But we’ve had an equal-protection-under-the-law disaster for a long time, as evidenced by the number of times black men (in particular) get this kind of treatment. Anyone who might have been willing to look away from all that (because they’re not black themselves?) should realize that injustice contaminates everything, and that a state that’s willing to apply such brutal, unequal treatment can apply it to anyone they feel like. Look around you. This country has a lot of things that need to be fixed, and recent history has made that more obvious than ever.Recent Twitter posts on the paucity of Black/African-American chemists, including the fact that of 2018's 1711 chemistry Ph.D. graduates from the US who were citizens or permanent residents, just 77 (4.5%) of them were Black or African-American.
Nalas Engineering is looking for polymer chemist with an interest in energetic polymer chemistry. Work will focus on designing, preparing, and characterizing new energetic monomers and polymers.
Qualifications:
Candidates must have a PhD in Chemistry with a focus or emphasis on polymer chemistry. The ideal candidate would bring experience in the development of new polymers to our team. Energetic material experience is not required, although interest in the topic would be beneficial.
Interested candidates should send their resumes to matthew.burk@nalasengineering.comFull ad here. Best wishes to those interested.
Craig Stacey was vice president of marketing at McKesson, the health care company, until he was let go last September amid a reorganization. He immediately began searching for a new job, and said he was a finalist for several senior marketing roles.
“Silver and bronze medals are good in the Olympics, but not in the job market,” said Mr. Stacey, 52, of Minneapolis.
He started interviewing for two jobs in early March. After the virus hit, one company told him it was suspending the search; the other simply stopped communicating with him.
“I was ghosted,” he said.Here's a (dubious) approach to the issue:
Ms. Nazem recently joined a 14-week “virtual networking and development cohort” called the Grand Quest. For $1,200, she will join biweekly Zoom meetings with other job seekers who are looking to identify their career goals and pursue new opportunities.
The hope, she said, was that the group would provide “an opportunity to join a supportive community that understands career transitions for entrepreneurs while facing these unprecedented challenges.”Best wishes to them, and to all of us.
Rod Schoonover doesn’t fit easily into a particular academic niche. He spent a dozen years as a chemistry professor, yet his published papers are in physics journals. A career twist then landed him working in the US intelligence community, where he spent a decade focused on climate change, environment, health, and other scientific issues.
“I’d never planned on doing this,” he says. “The idea that someone like me would end up in the intelligence community did not seem likely.”Read the whole thing.
WASHINGTON (May 26, 2020) – The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), fell 5.4 percent in May on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis following a 5.4 percent decline in April. On a year-over-year (Y/Y) basis, the barometer fell 12.4 percent in May.
The unadjusted May data shows a 0.3 percent decline following a 6.3 percent drop in April and an 8.9 percent decline in March. The diffusion index fell from 35 percent to 29 percent in May as production declines became more widespread. The diffusion index marks the number of positive contributors relative to the total number of indicators monitored. The April CAB reading was revised upward by 0.37 points and the March reading was revised downward by 0.08 points.
“The May CAB reading is consistent with a recession, but given the small unadjusted decline of only 0.3 percent, one that may bottom out,” said Kevin Swift, chief economist at ACC.
Production-related indicators declined in May. Trends in construction-related resins, pigments and related performance chemistry were negative, as were resins used in appliances, light vehicles, machinery and other durable goods. Plastic resins used in packaging and for consumer and institutional applications were mixed. Performance chemistry was negative and U.S. exports were weak. Equity prices are improving and product and input prices are firming. Inventory and other supply chain indicators were negative.Well, that's bad news. Hopefully, we will find the bottom of this very soon as Dr. Swift tentatively suggests.
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| Cypress Hills National Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York Credit: Trevor Curran |
...There is also a tiny nuclear research reactor on the site, used to create material that can be used in product experiments. Overnight, Dow filed an “unusual event” report with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission warning of potential flooding at the site. But the reactor had already been shut down because of the coronavirus crisis, and there were no indications of flood damage on Wednesday....Here's the reactor's NRC page, which indicates the reactor is still active. According to this 1982 presentation, looks like (unsurprisingly) the reactor is used for neutron activation analysis. Here's a nice 2007 article about the reactor operators.
Dow Inc.’s Michigan Operations has activated its emergency center “and will be adjusting operations as a result of current flood stage conditions,” the company said after two dams failed upstream of its Midland, Michigan, headquarters.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is already managing a public health crisis in one of the states that has been hard hit by Covid-19, announced an emergency declaration in response to the dam collapse. She told people to evacuate the area around Midland, urging those in the flooding zones to get to a shelter.
...The Edenville Dam, at the base of nearby Wixom Lake, failed amid high floodwaters in the area, sending water gushing through a now-gaping hole near its spillway. A second one, the Sanford Dam at the base of Sanford Lake, had also failed, according to the National Weather Service, which issued an alert advising of “extremely dangerous flash flooding” in the area.Best wishes to the Dow team and Midland readers.
When Jessica Jaramillo calls someone to talk about the coronavirus, she usually starts with something like this:
“Hi, my name is Jessica. I’m calling on behalf of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. I’m part of a contact-tracing team, and our job is to reach people who have come into close contact with someone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19.”
Ms. Jaramillo, 41, a San Francisco Public Library district manager in ordinary times, has made dozens of such calls so far, all in Spanish. She began contact tracing, or “seguimiento de contactos,” this month...Well, how does it pay?
Estimates for the number of people needed nationwide for contact tracing range from 100,000 to as high as 300,000.
The work is mostly phone-based and can be done from home. The jobs can be full- or part-time, often with an hourly wage of $17 to $25; some include benefits. They differ from one place to the next in part because training and recruiting efforts have largely fallen to state and local governments (and some of the programs have already run into problems, both practical and political).Important work - I imagine that those with a science background would be valued...
An up to two-year postdoc position starting 1 August (or as soon thereafter as convenient) is available at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark (SDU).
A central role of the selected candidate will be to interact with colleagues from computer science to assist with chemical sensibility in the development of causal analysis for reaction networks and in their dynamical simulation.
The ideal candidate has a background in biochemistry or organic chemistry as well as experience with computational approaches to chemistry or biology, such as cheminformatics or bioinformatics. The candidate's research will be central to a pilot grant led by a team committed to succeed. The nature of this project is highly exploratory. The candidate must therefore be able to improvise, grapple with ill-posed questions, and have an attitude conducive to creative problem solving in the context of an interdisciplinary team.
The position involves collaboration with colleagues at the University of Vienna and Harvard Medical School and includes the opportunity for extensive visits at these locations. The position comes with generous travel support in addition to a competitive salary.Best wishes to those interested.
A biologics CMC position (MS, PhD, 3-6 years experience).
GMP Development and Manufacture of APIs Expert (PhD, 5-8 years experience)Best wishes to those interested.
