Don't call us, we'll call you

I've had a recruiter call me recently at work, lying to get  past the receptionist to me.* I'm annoyed to be interrupted in the lab and we don't really have any private phones in the building. I'm even more irritated when the recruiter attempts to quiz me about the structure of the company.

This isn't the first time I've heard about such antics (this week, even!), and I'm reminded of a favorite passage from Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential", when he gets a call while he's working the line at lunch:

The intercom buzzes and I pick up, annoyed. 

"Line one for the chef," says the hostess.  

I push the blinking green light. It's a salesman, wanting to sell me smoked fish. I answer all sweetness and light, lulling him into the bear trap in the Bigfoot style: "So let me get this straight," I say, after he's jabbered away about his full line of delicacies, me trying to sound a little slow and confused, "you want to sell me food, right?" "Yes!" comes the reply, the salesman sounding encouraged by my interest and apparent stupidity. "And in general, you'd say," I continue, "you have, like, a lot of restaurant accounts, -- in fact, you'd probably say that, like, you are in the business of servicing restaurants... and chefs in particular?" "Oh, yes!" says the witless salesman, beginning a litany of the usual prestigious accounts, the names of other chefs who buy his fine smoked sturgeon, salmon, trout and fish eggs. I have had enough fun and cut him off cold. "So... WHAT THE F--- ARE YOU DOING CALLING ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE F------ LUNCH RUSH?!" I scream into the phone, smashing it abruptly into the cradle. 

Recruiters, I love you. You have a hard job and I am in tremendous sympathy. I like hearing from recruiters, because I like trying to help people find jobs they want. But calling introverted scientists while they're concentrating on working at work while they're surrounded by their coworkers and cannot have a private conversation is really annoying. I want to help you -- don't start by unintentionally irritating me.

[I know the good recruiters [the ones who help his blog's readers and post their jobs on this blog] don't do that. I'm sure it's the last resort of relatively desperate folks.]

 [How then should we be contacted? Like most adults, I have a LinkedIn account. I'm happy to connect with you there, even though it's a public forum. I'm happy to talk to you via e-mail. If I get crazy, I'll even give you my cell phone number. Really.]

*Who do you think I'm more loyal to, the person I work with every day or you?

How do institutions change? Not easily

Reading Paul's thoughts about both Sheri Sangji and Jason Altom were interesting and saddening. Go over there and read the whole thing! Here's the conclusion that I found affecting:

Changing the culture of an institution—especially one as intractable as chemical academia—is extraordinarily difficult. But so long as we forgo meaningful changes in favor of cosmetic ones that we don’t even bother to sustain anyway, we will continue to experience frustration and tragedy. One wonders what magnitude of disruption is necessary for our community to commit itself to improvement. Apparently, it is much greater than the death of a twenty-something student.

How do large institutions change permanently?  I can think of a few ways -- readers can probably think of more:

• The gun to the head: Funding is added or taken away, new laws are passed, lawsuits are lost (or won). Change is forced on the institution. 
• From the top: Leadership decides (for whatever reason) to make changes. Examples: handover at the White House between presidencies, the transition at Apple between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, Microsoft's late-90's pivot to the Internet. 
• From the bottom: As an organization's people changes, the organization changes with it. Imagine the difference between the US Army between 2001-2003 (senior people may have served in Operation Desert Storm, most have some foreign peacekeeping deployments, few combat veterans) and the current US Army (the median infantry soldier has at least one deployment, most officers and senior NCOs have multiple tours and are combat veterans.) 
• Voluntary change: People within the institution have a change of heart, decide to alter their direction. Examples: I can't really think of any (doesn't mean there aren't). 

Right now, those of us who follow academic chemical safety are hoping that "voluntary change" happens. It remains to be seen whether the charging of Professor Patrick Harran in the death of Ms. Sheri Sangji will be a sufficient gun to the head to change academic chemistry. Somehow I doubt it. According to Paul, Jason Altom's suicide was an insufficient gun to the head of the Harvard chemistry department to institute any permanent change (although I'm guessing that depression in graduate students or postdocs is taken fairly seriously by smart faculty members.) 

If enough people like Paul have faculty positions and attain high enough positions in academic chemistry, will things change? Probably. I think change from the bottom will be slow and painful, but has the best chance of becoming permanent. 

There is, of course, the Langerman/Benderly approach to academic chemical safety: that funding and tenure be threatened in the case of bad safety records. I am on the record as seeing it as (at best) a useful bad idea. It's a Desert Eagle approach -- it will be interesting to see if it suffices. 

