 3rd floor in proximity to the Hurricane Center ( $8 )
CONCLUSION
“We’ve still got a
couple of years
to go before
we’re ready for
the moon.”
But it’s a
beautiful moon.
Turn loose!
“If this is true, he is indeed
the greatest of men.”
King George, on hearing
that Washington had
voluntarily stepped down
from his position as
Commander in Chief at
the end of the War of
Independence.
George III
Next batter!
Dooley NOT blowing something up in the Rheocord for a change.
Fin!