Daily Pump Trap: 1/10/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 5 and January 10, 2012, there were 25 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 17 (68%) are academically connected and will be covered in the Ivory Filter Flask.

Extraction!: Infinity Pharmaceuticals is looking for a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. chemist or chemical engineer to run their program in isolation of natural products. "An ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of pharmaceutical unit operations, specifically in separation/purification fundamentals, as well as laboratory and manufacturing experience." Sounds like a good time.

Production!: Cambridge Isotopes is looking for a Ph.D. chemist to be their GMP production manager; 7+ years of experience desired. "Experience delivering APIs under cGMP regulations from gram to multi-kilogram scale within targeted deadlines and budget. Experience reviewing and revising batch records, SOPs and other relevant regulatory documentation. Demonstrated ability to effectively interact across departments. Experience optimizing existing and developing improved API production processes." Is there anything they don't want this person to be able to do?

Diffraction!: The International Centre for Diffraction Data is looking for a Ph.D. chemist to become a senior scientific editor of their database. Experience in crystallography is a must.

Pharmaceuticalation!: Aceto Corporation is looking for a sales manager for their API division; needs to have 5-7 years of experience in the field, preferably located in the New York City area. 

Should you trust ACS presidents on jobs? I don't think so.

It's a little unfair to ask ACS presidents to be completely versed in the data on chemistry jobs -- but just a little sensitivity might be called for. In a reddit thread on chemistry jobs advice ("What is the chemistry job market like in the US?"), a graduate student chimes in with a real winner:

The job market for PhD Chemists is really good. I had an opportunity to speak with a former president of the ACS not too long ago. He cited the fact that unemployment for PhD chemists did not really change much even during the Great Recession (unemployment stays pretty much around 3-4% for PhD chemists). (emphasis CJ's) All of my colleagues that have defended have gone on to terrific jobs in industry and government.  

Starting salaries for PhD Chemists, especially those with an organic background, start around $80-90k and is highly dependent on region. For more information, you should visit the ASC [sic] website and read their annual reviews. There is a job security risk if you are in the industry, but the jobs in government and academia make less money and come with good security.

Good heavens. I think it's time to start asking ACS presidential candidates what the unemployment rates are for chemists, like asking US presidential candidates the price of a gallon of milk.

In a completely separate arena, longtime CJ favorite Virginia Postrel links to the blog in her article questioning urges to push college kids into the STEM arena:

The commentators excoriating today’s students for studying the wrong subjects are pursuing certainty where none exists. Like the health fanatics convinced that every case of cancer must be caused by smoking or a bad diet, they want to believe that good people, people like them, will always have good jobs and that today’s unemployed college grads are suffering because they were self-indulgent or stupid. But plenty of organic chemists can testify that the mere fact that you pursued a technical career that was practical two or three decades ago doesn’t mean you have job security today.

And in the comments, this gem:

organic chemistry is hardly skill based - mostly recall.

I think I need to go back to bed.

2012 outlook for domestic chemical firms: partly cloudy

From this week's Chemical and Engineering News, their World Chemical Outlook edition and a look at the domestic chemical manufacturing side:

Less expensive raw materials and good export opportunities will position the U.S. chemical industry to make the most of a bad economic situation this year. In the U.S., growth in chemical output, excluding pharmaceuticals, is expected to dip to 1.6% in 2012, compared with an estimated 3.8% gain in 2011, according to the American Chemistry Council. Basic chemicals, which rebounded early in the recovery in 2010 and then saw zero growth in 2011, will pick up a bit of speed with a 0.7% increase in output. 

The prognosis for specialty chemicals, 3.4% growth, is more robust, driven by demand from markets such as light vehicles and electronics, ACC says. Consumer products and synthetic rubber are also likely to grow faster than the average for chemicals. “A global soft patch has emerged and has been centered in manufacturing,” the primary customer base for chemistry, reports T. Kevin Swift, ACC’s chief economist. Still, Swift reports, “leading indicators of manufacturing activity are not yet pointing to a recession.” 

The fine chemicals sector was strong in 2011, with many companies claiming to have rebounded from losses incurred in 2009 and 2010. Producers remain optimistic about 2012 but mix, as usual, a good dose of caution with that optimism in a market that historically experiences sudden ups and downs.

Interesting how fine chemical manufacturing always seems to be waiting for the Chinese chemical manufacturing sector to screw up. Someday, they're going to get their act together. Then what?