Need some unsolved problems? Try these!

As part of his "New Normal" series, Paul Hodges of ICIS has, over the past two years, consistently pushed for a refocusing of the efforts of the chemical industry. In a recent blog post, he says: 

Cost must be the key criteria when examining the opportunities for new product development and research. Chapter 8 of our free 'Boom, Gloom and the New Normal' ebook examines the application of this philosophy to the 4 megatrends that we have identified as being key to the future of the chemical industry: 

• Improving water availability
• Improving food production
• Increasing life expectancy
• Reducing carbon footprint 

It suggests that the key need is to be practical. Companies should focus:

• In the fields of water/food, on reducing the amount of waste, and the output that is lost when product is moving to market
• In developing new products and services for the over 55s, on core needs such as food, water, health, shelter and mobility
• In turn, this will enable them to 'do more with less'. Carbon footprint will be reduced, and products will be more affordable

I think it will be interesting to see the success of companies that deal with these issues; Nalco is one, Monsanto another. I don't think there are companies out there that are dedicated to reducing carbon footprint (i.e. selling technology that allows people to do so.)

It's apparent to me that higher-end pharma products don't really fit well into this viewpoint. Uh-oh. 

Daily Pump Trap: 2/9/12 edition

Good morning! Between February 7 and February 8, there were 24 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 6 (25%) are academically connected and 7 (29%) are from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Pleasanton, CA: Clorox is back, looking for chemists. 3 Ph.D. positions for an antimicrobial scientist, an oxidation scientist and a colloid expert. Sounds good.

Tuscon, AZ: Sion Power Corporation is a battery start-up; they're looking for a cathode development scientist. Ph.D. in chemistry, materials science or chemical engineering desired, with 10+ years experience. And the bidding starts at $110,000, I'm guessing.

Monroeville, PA: RJ Lee Group is an analytical consulting company. Here's their self-description:

For more than 25 years, RJ Lee Group's scientific and investigative resources have provided the competitive edge by defining solutions. As the field of Industrial Forensics advanced and embraced more sophisticated and complex issues such as nanoparticles and electronic materials, RJ Lee Group determined that the need for in-depth resolution was essential and that a single solution was no longer acceptable. Today RJ Lee Group’s expert scientists address these issues and can investigate the entire product life cycle including regulatory compliance in the workplace. 

Sounds like consultants to me; here's their case studies. Nevertheless, they're looking for a director of their analytical lab. Ph.D. with 10+ years experience desired.

Carlsbad, NM: Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center is looking for a M.S.-level radiochemist.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) 275,750, 3,097 and 53 positions for the search term "chemist." 

Every methodology table you've ever seen, by SeeArrOh

In SeeArrOh's wanderings on the Internet, he happened to come across this table in a rough draft of a paper intended for a high-impact journal. It's nice to see such structurally diverse molecules be subjected to this group's oxidation technique. 

Process Wednesday: cake washing

That crack (lower left) could become a ravine (or a highway).
Photo credit: peach

Apropos of nothing, I've been reading chemical engineering texts on the filtration of solids from liquids. Did you know that "deliquoring" is a term of art in filtration? (And here I thought it was a description of what my liver was up to on a tough Thursday night in grad school.)

Here's a fairly detailed description of what happens when you wash a cake of product with some fresh solvent on large scale [1]:

In almost all cases, the requirement for maximum wash efficiency is to develop a mechanism, which removes the required amount of mother liquor with a minimum of washing liquor. Basically there are only two mechanisms, and in practice usually both are present:

• Displacement of the mother liquor by washing liquor
• Dilution of the mother liquor through mixing with washing liquors 

Displacement is by far the most efficient mechanism and under ideal conditions would cause the washing liquor to act as a piston driving the mother liquor out of the cake without any dilution. This is clearly utopia although a high degree of “piston or plug-flow effect” can be achieved with a careful preparation of the cake and a careful application of the wash liquor. The trick lies above all in the careful application of the washing liquor to the saturated face of the filter cake.

What happens if you got the chance to force your rinse through the cake with pressure?

It must be clear, but is often ignored, that washing at too high a pressure differential only leads to poor efficiency. Too high a pressure almost always leads to bypassing. Although the ideal cake has an even structure, no pinholes, and no cracks and lies firmly bedded against the retaining walls, we are not living in an ideal world and to some degree all cakes will have these faults. 

