Dredging up the French, part 2 (turbo mode!)

Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive!

I talked about how my French is coming back to me a year ago, but since then, it's been on the accelerated path.  On the one hand, I've got a province where French isn't REALLY spoken a lot, but you can definitely find it.  On the second hand, I've got the boyfriend who was in Ontario French immersion school (and his father and sister will banter back and forth with him on occasion).  And on the third hand, and likely the most prevalent in my everyday life, we've got our new Quebecois postdoc and new Iranian postdoc, who both speak French.  They speak French to each other and to anyone else who admits they know a bit of French and would be willing to speak it occasionally.  The Ontario-native grad students and I are included.  It's super cool.

That's three hands of French, people.  French is launching a triple-pronged and multi-accented attack at me.  It sounds dumb of me to say "I know it's an official language and all, but I didn't know it would be so prominent," but that's kind of how I felt moving to Ontario, land of English-speakers.

I find myself falling into the trap that I always do with all of the (bits and shreds of) foreign languages I know.  People talk to me in the foreign language.  I understand, but knee-jerk answer in English.  My comprehension is solid and immediate, but so desiring am I to convey information back quickly, that I answer in the most expedient way possible.  I have to convince the postdocs to stop letting me do this.

Has anyone else moved to Ontario and noticed an unusual influx of French into their life?

Artsy science

I've been working on various kinds of microscopes for about 6 years now, and I've taken a lot of pictures.  A LOT of pictures.  Somewhere in the realm of thousands.  Most of them are of nanowires of varying populations and striping patterns, but a couple were of funny things that were strange anomalies (i.e. nanowire walls and nano-Doritos).  Some of my pictures looked pretty artsy.

All of those pictures have been completely blown out of the water by a picture I took today.  Grad student Justin and I were evaluating the extent to which plasma etching revealed gold electrodes by plating gold and observing it under our optical microscope.  I have no idea what kind of etching happened to give us this shape, but there it is, a millimeter-sized treble and bass clef, both illustrated in fractal gold:

Merry golden melodies!

Nothing about this is, of course, at all publishable, so I don't mind sharing it.  We still have no idea what happened.  It almost looks like strips of support electrode gold came up after plasma etching, but we aren't sure.  In any case, it makes for quite a cool picture.

Small is beautiful!

I know, I haven't posted on here in a while. That's because life happened, aka my social life exploded. I'm no less in the lab, but I am less at home and contemplating blogging.

Still, I can't help but write about this topic. A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to hear Paul Weiss, the director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA, give an ACS webinar entitled "Small Is Beautiful." Paul and I overlapped at Penn State before he made the move to California, and he is a very insightful and brilliant person whose mind is always thinking about the next big thing. "Small Is Beautiful" was about the role of nanoparticles and nanoscience in present and future technologies. There were numerous questions that went unanswered in the interest of time, and it just goes to show how much the public doesn't know about the nanoworld.

Then again, there is so much that nano researchers don't know about the nanoworld. We are just scratching the surface with studies of nanoparticle toxicity and nanoengineered electronics.  There is also the (large, looming) question of how we can control nanoparticle assembly and direct them to where we want.  So far, this has been explored by linking with DNA or electrical fields/electrofluidics, or just plain letting intermolecular forces do the work (references for all of these available on request), but it remains a very important field of study.  One thing that we can glean from these findings: locating and directly positioning a single nanoparticle?  Not so easy.

I, for one, miss working with nanoparticles. I used to work with nanowires that weren't exactly nano-sized:

I didn't take this picture, but it's a scanning electron microscope picture from our group.  Obtained from science.psu.edu.

Now I work with nanostructured microelectrodes.  Essentially, the structural size scale is the same, but now I'm dealing with things that aren't free-floating in solution.  The nanowires were electroplated on a solid scaffold, then released.  The microelectrodes are electroplated on a solid scaffold.... and that's it.  They have their advantages (namely, their ability to interface with electronics), but I miss the quicker reactivity imbued by free-floating particles.... not to mention the larger amount of redundancy.  I used to be able to make 1 billion nanowires at a time, whereas I can only make 20 microelectrodes now.

There is a certain allure of nanoparticles, especially when they're all colorful and pretty and they produce transmission electron micrographs that look like this:

From the Hamad-Schifferli group at MIT.  Image from MIT News.

Those are gold nanoparticles of varying shapes and sizes, and their colors change based on the shape and size of the particles.  Definitely possible optics applications there, as unlike dyes, nanoparticles don't photobleach or break down under light exposure.

I suppose I'm somewhat rambling, but my point is that small is indeed beautiful, and there is a lot about nanotechnology that needs to be investigated.  Being a nanoscientist is fun, because I never know what I'll get to look at under the electron microscope next!