The exit of major drug companies from manufacturing continues to drive business for fine chemicals makers. But Aslam Malik, president of Ampac Fine Chemicals, cautions that a rise in outsourced production of established or generic drugs may not mean increased business for Western API suppliers, since much of that production will go to China.  

A more solid upside, Malik says, lies in the uptick in drug approvals by FDA in 2011. The active ingredients in newer products are generally potent and complex, meaning lower volumes but more specialized manufacturing technology. More rigorous supply chain management on the part of pharmaceutical companies should benefit Western API makers, with drug companies instituting policies of establishing a Western backup to any key product manufactured in Asia. Some fine chemicals companies say business is coming back from China, in particular, because of quality concerns and Asia’s eroding cost advantage.

What the Sangji family is thinking

Over at The Pump Handle, a fairly detailed post on the worker safety aspects of the Sheri Sangji case. The most noteworthy thing, I feel, is a copy of the open letter from Naveen Sangji (Sheri Sangji's sister) to Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles district attorney.

This letter is one of the very few times where Naveen Sangji has spoken out about this case at an extensive length. If you want to know what she (and her family) are thinking and why the case has gotten as far as it has, you might want to read the whole thing. 

Some portions of the letter:

...What I know is that Harran as Sheri's direct supervisor and boss, and the leadership of UCLA, including safety officials Gibson and Wheatley, all had responsibility to Sheri - a legal responsibility, and a  professional, moral and social responsibility – to protect her and keep her safe.  All deliberately and knowingly violated the rules in place that would have kept her and others safe.   Nor was this the first such instance of a person being injured – a year before Sheri's death, a student was badly burned in this department.  

We believe that Harran should be held personally responsible for Sheri's death.  He admitted in his interview with UCLA Fire Marshals that he ordered Sheri to carry out an unsafe experiment, one that he himself would not do – a clear statement of how little he valued my sister's life and how willing he was to endanger students and staff researchers merely to further his own work.  He has not demonstrated the slightest bit of remorse for what he did to Sheri and for what my family has suffered.  His lab was still found to be unsafe after Sheri's horrific death, as documented by OSHA inspections. 

Failure to pursue felony criminal charges against Harran or allowing him to settle the case without our family being able to bring out what we believe occurred in front of a jury or in a report bearing on his sentence will be a grave injustice upon Sheri and upon our family...

Perk-a-licious: what are the best company perks?

I see (via SeeArrOh) that the American Snuff Company is hiring a chemist; do you think they give you all the tobacco products that you want to carry home? (I seem to recall that a benefit of working at the Jack Daniels distillery is a free case of Jack Daniels?) Other perks I've heard of:

• A family member is an employee of an electrical utility -- discounts on the electric bill. 
• When I worked at a major pharma, there was a company store with discounted consumer goods. That store is gone, of course. I got a T-shirt with a molecular model of V/ia/gra on it. 
• I hear that BMS (?) used (still does?) to give you free cases of formula when you had a baby. 
• One place I worked had all the free soda that you could drink and free peanut butter, jam and bread. Good enough for me!

What other perks have you heard of in your time in the chemical industry? Do petroleum refiners give away free gas? 

Unemployment rate at 8.5%, U6 unemployment at 15.2%.

Credit: Calculated Risk

Fresh electrons from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate is down 0.1% to 8.5% for December. The broader U6 unemployment rate is down 0.4% to 15.2%. Apparently, the private sector employment numbers are pretty positive (200k); it will be interesting to see what the labor force participation numbers look like.

Good news? I hope so.

Thanks, as always, to Calculated Risk.

What are the ethical roles and responsibilities for chemical laboratory safety?

Janet Stemwedel is a current professor of philosophy; (updated*) before she moved into philosophy of science, she obtained a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. She asks a series of questions on ethics in laboratory safety, regarding the Sheri Sangji case: 

"So, who is ethically responsible for keeping an academic chemistry lab safe? And what exactly is the shape this responsibility takes — that is, what should he or she be doing to fulfill that obligation?

