Science Careers Blog

Every scientist has heard of "back of the envelope" calculations, and many have had the experience of sketching out ideas for a project or grant proposal on the back of an envelope. The University of Alabama-Birmingham's School of Public Health has taken this idea one step further with its Inaugural Back of the Envelope Awards.

Applicants for these seed grants, which are funded from state coffers, are required to submit  proposals on the backs of standard letter-sized envelopes. The department received 19 applications and made 4 awards.

By James Austin on January 5, 2009 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While reviewing this week's article "Smarter Than the Average Desk" I had to ask what the term "digital natives" meant. The answer, once you hear it, is obvious: 'digital natives' are the youngish people who grew up surrounded by digital technology. In the article, we note that scientists, engineers, and educators are designing classroom technology that must meet the needs of these digital natives, who have been exposed to electronic gadgets and fast-paced multimedia since birth.

On his blog Zero Percent Idle, Tim Windsor elaborates on digital natives by excerpting from Don Tapscott's book Grown Up Digital. This new generation (or 'Net Generation,' as Tapscott says) wants freedom in everything they do, loves to customize and personalize their technology, and seeks entertainment in all aspects of life: work, education, and social life. These are the factors that those in education technology have to keep in mind when creating devices and learning technologies meant to captivate their audiences.

These characteristics will be on display as this generation enters the workforce; for example, this cohort is used to constant socializing and collaborating through social networking sites and online projects. Understanding these generational characteristics will be important for employers who want to recruit and maintain their workforce. We discussed these issues in last year's article, "The Truth About Gen Y."

By Kate Travis on January 5, 2009 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Those of you in the biomedical-research world are no doubt aware of the weirdness surrounding early-career independent investigators. Under Zerhouni, the organization worked very hard to ensure that scientists at the beginning of their careers got their share of research grants. They've been pretty successful.

But their success has come at the expense of some strangeness. Let's review. First there were the "FIRST" awards, a competition that was open only to scientists who hadn't been funded before by NIH. These were relatively small compared to R01s and carried a certain stigma; as a result, NIH found in a study, FIRST awards were ineffective in helping scientists get their first R01s. Rather than increase the size of the awards to make them more effective in this respect, NIH discontinued the program.

Next, NIH created "New Investigator" status for its R01 applicants. If you've never before received a real NIH research grant (an R01 of equivalent), you get special treatment. Standards for "New Investigators" aren't so much lower as different, with less emphasis on preliminary data and more emphasis on potential. Anyway, that is how it's supposed to work.

Then NIH discovered that approximately half of their "New Investigators" were not early in their careers. So they created a new status: "Early Stage Investigator." An early-stage investigator is a new investigator who received their doctoral degree within the last decade. 

Here's the latest twist: Now you can apply for an extension in your early-stage-investigator status if you've had a period of less-than-full-time research for reasons "that can include medical concerns, disability, family care responsibilities, extended periods of clinical training, natural disasters, and active duty military service."

By James Austin on January 2, 2009 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In an article titled "How to Fix Your Life in 2009," Wednesday's Wall Street Journal offers a list of helpful hints for 2009 covering personal finance, retirement planning, health care costs, and a few career issues. The piece has contributions from several of the Journal's writers and focuses on particularly troublesome issues related to the recession.

The career-related hints, however, seem to apply to any economic conditions. If your job hunt has hit a dead-end, Sarah Needleman recommends investing time in networking, attending business meetings and events, and fixing your Facebook or MySpace profile so it does not display inappropriate content. She also suggests creating profiles on more business-oriented networks (e.g. LinkedIn) and hiring a career coach to critique your resume and improve your interviewing skills.

(On the last point, we think you could save a little money and read Science Careers to get much of the same information. Admittedly, we're a little biased.)

Elsewhere in the article, Joseph De Avila tells how to get your name off embarrassing photos that others might post on Facebook and MySpace, and how to avoid it in the future.

Sarah Needleman returns later to advise readers how to update the resume they haven't touched for 5 years.  Start with an objective that summarizes the kind of job you are seeking, says Needleman. Then outline your work history, describing your contributions to each employer. Then have someone review and proofread the text. If you want to use an outside resume service, Needleman tells how to go about choosing one.

Other timeless advice in the column includes how to keep your produce from rotting too quickly (store fruits and vegetables separately) and what to do about those four-inch stiletto heels that are killing your feet.