Forcing liquid through the cake at unnecessarily high pressures only makes matters worse. A pinhole will become a hole, a crack a ravine and if the cake does not bed down perfectly, the washing liquid will make a highway of the gap. [emphasis CJ's] In addition, high pressure differentials reduce the contact time. In all cases therefore the optimum pressure differential is the lowest possible.

You didn't know that washing the filter cake in a Buchner funnel had so much behind it, did you? Leave it to the chemical engineers to understand this stuff.

[1] Barry A. Perlmutter, "A Treatise of Filter Cake Washing Mechanisms In Pressure and Vacuum Filtration Systems." 

To my undergraduate and graduate student readers: don't do this!

I've heard a lot of silly ideas about how to pay for school, but this one takes the cake:

I had way too much going on. I was in a folkloric dance troupe, working at Rite Aid and manning a health hotline. I thought lots of extra-curriculars would get me into a good law school. But my grades started to suffer; I was put on academic probation and my financial aid was suspended. 

I wasn't able to ask for help. I wanted to fix my problems secretly without disappointing anybody, so I robbed a bank. 

I still ask myself how I got the idea. I was desperate. I thought, "no one will know." I'll never speak of it. It'll be just one time and I'll just move forward. 

I walked in and gave the teller a note. Some of what you see in the movies is true. Tellers are supposed to acquiesce to whatever you ask. I got a few thousand dollars and it all went to pay for school. I thought, "Let me just try this one more time, so I can pay off a little more debt." 

It didn't work: a judge sentenced me to 30 months in prison. 

Just in case you needed to hear it from me, don't do that.

Daily Pump Trap: 2/7/12 edition

Good morning! Between February 2 and February 6, there were 49 positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 14 (29%) were academically connected and 14 (29%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Santa Rosa, CA: Thermochem is a testing laboratory; they're looking for a B.S. chemist with minimum 5 years experience with gas chromatography.

Monroeville, PA: PPG Industries is looking a Ph.D. inorganic chemist to work on water purification technology. So Nalco has competitors, huh?

To the 20 men and women in America who have these qualifications: Boehringer Ingelheim (Ridgefield, CT) would like to try to hire you:

Contribute to writing protocols, procedures & reports, work productively in a cross functional team environment, develop awareness of process economics, timelines, environmental (Green chemistry) & process safety, & comply with applicable regulations in accordance to SOP's & policies. Analyze API physical property with TGA & DSC etc. Introduce & utilize new technologies to improve productivity in the lab (e.g. react-IR & flow reactor). Interpret analytical data of scale up batch, trouble-shooting & coordinate workflow between process research & scale-up interface. International travel required. 

Must possess at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent in Chemistry or a related field & at least five years of work experience in Chemistry/Research field. In the alternative, a master's degree or its equivalent in Chemistry or a related field & at least three years of work experience in Chemistry/Research field would be acceptable. College coursework, project or work experience with the following: advanced chemistry knowledge of stereoselective synthesis & heterocyclic organic compound; experience using a parallel synthesizer or automated reactor, & programed purification system; experience with using high technological instruments such as NMR, HPLC-MS, GC-MS, HPLC-prep; experience working on air-sensitive chemicals under inert atmosphere, e.g. preparation & transfer of organometallic catalysts using glove box; experience in synthesis & purification of inorganic compound such as a metal catalyst for organic reactions; experience using pressurize reactor such as for hydrogenation; experience with basic principles in drug design & development; & experience in design & synthesis of chiral lignad [sic] such as chiral N-heterocyclic carbene & phosphine ligands. Any suitable combination of education, training &/or experience would be acceptable.

Why not just send a letter to Professor Buchwald and save the $600 you spent on an ad?

Sacramento, CA: AMPAC Fine Chemicals would like to hire a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. chemist with at least 6 years of industry experience. Polymer and organic experience is desired for this position; experience with thermoset and thermoplastics techniques desired.

West Lafayette, IN: Endocyte is searching for a Ph.D. analytical chemist for QC/cGMP work.

Ivory Filter Flask: 2/7/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 31 and February 6, there were 16 academic positions posted on the ACS Careers website. The numbers:

Total number of ads: 16
- Postdocs: 0
- Tenure-track faculty: 11
- Temporary faculty: 3
- Lecturer positions: 1
- Staff positions: 1
- Ratio of US/non-US positions: 13/3

Go Gamecocks: The University of South Carolina is searching for an assistant professor of chemistry; analytical, instrumental, general courses to be taught.

