Category: Research

Assistant Professor

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A good friend recently complained about my neglect of a certain announcement on the blog. I had every intention of announcing it on the blog and even took a picture of Laurel to go along with the announcement. (No, Laurel is not going to be a big sister. At least not anytime soon… As far as we know.) I was waiting until after I signed all of the official paper work, which I have now done, and then the end of the semester hit and things just got away from me. It hasn’t been a secret, but I just never got around to posting about it. Those I have spoken to about it know that I am very excited.

 

So, here it is:

Starting this fall I will be an Assistant Professor, a tenure track position, at the university I recently served at as an adjunct. I will be teaching Microbiology, Advanced Microbiology, Immunology, Molecular Biology and portions of General Biology. Additionally, I will have my own research lab, which I am in the process of setting up this summer. I am leaving out the name of the institution just in case we ever let the site get index by search engines again. I don’t want people who Google my name with the name of university to end up on the family blog. However, I think it is pretty clear below.

Excited for Daddy

Another Random Post

William 1 Comment

I don’t have anything all that interesting to talk about, but I feel the need to make a post. I am back in Denver after a very productive trip to Dallas. Once the business part was out of the way, Kyllan and I had good time just relaxing. I decided to suck it up and went to see He’s Just Not that in to You with Kyllan… I wasn’t that into it. Maybe I will be able to talk her into seeing The Watchmen. I finally recevied my XBox 360 back after getting the “Red Ring of Death” last month. Acutally, it is a brand new console, complete with new serial number.  I might actually get to play some video games this weeked.

ASM Wrap-Up

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I’m in Dallas for the weekend. I flew here from Boston after ASM. This year’s conference was okay. It seemed to have more of a clinical focus than in previous years. I went to several seminars on both traditional and non-traditional career paths for Ph.D.s, but they all sucked and none will help with the decisions I will be making in the coming year. My poster session went very well and I think I am close to punlishing the data I presented. I didn’t get much from the other poster sessions and seminars, but I’ve been keeping up with the curent literature pretty well while preparing my manuscript.

Kyllan and I are going to try and catch a movie or two while I am in town. I think the plan is to go to a parade of homes tomorrow.

That Time of Year

William 1 Comment

It’s that time of year again. I am in Boston this week for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting. This is largest conference in my field and the only one I mark on my must attend list every year. I will be in meetings and seminars all day for he next three days and I have a poster presentation Tuesday. After the conference I am traveling to Dallas to spend the weekend with Kyllan.

Presentation

William 4 Comments

I have a presentation today and just finished putting together my slides. I think I’ll start preparing a little earlier next time. I’m hoping to submit the data I am presenting for publication within the next month. I’m going to try and get a little sleep now.

Public Policy and Scientific Evidence

William 2 Comments

Any time I am browsing through (main stream media) news articles and find a science related story I feel obligated to stop and read it. The effect of scientific studies on public policy has been an increasing interest of mine since I started graduate school. (Especially with stagnating research funding under the anti-Science Bush administration.) I didn’t find this article on a survey indicating 85% of Americans wanted a Presidential debate on science all that interesting until I reached the part on other findings.

Only 19% say it is acceptable for elected officials to hold back or alter scientific reports if they conflict with their own views

What? Only 19%? Only 19!?! I had to look at that sentence for moment just to make sure I was reading it correctly. I don’t even know what to say about this. The lack of logic hurts my brain.

From the Press Release

PolicyScience

ABD

William 7 Comments

I am finally “all but done.” Usually this means that a graduate student is done with course work and can focus on research for the rest of their graduate career. It also means that they have officially been admitted to candidatecy. (If you want to get all philosophical, it marks the transition from a consumer of knowledge to a producer of knowledge.) Me? I’ve been done with course work for a long time, but two transfers, a hurricane, a “special student admission” and a laboratory move created a unique situation. It doesn’t matter now. Simply put, it’s all downhill from here. Pretty soon I will sit down with a committee and we will determine just how much more data I need to graduate.

For those that don’t know, here is the story. I transfered from Cornell before reaching the point I could take their exam. At TU I was missing one course; It ended the semester before I arrived and was only offered every other year. Hurricane Katrina hit at the beginning of the semester the next time it was offered. I finished my course work at UT Southwestern, where my lab temporarily setup after Katrina. A year later, after returning to a barely functioning TU that had completely restructured its’ graduate program and couldn’t decide how to proceed with qualifying exams, my lab moved to UCHSC. As a condition of my transfer to UCHSC, I had to take their exam, which consisted of two parts: a written exam based on coursework and a grant proposal and defense. The fact that I didn’t actually take any of their coursework only made it more interesting. I took the written portion this past summer and defended my proposal this past Friday.

Pingree Park

William 7 Comments

As my beautiful wife informed you, this past weekend I attended a conference in the middle of nowhere. (Nowhere as in 22 miles up a dirt road to 9,000 feet to sleep in a cabin.) It was a regional meeting for the Rocky Mountain Virology Club and The Rocky Mountain branch of the American Society of Microbiology. I gave an oral presentation detailing my recent work in the lab, that apparently went over very well. After the conference I hiked about 4 miles and up another 1,000 to see the wreckage of a B-17 that crashed in 1943. Pictures can be found on my flickr account.