By Alan Kotok on January 2, 2009 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With all of the bad news about employment, it is nice to see that some sectors of the economy are still hiring, particularly those that hire scientists and engineers. Last week, Jack Chang of McClatchy Newspapers highlighted three sectors that have added jobs in the past few months, while others have been cutting: education, health care, and information technology (I.T.).

Chang notes that from July to November 2008, while the entire non-farm workforce lost 1.4 million jobs, health care and education organizations added 140,000. Not all of these jobs, are high-paying professional scientific and engineering positions--very likely, only a small minority are good technical jobs--but it's good to know there are sectors of the economy that are still hiring people with technical training.

Chang talked to Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brooking Institution, who says that governments at every level consider the  education and health care sectors--vital services supported largely by public funds--worth saving. Educational institutions also absorb many laid-off workers who use the opportunity to retrain for other kinds of work--creating jobs, if only in the short term, for people capable of teaching those skills.

In the I.T. sector, Chang relies on more anecdotal evidence and less on statistics. He talked to Trevor Loy, a venture capitalist in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who says many of the technology companies he finances are hiring. Loy gives as examples companies that develop advanced water purification systems and a new generation of survey cameras used in construction. Loy says these companies plan to continue hiring through 2009.

Barry Lawrence, a spokesperson for the employment search site Jobfox, tells Chang that I.T. plays such a fundamental role in businesses that employers want to avoid losing their I.T. staff. Jobfox, Lawrence says, sampled 4,000 of its job listings from 2,000 employers over a 4-month period ending on 28 October. Software designers and developers were fifth on the list of workers most in demand. University faculty ranked 22; sales representatives ranked  no. 1.

Lawrence believes Barack Obama's much-discussed economic stimulus package will spur many more technical employment opportunities. If the package gets enacted, Jobfox anticipates more staffing needs in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as in construction management.

Emily Mendell, vice president of strategic affairs for the National Venture Capital Association, tells Chang that alternative energy is another field that should benefit from the Obama presidency, and thus should serve as a source of new jobs. Financier Loy adds that developers of innovations that can save energy for businesses are doing well right now, including one firm in his financial portfolio that makes illuminated display signs requiring much less energy and maintenance than current illuminated displays.

By Alan Kotok on December 29, 2008 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I really like good science-related personal blogs, especially when the writing is vigorous, quirky, and--especially--unpretentious. Reclaiming Miss Havisham qualifies. The blog is written by a young woman named Leslie who describes herself as "a medical research scientist and bio-ethicist by trade" who "approach[es] frivolous topics with inappropriate belligerence." She currently works (if I'm reading it right) as a compliance officer overseeing animal care, though she has announced her resignation due to ethical conflicts with her supervisors and applied to veterinary school. She intends to stay on in her current position until her replacement is hired and trained.

In case you haven't read Dickens, the "Miss Havisham" reference is to the eccentric, rich widow in Great Expectations who (if I remember right) has kept the same feast rotting on her dining room table for decades. I'm not sure what's implied by the reference; presumably Leslie feels a personal connection to Miss Haversham.

Reclaiming Miss Havisham is witty, funny, and poignant. This is NOT a science blog--though it sometimes touches on animal care--but an often profane, deeply personal account of a life lived on the edge of the scientific world, written by an idiosyncratic, compassionate, deeply human soul.

By James Austin on December 24, 2008 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times on Saturday described the U.S. State Department's accelerated efforts to recruit more foreign service officers (FSOs), the people who staff American embassies and consulates overseas. While FSOs come from a wide range of disciplines, some scientists find these jobs rewarding, particularly when they can apply their earlier training. For example, a few years ago Joan Woods described for Science Careers her transition from biology studies to public health work in Malawi for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the agencies mentioned in the Times article.

FSOs represent the United States in political, economic, consular (passports and visas), press, cultural, and administrative positions overseas. In addition to salary and the usual benefits, FSOs often receive housing (either directly or through reimbursements) for themselves and their families and bonuses for agreeing to serve in hardship posts. But FSOs must agree to serve anywhere in the world, including dangerous and difficult places where they may face long separations from their families. Many months can be spent in full-time language training to prepare for these assignments.