Monmouth, IL: Monmouth College is searching for candidates for a 2 year temporary position. Ph.D. needs to be completed by August 2012.

Riverdale, NY: Manhattan College is looking for an assistant professor of physical chemistry. Ph.D. + postdoc is desirable.

Seattle, WA: The University of Washington's EH&S laboratory is searching for a Ph.D. analytical chemist with 3 years experience in lab management. GC-MS, LC/MS, HPLC experience desired.

Buffalo, NY: The Department of Chemistry at the University of Buffalo is looking for a 3 year lecturer position. You'll have a few Bills games to go to, anyway.

Midwest specialty chemical company looking for Ph.D. formulation chemists

From the inbox, a job posting:

Our client, a highly successful specialty chemical company located in the central United States is seeking research and product development chemists to join their team.  This small cap company develops products and processes used in the semiconductor industry.  A global leader in its applications the company reached record revenues in 2011 with sales increasing 40% from the prior year. As a trusted industry partner to their customers our client continues to look for new ways to meet market demand through reliable and innovative solutions.  With strong, foreseeable growth for many years this company continues to aggressively reinvest in R&D putting a significant premium on new technology and products.

We are looking for formulation chemists that have a minimum of three (3) years applied industry experience in wet chemistry.  Understanding of colloidal science, inorganic chemistry, surface science, particles and polymers is preferred.  A PhD in Chemistry or related science is required.

The ideal candidate will have experience working with customers solving problems and offering applicable solutions.  These are roles designed for entrepreneurial scientists who enjoy working in a fast-paced collaborative environment that is results oriented.  Our client operates in a new state-of-the-art facility that offers numerous amenities for supporting a good work-life balance.   Career training and promotion opportunities abound as well as an attractive compensation package with relocation assistance if needed.            

If you fit this profile and are interested in learning more please email to mbarrett -at- dhrinternational/dot/com.

That's some hairy chemistry

""Did YOU possibly THINK that my picture wouldn't show
up here? I'm a biochemist! I drive a Volvo!"
Photo credit: thumbpress.com

Also in this week's Chemical and Engineering News, Bethany Halford looks at the forensic chemistry of chemical weapons:

Fraga and colleagues at PNNL and Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, recently used impurity profiling to link samples of sarin they synthesized to the specific batches of its precursor, methylphosphonic dichloride. They found they could tell what commercial manufacturer supplied the precursor and even what chemical lot it came from (Anal. Chem., DOI: 10.1021/ac202340u). “We were able to show that most of the impurities that were in the precursor transferred over into the product,” Fraga explains. “I was pretty surprised by that because there’s a distillation step that’s done, two solvent extraction steps, and we still found these impurities.” 

Saphon Hok, a chemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in collaboration with the Swedish Defence Research Agency, has been using impurity profiling to link chemical threat agents to the method used to make them. At the American Chemical Society national meeting in Denver last fall, Hok reported that he could differentiate among four production routes to make the nerve agent known as Russian VX. He has done similar work on sarin, VX, and the blister agent sulfur mustard. 

“I go through all the possible ways an agent can be synthesized, and then I go into the laboratory and make these compounds on a small scale as crudely as possible,” Hok explains. “We try to mimic someone who is trying to do this synthesis in their backyard or in their garage.” He then analyzes the compounds using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The data, he says, reveal different signatures that pinpoint the production method used.

I don't think I have the technique required for this kind of chemistry. Good on them. 

Good luck to the battery companies

Remember 2009 and all the people who were trying to hire battery chemists? Well, in this week's Chemical and Engineering News, Melody Bomgardner catches up with some of them: 

In early 2009, Barack Obama’s Administration wished for a U.S.-based advanced battery manufacturing industry, both to create jobs and to usher in a new age of electrified transportation. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama took stock: “In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries.” 

That partnership included major grants to some firms from the Department of Energy as part of spending from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (C&EN, July 27, 2009, page 24). Battery makers are now in position to power a new generation of electric vehicles; their factories are built or nearly completed. Yet they also find themselves uncomfortably out in front of their biggest customers—the automakers—and in need of other homes for their products while they wait for the coming electric vehicle revolution. 

The rollout last year of the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf, the first major-market cars to use lithium-ion batteries, was supposed to make 2011 a banner year for advanced batteries. However, slow sales—and safety concerns with the Volt battery—are leading many observers to question whether American consumers will ever adopt vehicles with the technology. 