• What’s the responsibility of the principal investigator, the scientist leading the research project and, in most cases, heading the lab?
• What’s the responsibility of the staff research assistant or technician, doing necessary labor in the lab for a paycheck?
• What’s the responsibility of the graduate student in the research group, trying to learn how to do original research and to master the various skills he or she will need to become a PI someday? (It’s worth noting here that there’s a pretty big power differential between grad students and PIs, which may matter as far as how we apportion responsibility. Still, this doesn’t mean that those with less power have no ethical obligations pulling on them.)
• What’s the responsibility of the institution under whose auspices the lab is operating? When a safety inspection turns up problems and issues a list of issues that must be corrected, has that responsibility been discharged? When faculty members hire new staff research assistants, or technicians, or graduate students, does the institution have any specific obligations to them (as far as providing safety training, or a place to bring their safety concerns, or protective gear), or does this all fall to the PI?
• And, what kind of obligations do these parties have in the case that one of the other players falls down on some of his or her obligations?

If I were still working in a chemistry lab, thinking through ethical dimensions like these before anything bad happened would not strike me as a purely academic exercise. Rather, it would be essential to ensuring that everyone stays as safe as possible."

Here's how I would structure things (and how I have seen things structured in the past):

The principal investigator: The PI is ultimately responsible for running a safe lab. The best way to ensure that is to directly train the most senior members of the lab, to "train the trainer." From that point forward, the PI needs to ensure that senior graduate students and postdocs have a training and mentorship role in chemical safety and are properly executing that role. The PI should set up a safety/maintenance program, lay out the program and the responsbilities in clear, simple terms. The PI has the most prominent enforcement role; walking into their lab, they should spot safety problems and ask that they be corrected immediately. The PI has the most prominent foresight role; they should be able to see incoming safety problems from new chemistry, procedures or policy and be able to respond appropriately.

Postdocs and senior graduate students: Postdocs and senior graduate students (having been previously directly mentored by the PI) should be responsible for setting the day-to-day safety tone of the laboratory. They should be good examples and resources for newer lab members. While not directly responsible for the safety of younger graduate students, they should have a prominent advisory role and be willing to intervene (to the point of contacting the PI, if necessary) in order to keep lab members from doing egregiously unsafe things. They also have a foresight role, in that they should also be able to spot incoming safety issues and note them with the other group members.

Younger graduate students: They should be responsible for finding out and understanding the chemical safety risks they are taking on in their work. They are responsible for asking if they don't understand an issue and making sure that they don't proceed blindly. They also have the uncomfortable responsibility to question and/or dissent if they're being asked to do something unsafe.

The institution: The institution is ultimately (legally) responsible for the safety of its students; they're also the only administrative check on the power of the PI. If the PI cannot run a safe laboratory, they are the only people who can intervene. The institution has not discharged their responsibilities if they merely point out safety deficiencies without following up. The institution (via the EH&S office) has the responsibility to supply both basic chemical safety training (e.g. helping the PI develop a chemical hygiene plan) and for providing a 3rd party for graduate students and postdocs to turn to.

What if things don't work well? That's a problem with the way I've structured things: this system works well when you have a good PI. If you don't, well, that's an issue. While the institution may have the legal and/or ethical responsibility to intervene, I have a difficult time imagining a situation in which they can or will.

I'm not sure this answers Professor Stemwedel's questions in a satisfactory manner, but it's definitely how I see things. Readers, am I crazy?

*Thanks for DM for the correction of grammar. 

#SheriSangji ripple effects: Universities adjusting to new realities

Interesting ripple effects from the charging of Professor Patrick Harran in the death of Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji at UCLA:

• A major R1 institution has instituted severe penalties for not wearing lab coats. 
• Rumblings of prominent professors instituting changes to lab protocols and reviewing procedures

Any other interesting responses from professors, groups and/or universities (or companies and supervisors) in reaction to the prosecution of Professor Harran is welcome at chemjobber -at- gmaildotcom or via DM on Twitter at @Chemjobber. 

Keeping people safe during the hazardous waste disposal process

There's a lot of human hands that move your waste
after you pour out your bum reaction.
(Credit: Heritage-WTI/C&EN)

When I was a kid, I was convinced that the toilet was a great way to dispose of anything; it seemed like, when you flushed the toilet, things just disappeared, as if they had left the universe. Sometimes, I think that's what chemists think when they pour their waste into a waste drum or a red waste can.

A recent statement from the Chemical Safety Board brings that thought process to mind:

Today as many people enjoy a holiday season spent with friends and family, I would like to call attention to a recent tragedy that occurred late last week in eastern Ohio. On December 17, 2011, a chemical fire occurred at Heritage-WTI, Inc. which resulted in two workers being seriously burned, one of whom succumbed to his injuries days later. Heritage-WTI, Inc, is hazardous waste storage and processing facility located in East Liverpool, Ohio. 