The importance of communication

I realize I haven't posted here in over a month.... sorry about that. There were many things that have kept and still are keeping me busy, but I'd like to talk about lab communication and what an incredible tool it is.

I have come to realize how valuable this is firsthand because of my situation. Both my old and new labs underwent a major outflux of old students followed by some overlap with new students (more overlap in the old than the new). I was part of the outgoing group in the old lab, and I am on the tail end of the incoming group at the new one. It's a tough time when the lab is in flux, because, as I'm finding, not everything gets passed down. Sometimes we have to reinvent the wheel, or some crucial little step that someone thinks isn't important is left out, and troubleshooting ends up taking forever.

This is where good communication comes in. There are bound to be some things that get lost in transition, but good communication skills can greatly soften this blow. When I am handing down my knowledge, if I observe that someone isn't asking quite the right questions (because maybe they don't know what to ask), I seamlessly volunteer a little extra relevant information ("...and you should also do x, because of y."). This saves time in the long run, because they don't have to come ask me things every 5 minutes and get to try it out for themselves. I never realized I was doing this until I noticed that it isn't intuitive for everyone. I have observed a few other people doing it, though, and it's no surprise that better verbal communicators tend to write better papers and give better presentations. They are able to give sufficient background, put their work into context of what's been done before, and explain what they are doing to solve a specific problem. It sounds easy for some, but it's not for all.

Long gone are the days when scientists could hide in their labs with beakers and flasks. Now, your work has to be explainable, and you've got to sell it.

How my life as changed as a postdoc (a.k.a. why I love my postdoc)

My life has changed as a postdoc.  Not incredibly, but subtly.  In little surreptitious ways that I don't notice when they crop up, but do notice upon reflection.

I was really worried that when I started my postdoc, I wouldn't be able to be on the accelerated track because of my relative dearth of knowledge on the subject at hand.  There are two major detection mechanisms in the world of biosensing: optical and electrochemical (or electrical, though I'm a bit rue to put it under electrochemical).  Graduate work was optical; postdoctoral work is electrochemical.  I planned it that way because of the broadening effect I hoped it would have.  I knew it would be delving into something different, but I had a sneaking suspicion that in the back of my mind, it would be ok, because I had the knowledge base regarding biosensing and biodetection.... I just had to learn a few different techniques.

So far, that's been what it's been, and there's been more.  I've found myself taking on a subtle leadership role, which is surprising since I've only been here for 3 months. I advise the younger students when the PI is not around.  I correct techniques that have gotten lost over the years and with the turnover of new students.  Right now, I am heading up putting together a budget for a major grant for which we are applying.  I would have never dreamed I would do those sorts of things in graduate school, but I am loving the freedom and autonomy.  And to top everything off, of course I have my own labwork to do, but learning what I am about our system is playing second fiddle to what I am learning behind the scenes, though it is still incredibly interesting, and I am devoting a lot of time to it.

Honestly, it's like I'm being groomed to become a tenure-track (TT) professor.  The grant process is teaching me that, ok, it's hard.  There is no doubt it's hard.  But it's not impossible.  I always thought it was like pulling teeth, and perhaps it is.... but perhaps also, the teeth aren't as firmly rooted as I had imagined.  Advising the younger students has also been a real joy.  They are so interdisciplinary, so smart in such different ways.  I love contributing to both their education and the lab's as a whole.  My ideas aren't just wanted, they're needed.  I think I finally am starting to understand what my Ph.D. advisor wanted me to see for so long: that she truly loves what she does.

In short, I'm glad I came here, and I love my job, and if you were worried about me going to a different country, don't.  Things are ok here.

How SHOULD a postdoc act?

Greetings, dear readers.  When we last saw me on this blog, I was excited for my first day of work and still playing Starcraft in a camp chair.  Well, no more (at least, regarding the camp chair)!  My things are finally here, and I am mostly unpacked and set up, minus a few little odds and ends that I still have to take out of boxes.  The American postdoc has officially settled in Canada!

As for the lab, it's been fun to just take in all the differences.  The group dynamic is a lot different here, and this may be due to the differences in gender, age, and personality.  As I've mentioned before, my current group is VERY young and largely bottom-heavy, what with the 6 first-year M.Sc. students and all.  Also, of the entire group academic group of 15 and soon to be 16, there are 2 females.  Our group is split into 2 buildings, so in my subgroup of 10 and soon to be 11, I am the only female.  This isn't bad per se, just different, and I'm trying to find my place.

