“May I present to you: the Smellmaster 9000.”
One of my professors once told me quite categorically that if you can smell someone’s chemistry, they are doing a bad job. His point was that any chemist worth their salt would be doing stinky things in properly-maintained fumehoods, and never exposing themselves or their colleagues to whatever unholy stenches their reagents possessed. To a certain extent, I agree with him. I’ve never had to brave the foul miasmas of things...
In the “Get a job, Ken!” series, I’ve so far retold my experience coming up with research ideas, writing the ideas down as formal research proposals, assembling the different pieces of the faculty job application, and submitting everything. In this post, I move beyond the waiting, waiting, and waiting that happens after submitting to the next step: interviews.
After the submission deadline, most interview offers are extended sometime between October and February. They begin with a phone call...
Guest post by Dr Simon Norris a Chemistry teacher at a school in the UK. As his alter ego The Cycling Scientist he has visited primary schools with his science road show. His current interests are using IT to enhance teaching and learning and using social media to create personal CPD for teaching colleagues.
It’s a simple idea. Have 100 plus T-shirts printed in various colours, each with one of the chemical elements on the front. Distribute them to chemists around the world, who get a photo of...
In this blog post—the fifth in my eight-part “Get a job, Ken!” series—I share my experience submitting job application materials. This includes the research proposal (Part 3) and other materials like a cover letter, CV, and letters of recommendation (Part 4).
Job opening notifications for chemistry faculty positions began appearing in July and August. C&E News, indeed.com (search ‘chemistry professor’), Science magazine, and Inside Higher Education were my favorite places to watch...
This blog posts continues my “Get a Job, Ken!” series. My last post focused on writing research proposals. This post describes the other pieces of the application package.
There isn’t a standard, one-size-fits-all set of application materials for all faculty job openings, but the majority ask for a cover letter, curriculum vitae (CV) and three letters of recommendation. A few universities also asked for additional items like a teaching statement, a diversity statement, copies of graduate school...
Continuing my “Get a job, Ken!” series, this post builds upon the last by suggesting how to turn research ideas into written proposals.
Strong proposals contain a competitive research idea (as discussed in my previous post), clearly communicate the idea, and concisely propose a plan to pursue it. The plan being the materials, measurements, expected results, and potential complications you may run into while attempting to turn the never-before-implemented idea into something real. Finally, strong...
This post is contributed by John Spevacek, an industrial polymer chemist and the author of the blog “It’s the Rheo Thing”
While organic chemists are familiar with the elements, very seldom do we ever make use of them as a reactant. Sure, we add elemental magnesium to Grignard reactions and we can add halogens/hydrogen across double bonds, but for the most part, the pure elements are oxidized or reduced or ionized or otherwise modified before they take part in our reactions.
The situation is...
Here’s a late entry of the chemistry movie carnival. I hope there are a few people left in the theatre.
I’ve been running a ‘Science on the Screen’ course with a local college. Over the last few weeks we’ve been dissecting the science on the big and small screens. The home work was tough, but after a reasonable amount of popcorn and cough potatoing we’ve pulled apart Dexter‘s blood spatter (it doesn’t seem to take gravity into account), Breaking...
In my last post I describe the timeline for my faculty job search. In this post, the second in the “Get a job, Ken!” series, I share my strategy for creating and vetting research proposal ideas.
The academic job application consists of a number of items. Most universities ask for a cover letter, CV, letters of recommendation, research proposals, and occasionally other materials (like a teaching statement). A candidate’s appeal to the search committee often depends on the presentation of his/her...
The application process for chemistry faculty positions can last several (grueling) months. The timeline below is my 2012 job search and serves as the first installment of my “Get a Job, Ken!” blog post series.
Job postings: The postings for inorganic/energy/materials assistant professor positions at top 100, R1 institutions (in the United States) began appearing in July 2012 and continued until about November. Postings for professor positions at undergraduate-focused institutions continued well...
Criminal Minds is one of my favorite television shows. It follows a team of FBI agents in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. They examine the psychology of crime scenes and the choices of the criminal before, during, and after a crime to build a behavioral profile which ultimately leads to the arrest of the criminal.
The show doesn’t lend itself to chemistry in every episode, but sometimes the show features some interesting opportunities for chemistry. I’ll highlight two here: one light and one sinister.
The...
I can’t believe no one else has grabbed Breaking Bad for the Chemmoviecarnival.
In case you don’t know its a show about a high school chemistry teacher, called Walter White, who turns his talents to the production of methamphetamine in an attempt to subliment his measly teacher’s income. In the course of the show Walt deploys his encyclopaedic chemistry knowledge to get him and his dopey (in more ways than one) sidekick out of a few sticky scrapes. They make a battery to jump...