According to company officials a flash fire occurred when workers were splitting a large solid waste drum of hazardous flammable inorganic material into smaller storage drums. 

News reports talk about the contents of the drum:

Bailey and Bechak were in the process of separating products from a barrel when the material reacted, causing a small explosion, followed by a larger explosion, according to city fire department reports. The explosion caused a flash fire in which the men were burned. Fire reports indicated the barrel they were separating contained cutting oil, hafnium, niobium, water and zirconium, and according to Michael Parkes, head of community/employee relations, "We've split containers for years," and the men were doing a routine procedure.

 Jyllian Kemsley talks about why this is important to chemists:

A burden it might be, but accurate waste identification is critical to ensure that the people who handle the waste down the line don’t get hurt, whether it’s the person at your institution who packs the waste for transport, the driver who takes it away, or the people who handle it at an incinerator.

I'm sure that all Chemjobber readers would not want to feel even vaguely culpable for hurting someone with the waste that they generated. Accurately describing the characteristics of your waste (toxicity, ignitability), corrosivity, reactivity), quenching reactivity appropriately and segregating incompatible wastes is a big part of keeping hazardous waste workers safe.

Remember, there's a human on the other side of your lab pack or your waste drum.

Daily Pump Trap: 1/15/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 3 and 4, there were 19 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, there were 4 (21%) were academically connected and will be covered in next Tuesday's Ivory Filter Flask.

Sunnyvale, CA: Brave folks: Pharmacyclics appears to be a new pharma start-up in Sunnyvale, California. Pharmacyclics has apparently been around for a while. They're looking for a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. process chemist (10+ years experience) to help lead their process development team. GMP experience desired, as well as Mandarin fluency and a willingness to travel. (Thanks, Anon0752a!)

Durham, NC: Cormetech is a joint venture between Corning and Mitsubishi Heavy Industry; they're a company looking at NOx-emissions reduction technology. They're looking for a B.S./M.S. physical chemist with experience with nanopowders and/or coating metal oxides.

Brevard, NC: Once again, PharmAgra Labs is looking for qualified B.S./M.S./Ph.D. organic chemists. Best of luck.

Washington, D.C.: The American Institutes for Research are apparently some sort of educational testing outfit -- they're looking for a graduate student intern in chemistry to prepare exam questions from a high-stakes test. (Chem GRE?)

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) 218, 594, 2,589 and 40 positions for the search term "chemist."

Metal bowls

A list of small, useful things (links):

• SeeArrOh on pharma R&D spending trends and their relationship to market cap. 
• Former chemist (and now polemicist) Josh Bloom on drug manufacture and life and death. 
• John talks about Patrick Harran and getting a jury of his peers. 
• John Borchardt has a very nice post on chemistry entrepreneurship in the Midwest. Good news, I think. 
• Th'Gaussling calls for more entrepreneurship in chemistry -- I'm tempted, a little. 
• Paul Hodges' Downturn Alert doesn't look all that great for 2011. 
• LabMonkey celebrates his first blog birthday!
• The Heterocyclist on an interesting Mitsunobu and indoline synthesis. 

Migration patterns within the United States and Canada

An interesting graph of moving patterns within the United States and Canada from a not-very-scientific sampling of customers of Atlas Van Lines, via Felix Salmon. (Red = balanced in-migration and out-migration, Yellow = net outmigration for 2011, Blue = net in-migration)

In 2011, I moved from an outbound state to a balanced state. Interesting how a lot of the pharma states (NJ, CT, MA) are net outbound. Also interesting how North Dakota is a net inbound state (Bakken Shale?), while Minnesota is a net outbound. I'm curious as to where North Dakota's new residents are coming from.

UPDATE: Anon0829a and @azmanam both point to this fascinating migration map. Apropos of nothing, here's Champaign County, IL. 

Process Wednesday: Kilomentor on 'split runs'

Kilomentor posts on splitting experimental batches for workup comparisons:

Split run does not appear to be a widely understood term; however, in my personal chemical process development experience it is a common term with a well defined meaning. Split runs are experiments done to test different work-up/isolation and/or purification procedures starting with equal portions from a single large reaction mixture. As a consequence, even if a reaction mixture is both complicated and uncharacterized, a chemist can compare different follow-on procedures for working it up without being concerned about reaction differences that may still exist from batch to batch because the reaction process itself has not yet been finalized and critical parameters completely controlled. 