Even with these caveats, the competition for FSO spots is intense. The Times article says that 12,000 to 15,000 applicants compete for an average of about 450 new positions each year. Applicants must pass a written exam, an interview, and a full security background investigation. Those with foreign-language skills, particularly in Middle Eastern and Asian languages, receive preference.

For those with science or engineering backgrounds, the State Department hires FSOs for specialist positions in information technology and security work. USAID also seeks experts in public health and agriculture, as well as social scientists. Some officers who enter as specialists become generalists, learning the political and economic policy issues needed to advance to management positions in embassies and in Washington.

Full disclosure: the author is a former foreign service reserve officer and current board member of the Public Diplomacy Alumni Association.

By Alan Kotok on December 23, 2008 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the new (19 December) issue of Science Careers, Brian Vastag describes a number of training programs to produce translation scientists, who conduct biomedical research with a direct connection to clinical practice. Among the most prominent of such initiatives is the Med Into Grad program, created by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).  Yesterday, HHMI announced an expansion of this program that will increase the number of training centers from 13 to 38.

According to a news release, HHMI is adding $25 million to its spending for Med Into Grad, which it hopes to distribute to another 25 institutions. HHMI sets general objectives for the institutions, but, as noted in Vastag's article, universities have considerable leeway in configuring the education they deliver to participating students.

HHMI asks for institutions to register their intent to compete for the grants by 6 January 2009. Full proposals are due on 27April 2009.

By Alan Kotok on December 19, 2008 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The arrest of financier Bernard Madoff on 11 December on investment fraud charges has sent waves crashing into scientific institutions and philanthropies that invested in Madoff-backed schemes. Madoff contributed widely to and served on boards of various Jewish and Israeli charities and institutions, many of which invested in his hedge fund. Prosecutors say Madoff's fund was a $50 billion scam.

Yeshiva University in New York, home to the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, has apparently taken a significant hit. The Albert Einstein school is a major research facility, as well as a medical training institution. Sources at Yeshiva told the JTA news service that the school has lost at least $100 million from its endowment because of Madoff investments. Madoff served as treasurer of Yeshiva's board of trustees.

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel, invested in Madoff's securities, according to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, which estimates its losses at about NIS 25 million ($6.5 million).

Victims of Madoff's apparent fraud include foundations headed by household names such as Nobel laureate Elie Weisel, Senator Frank Lautenberg, and film director Steven Spielberg, as well as many smaller family foundations and institutions that serve Jewish communities in North America, Europe, and Israel. Madoff managed most of the investment income of Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation, which donated some $3.3 million for medical research to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Charities with larger exposure to Madoff's schemes were less fortunate. The Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation of Salem, Mass., which supports exchanges of teachers and students between Israel and the United States, invested all of its $8 million in Madoff's fund and has shut down.

The Madoff scandal has further shaken an already nervous environment for philanthropies. John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York told JTA, "Already in the context of a very challenging economic environment this will present another significant difficulty. We don’t know yet the extent of the wreckage."

By Alan Kotok on December 16, 2008 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

When you interview with an employer, it's not unusual to get introduced to staff members other than the interviewer during your visit. Dave Jensen's new Tooling Up article on interviewing includes this advice (number 18, under During the Interview) for that very situation:

• Assume that everyone you talk with on interview day will be involved in the decision to hire, no matter how they are introduced. Answers to the "candid" questions you're asked by prospective peers often make it back to the hiring manager. You are interviewing no matter where these conversations take place--in the hallway, the lunchroom, or while walking through the plant.

Last week, a posting in the Careers blog at U.S. News and World Report directly supports this piece of advice. Business owner G.L. Hill, one of the bloggers at U.S. News, says his company uses these meet-and-greet encounters as a way of finding out how an employee prospect interacts with coworkers. Hill says mastering these brief meetings is crucial to the candidate. Yet, says Hill, "Most fail due to lack of planning. Or they believe the job interview is over-and are trying their best to get out the door and have no time to be nice to some random person they just met."

Hill adds, "Realize that the interview is not over until you are out of sight. This does not mean you have to develop an oversize personality overnight and become Mr. or Ms. Extrovert, but know that how you interact with others has become more important than ever."

Hill suggests practicing for these seemingly impromptu encounters, because in Hill's company--and probably many others--there's nothing impromptu about them.

By Alan Kotok on December 1, 2008 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)