And while we're on the subject of that, how SHOULD a postdoc act?  My experience with postdocs in my previous labs has been one where they were much older than me, married, and very professional and, in large part, reserved.  I've never run into the hotshot young postdoc for longer than a few weeks at a time, though I know they exist.  I came into this telling myself that I was going to be more professional and reserved.... but there are two problems with trying to be these preconceived notions of a postdoc, and they are very important.  So important that they warrant their own paragraphs:

1) It doesn't fit in with the group.  The group is the group, and I'm a new little piece of it.  Everyone who joins a group of anything, be it a multimillion dollar laboratory or a knitting circle, changes it somehow; however, they largely don't overhaul it single-handedly.  My group is a very relaxed, but ridiculously bright environment where ideas are shared freely, and me being a bit more subdued just wouldn't fit with this open concept.  Additionally, the young age of many of the group members has put me in the position of a kind of adviser, and being proactive about heading them off at the pass when they make a wrong turn is definitely helpful in this line of work.

2) It's not me.  I've started dressing nicer and watching what I say a bit more, but largely, I'm still my light-hearted and good-humored self in lab.  I'm not going to refrain from participating in the joking just because I have a Ph.D.  It doesn't change my personality, and I don't have to shift my paradigm to fit what I've seen before.  Trying to be something you're not throws a wrench into the works.  Being myself helps the group run more smoothly and lets me do my job better.

It's amazing that I can even take this stance of observation so early in my career with this lab.  I think this is because my mind is less occupied with the science.  It's truly a beautiful and welcoming thing.  I'm learning new techniques, but I already understand why I am doing them, whereas as a new graduate student, I did my fair share of floundering with the influx of new information, as everyone does.  This crystallized experience is something that only comes with immersion in a subject for a good period of time (i.e., the length of a Ph.D.)... now I see why postdocs are such valuable researchers.

My postdoc, day one.

I am buying more and more into the camp of "your attitude is everything."  I have been looking forward to starting this postdoc pretty much ever since October when I made my decision, so I guess it should come as no surprise that my first day was great.  I feel like I really fit and that my knowledge will be put to great use.

Group meeting in particular put me in wonderful spirits.  It was right up my alley, and even the background information given was on papers with which I was intimately familiar.  I am not shy when it comes to piping up and asking questions, and I felt like they were welcome and encouraged.

I would write more, but I feel like exhaustion has hit me like a ton of bricks.  Suffice it to say, I am so glad to be back in the saddle.  I am almost as glad that my stuff FINALLY arrives tomorrow, so no more blogging from a camp chair!

Interdisciplinary science

One of the reasons I chose to attend Penn State for grad school was its initiative for promoting interdisciplinary research.  The chemistry department had knocked down all the traditional division barriers (analytical, organic, inorganic, physical, biological) except for categorizing seminars, and most groups fostered relationships and collaborations with labs outside of the department in areas such as engineering, biology, and physics.  I was very drawn to this, and I am glad I was, because I think this is the way research is going.

(P.S. If you want to see something funny and are still on PSU chem's site, go here and wait until the 6th picture shuffles around to get a great and obviously posed glamour shot of my adviser and I "using" a microscope in the middle of a lit room.  BONUS: The biological division button here.)

Photobleaching the "sample"

No longer can one be a socially-inept scientist who hides away in his lab doing research and emerges only to eat or go home.  Funding is tight, and your work must be marketable.  Thus, you must be the one to pitch it.  This is a skill I have sought to attain and perfect, and I have looked upon it with almost as much regard as I gave my technical knowledge when I was getting my Ph.D.  One thing I have learned is that if you love your work, it's conveyed through your presentation and discussion, and people want to talk with you about it, thereby furthering you knowledge and feeding your curiosity.  I don't think this was evident more than in my final year of grad school, when I was presenting at conferences and applying for postdoc jobs.

Though my Ph.D. is in chemistry, I don't do any "traditional" chemistry.  I am a bioanalytical surface chemist, which means my work incorporates elements from 4 out of 5 of those aforementioned divisions, save organic.  My Penn State group of chemists worked with biologists, medical doctors, electrical/chemical engineers, materials scientists, and physicists.  It is so useful, almost like a shortcut, to have someone to explain to you about gate dielectrics and ribozymes.  On the flip side, you've got to be a good communicator in order to teach an "outsider" your language and convey your angle of approach to a certain problem. 

My group here at the U of T is in a similar boat, except we now incorporate all of those different departments in a single group.  I am one of three chemists, the other two being another postdoc and a third-year Ph.D. student.  The rest are biochemists, electrical/mechanical engineers, and even a psychologist (!).  I should also mention that the group is very bottom-heavy; a mass graduation exodus occurred recently, leaving behind one fourth-year Ph.D. student, the third-year Ph.D. student, 6 first-year M.S. students, and 1 first-year Ph.D. student.  And of course, there are us postdocs to round everyone up!   The younger students astutely show their knowledge in their areas of study, and it's obvious that they're already well on their way towards assimilation of different concepts into their core knowledge.  It's a marvelous sight to see, and I don't know if I would recognize it were I not in my position.  So far, I'm really impressed with the U of T and its initiatives towards promotion of interdisciplinary work.