In the general case, the isolated yield fraction, (which when expressed as a percentage is often called simply the percentage yield), is the product of the reaction yield fraction (determined by an assay of the crude reaction mixture before work-up)  multiplied by the isolation yield fraction (the fraction representing the effectiveness of the recovery of pure product from the crude reaction mixture). In the case of comparing split runs, the ratio of isolated split run yields is proportional to the ratio of the isolation yields because the pure reaction yield is the same for each, since they come from the same reaction batch. Thus, in comparing the recovered product from split runs, the difference represents only the effectiveness of the isolation protocols….it is independent of and not confounded by the exact details of the reaction conditions. In this way, even at an early stage in developing the particular reaction step, the development chemist can get some idea of the comparative effectiveness of different treatments of the crude reaction mixture. 

Of course it is not just the best isolation yield that is of interest and of importance to the process development chemist but also the relative purities of the two products and the amounts of different impurities within each.

I've found this to be a really useful technique; go and read the whole thing.

Older chemists face difficulty finding positions

From mid-December comes an WSJ unemployment story from an older academic chemist (which I find pretty unusual):

Many older Americans fear they will be working well into their 60s because they didn't save enough to retire. Millions more wish they were that lucky: Without full-time jobs, they are short of money and afraid of what lies ahead. 

Deborah Kallick was a professor of biomedical chemistry at the University of Minnesota until she ventured into the private sector in 2000 with a job in genome research. She is now one of more than four million Americans aged 55 to 64 who can't find full-time work. That number has nearly doubled in five years, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures in October.

Ms. Kallick, 60 years old, has been unemployed since 2007 and lives in the Northern California home of an ex-boyfriend. She has run out of unemployment insurance, used up most of her retirement savings and is indebted to relatives and credit-card companies. 

A good job could settle her accounts, she said. Until then, Ms. Kallick relies on generosity, occasional consulting work and the sale of sweaters, purses and other possessions on eBay.
"It is very hard to work through this and learn to be calm and happy day to day," said Ms. Kallick, who never married. "It has taken a lot of strength and courage to learn to do that."

A brief search of LinkedIn (with login) will reveal that she actually became a tenured professor and then left for the biotech field. One presumes that she may be regretting leaving a relatively secure position; I think she's to be commended for a gutsy call. The article goes on to describe that the average tenure of unemployment for people 55 to 64 is 56.6 weeks of unemployment. There's also a #chemjobs-aspect to this in that Ms. Kallick is in the 8.4% of chemists 60-69 (the highest age decile next to the 70+ group) who are listed as unemployed.

That's shocking. That also indicates that the typical advice for having an emergency fund of six months is probably 50% too small, especially for older people. (Although, one notes from the article, that for people older than 20 (that is, darn near everyone), the average length of unemployment is longer than 26 weeks. Uh-oh.)

Best wishes to us all.

Daily Pump Trap: 1/3/12 edition

Good morning! Between December 30 and January 3, there were 27 new positions posted on the ACS website. Of these, 24 (89%) are academically connected and are covered at the new Ivory Filter Flask.

Decatur, AL: Hexcel Corporation is looking for a Ph.D. polymer chemist with less than 5 years of experience. You'll be developing technology for the production of carbon fiber for their materials applications.

Lafayette, IN: Evonik is looking for a process R&D manager; M.S./Ph.D. degree with 5 to 10 years of experience desired. "Willingness to occasionally work odd hours to support 24/7 mfg operations" -- heh. That's sounds like a lot of fun.

Ivory Filter Flask: 1/3/12 edition

Good morning! Welcome to the Ivory Filter Flask; there were 24 new academic positions posted on the ACS Careers website. It's not intended as a comprehensive look at the academic labor market (yet); it will focus on notable, desirable or oddball positions (much like the Daily Pump Trap). It's going to be primarily aimed at younger faculty members; I sincerely doubt I have much readership amongst tenured faculty.

Thoughts on structure and organization are very welcome at chemjobber -at- gmail/dot/com.

Below is a by-the-numbers look:

Total number of ads: 24
- Postdocs: 0
- Tenure-track faculty: 20
- Temporary faculty: 2
- Lecturer positions: 1
- Staff positions: 1
- Ratio of US/non-US positions: 19/5

Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University is searching for a senior faculty member in natural products chemistry, a.k.a. the Bill Gerwick chair (?).

