The Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) is a joint organization of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the Computing Research Association (CRA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Computer Society. The CDC?s mission is to aid in building a diverse community of computer researchers and professionals. Currently, the CDC is focused on increasing the number of und...
Through a brainchild of the National Science Foundation (NSF), an idea for a collaborative effort was initiated involving institutions across the country seeking to increase the number of underrepresented students receiving Ph.D.s in the areas of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET). With a $2.5 million grant from NSF and appropriated in-kind funds, Mississippi optimistically ...
This week from the Third Culture, Richard Taylor, associate professor of physics at the University of Oregon and discoverer of fractals in Pollock's paintings, tells how he has succeeded at what he once thought impossible: melding intellectual pursuit of science and art. Whenever I hear about the "art-science divide," I think back to the interview for my present position of associate professor of...
Loosely defined, nanobiotechnology is the place at which nanoscale analytical techniques intersect with chemical, physical, and biological approaches toward understanding molecules and surfaces. As nanobiotech is an emerging nexus within the larger revolution in research, innovation, and funding for nanotechnology, Next Wave felt that it was time to focus our career transition lenses through the ...
Scientists working in plant biology enjoy a profusion of professional opportunities. Science's Next Wave talks with some young academic scientists from around the world--the discipline's primary producers, if you will--to find out what makes them thrive.
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX In the course of researching and writing the articles in this feature, the Next Wave editorial team--Katie Cottingham, Emily Klotz, Lesley McKarney, Rob Metzke, Mona Mort, Mark Sincell, Crispin Taylor, and Kirstie Urquhart--collected an extensive array of links to Web sites with information about nanobiotechnology. In fact, the list of links is so long that we've divided...
When it comes to the challenging question of balancing parenting and careers, all the answers are contingent on the desires, demands, and circumstances of one or two--and eventually more--individuals.
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX Next Wave Bioinformatics Resources Profiles of Bioinformaticians Bioinformatics Skills Bioinformatics: Magic Technology? UK Bioinformatics Resources MRC Bioinformatics Studentships Lists places available with MRC funding for take up in October 2000. Wellcome Trust Funding Details of the Functional Genomics Development Initiative. BBSRC/EPSRC Details of a joint thematic i...
Since Next Wave last covered bioinformatics, in our July 1996 Profiles of Bioinformaticians and February 1997 Bioinformatics Skills features, the prominence of the bioinformatician's role in modern biology has only increased. This month, Next Wave provides a comprehensive picture of the current state of bioinformatics, from the funding situation in Europe and the U.S. to the new bioinformatics de...
"E ach institution should encourage and financially support a postdoctoral association that serves the social, informational, and logistical needs of postdocs and provides a mechanism for them to communicate with institutional leaders." A laudable and worthy goal, to be sure. And one of the 16 recommendations made to institutions by the National Academies' Committee on Science, Engineering, and P...
As a scientist--wherever you are working--how often do you make the time to think about ethical issues? I'm not thinking so much of plagiarism or the alteration of data--we all know that those behaviors are unethical--but about the possibility that your research, say, into the mechanisms of viral replication might one day be co-opted and used to propagate a lethal biological weapon. Or that your ...
Last month, the summer 2001 issue of AWIS Magazine hit newsstands and mailboxes around the country, with the intriguing subtitle, "Science, Careers, and Life: Inventing Your Future." As a result of our partnership with AWIS, it is Next Wave's privilege to bring you those AWIS Magazine articles that particularly pertain to you and your interests. With an issue title like that, I figured I'd have p...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX "My people have had no problem getting a job." So says Vicki Colvin, an assistant professor of chemistry at Rice University in Houston. Jim Murday, a physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., concurs: There are plenty of jobs available for scientists working at the interface of biotechnology, nanotechnology, physics, and chemistry. And the existing ...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX If the stories in this month's feature have piqued your interest but you want to find out more about clinical writing--jobs, information, career paths, professional organizations, and so on--you've come to the right place. With the help of the essayists, Next Wave's editorial team has assembled the following list of potentially useful Web resources from within Next Wave'...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX So, you're part way through a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but reading the other articles in this feature has piqued your interest in pharmacoeconomics as a career. How many opportunities are there, and what do you need to do to get the qualifications to become a pharmacoeconomist? To find out, Next Wave spoke to two prominent pharmacoeconomists--Jean Paul Gagnon, currently di...
Academia, industry, government, journalism, freelance. As the stories of the five essayists in this feature illustrate, the term "medical (or clinical) writing" covers a diverse and increasingly broad range of job types. Perhaps because of this diversity, each essayist has found that their writing job has opened doors to all kinds of other professional opportunities, including business, biotech, ...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX Imagine a job fair with 50 high-tech companies competing to recruit one of the handful of properly qualified scientists who bothered to show up. Sounds like a pie-in-the-sky dream, doesn't it? But according to Victor Markovitz, vice president of bioinformatics systems at Gene Logic Inc., this actually happened at a recent biotech fair. And it is more or less typical of t...
Chances are that you've seen them, the earnest, young (and not-so-young) people peddling their company's supplies, equipment, and/or services around the department. You may have wondered what went wrong, how they--individuals who were, no doubt, once full of promise--came to be doing such seemingly thankless, unrewarding work. After all, salespeople typically rank much closer to politicians and r...
