Archive by date | December 2009

Materials Girl: Applications + blogging = decreased rate of labwork

Posted by Neil Withers | Categories:

Posted on behalf of Materials Girl Fellowship applications are almost done! To quote a confident labmate, in regards to his proposed research, “If [the NSF] doesn’t accept me, they’re jerks*!” (He probably meant to say “sorely misguided”, but was carried away with the emotion.) Ah, if only the government had enough money to fund all of our worthy causes… Academic bailout, anyone? Despite attempts to avoid the computer, I’ve recently discovered the joy/timesink of other chemistry blogs – of which there are many great ones to choose from. Another grad student stated that he’s the most interested in “crazy, blow  … Read more

Reactions – Donna Blackmond

Posted by Neil Withers | Categories:

Donna Blackmond is currently in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London and will join the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, in February 2010. She works on kinetic aspects of asymmetric catalytic reactions and on developing models for the origin of biological homochirality.  Read more

MRS: Materials and the environment

Posted by Neil Withers | Categories: ,

How hard are materials researchers really thinking about the environmental impact of new materials that they are designing? How can we make materials research a green science? John Warner of the Warner Babcock Institute presented an interesting perspective on this topic at the Green Chemistry session at the Materials Research Society Fall meeting on Monday.  Read more