Lancaster, PA: Franklin and Marshall College desires two visiting assistant professors; a 1-year contract for organic and general chemistry and a 3-year contract for general chemistry lecture duties.

Fairbanks, AK: The University of Alaska - Fairbanks is looking for a visiting professor for general chemistry lecture duties.

Fargo, ND: North Dakota State University is setting up "The Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology (CCAST)"; they desire 10 scientists (including chemists) for senior scientist positions. Looks like computational and theoretical materials chemistry work is planned.

Boston area pharma company seeks M.S. medicinal chemist

Description: Looking for a synthetic chemist to prepare small-molecule organic targets for a proprietary drug-delivery platform. Background in polymer and/or materials chemistry is desired but not required. The selected candidate will be responsible for advancing a specified area of synthetic organic chemistry and will report to a project leader. The applicant should be well-versed in planning and executing multi-step synthesis and should possess the skills necessary to apply that knowledge to emerging technologies. The incumbent is also expected to regularly report progress in technical meetings.

Qualifications: Strongly prefer a MS with 6-10 yrs industry experience in synthetic organic chemistry. Will look at PhD  with 2 yrs industry experience.  MUST HAVE Hands-on experience with HPLC and solution NMR is required.

About the position: The job opening is for immediate hiring. The opening is for a full-time, contract assignment (6 months), with the possibility of extension or conversion to permanent employment

Location: 5 miles West of Boston.

Contact: Mark Flynn, Flynn Life Sciences Group LLC
(O)508-318-6507
(m)617-529-4029
(F)508-532-8735
mark -at- flynnlsg/dot/com

CJ Sheri Sangji roundup

For those of you who haven't been reading blogs over the last week, but rather have been uh, living life and spending time with family, here's what you've missed:

• Patrick Harran and the UC regents were charged with 3 felony counts in the death of Sheri Sangji last Tuesday. 
• A comment on 60 mL syringes
• Kevin Reed, UCLA's vice chancellor of legal affairs and their chief spokesperson on the case, lays out their PR approach

The best overall coverage is over at C&EN with Jyllian Kemsley's Safety Zone.

SOCMA wants more money for CSB?

I find it interesting that SOCMA wants the Chemical Safety Board's budget to increase. From Jeff Johnson's article in this week's C&EN:

The Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA), an industry trade organization, also worries about CSB’s budget. “There is no denying that financial and resource constraints limit the board’s ability to undertake any major new investigations, should they become necessary, which should concern industry and government,” says William E. Allmond IV, SOCMA vice president of government relations. “However, despite constraints, SOCMA has confidence that CSB will be able to carry out its statutory obligations.”

Maybe SOCMA would rather the CSB with only its ability to recommend, as opposed to an agency with more enforcement power? Who knows. 

ACS President appoints council to study graduate school

I know, I know, it's a "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative" sort of headline, isn't it? 

From ACS president Bassam Z. Shakhashiri's message to chemists in this week's C&EN:

ACS Presidential Commission On Graduate Education 

I have appointed a commission chaired by electrochemist Larry R. Faulkner, former president of the University of Texas, and comprised of some of the most prominent figures in the chemical sciences, both academic and industrial, to examine the purposes of graduate education and research in the chemical sciences and the needs and aspirations of graduate students (cenm.ag/task). The main charge of the commission is to address two specific questions: 

What are the purposes of graduate education in the chemical sciences?
What steps should be taken to ensure that important societal issues as well as the needs and aspirations of students are addressed in graduate schools? 

To find answers to these and other questions, the commission and its working groups will solicit input through listening sessions at ACS national and regional meetings and will obtain targeted feedback from graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, early-career faculty, underrepresented groups, business groups, institutions of higher education, professional and educational organizations, and international leaders in science and education. Contact the commission directly at graduatecommission@acs.org. 

The commission will develop actionable recommendations that can be adopted or adapted by a variety of graduate educational institutions, federal and state funding agencies, and business and industry. The recommendations are to propose radical changes that will help find ways to best use our country’s vast educational, industrial, and government resources to successfully prepare students for their professional careers to face changing human needs over the next 50 years.

Believe it or not, this is the only really #chemjobs-related item in his entire message. You'd never know that chemist unemployment is near a 20-year high. Sigh.