What’s clear is that leading U.S. battery manufacturers such as A123 Systems and Dow Kokam will be operating well below capacity for the near term. Battery maker Ener1 just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Its troubles began in early 2011 when a major automotive customer, Norway’s Think Global, stopped production. 

David M. Pankratz, Dow Kokam’s vice president of operations, says it felt good to have President Obama single out the high-tech battery industry, but he adds that his company faces a tough road. “We’re not only a start-up company, but we are a start-up industry,” Pankratz says. “The challenges are magnified in a start-up industry with a whole new kind of technology.”

Presumably, electric cars will, at some point in the future, take off. Problem is, the economy is simply not good enough for people to purchase new vehicles. The average car in the US is about 11 years old, which is the oldest it's been in a long time. (The average age of vehicles in the Chemjobber household is 15.5 years, but we do not represent the average American car buyer. [And it will continue to be high if I have anything to say about it!!! -- CJ's budget.]) It will take a very long time before lots of people are going to feel flush enough to risk their down payment on an electric car.

I tend to agree with Mr. Pankratz -- being in a nascent industry, inventing an advanced technology that's simply waiting for more people to buy it, that has to be a very difficult thing. Good luck to the materials scientists and chemists who are working on this -- one hopes they've got good marketing folks.

What are your best job interview tips?

The other day, @UnstableIsotope said about preparation for an interview:

Be you, only organized and with a suit & good haircut.

That's about right, I think.

I went to the Men's Wearhouse in Mission Valley (lo, those many years ago) and bought a nice suit, shoes, socks, the whole bit. That cost a pretty penny, as I recall, but I've been able to wear it to just about everything (weddings, funerals, etc.) Navy suit, red tie, snore. I usually get a haircut about a week before the interview, but I have a pretty boring haircut, so that's no big deal.

Things I carry with me on my interviews? Extra copies of resume, notepad, laser pointer, pens, minty chewing gum, extra electronic copies of my presentation (i.e., flash drive, CD, 3.5 inch floppy), binder version of my presentation. Cell phone (silenced). Wallet, keys.

Anyone have a different packing list for their interviews? Readers, what do you think?

Have a good weekend? I don't like it, but the Patriots are probably going to win. 

Unemployment rate at 8.3%, broader measure at 15.1%

Credit: Calculated Risk blog

Fresh electrons from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

In January, the unemployment rate fell 0.2% to 8.3%. The broader U6 measure of unemployment fell 0.1% to 15.1%.

Total nonfarm payroll went up by 243,000 jobs -- that's good news, too.

Thanks, as always, to Calculated Risk for the blog. 

AstraZeneca at Waltham: not being smart

     Now, look, Carlo, it's been a very busy time for the 

     family. We know what you did with the Barzinis, and 

     we know you set up Sonny. Did you think you could

     fool a Corleone? 

     But as I said, it's been busy around here, so we're 

     gonna take a few days, we're going to look around, 

     do some analysis, do some Six Sigma  regression 

     analyses, and then we'll figure out whether or not 

     we're going to terminate your relationship with the 

     family and whether or not we'll decide to take 

     matters further. Okay? 

     

    (Photo credit: emulsioncompulsion)

With all of the announcements of cuts at AstraZeneca, it's surprising to hear that the facility at Waltham, MA has not heard their fates yet. Derek Lowe's thoughts:

From several reports, here's what I have on AstraZeneca's plans in Waltham: they've told people there that cuts are coming. But they haven't gotten very specific on when, or who, or how many. All those questions (that is, all the questions there could be) are under review. 

Pfizer has done this to their people before, as have other companies in the throes of layoffs, and it's the only way I know to actually push morale and productivity down even further in such a situation. You come to work for weeks, for months, not knowing if your, your lab, or your whole department is heading for the chopping block. All you're sure of is that someone is. And will your own stellar performance persuade upper management to keep you, when the time comes? Not likely, under these conditions - it'll more likely be the sort of thing where they draw lines through whole areas. Your fate, most people feel at these times, is not in your own hands. A less motivating environment couldn't be engineered on purpose. 

But that's what AZ's management has chosen to do at their largest research site in North America. I hope that they enjoy the results.

Once again, I suggest the Chemjobber Layoff Plan, knowing, of course, it will never happen:

1. Management decides that they're going to revisit cuts at some future date, 2 or 3 or (dare I suggest) 4 years in the future. 
2. Day 1: Management lays waste to their R&D departments, cutting all the people they think they're going to cut in the next 4 years. 
3. Day 2: Management announces to their workers: "We've cut all the people we're going to cut until October 1, 20XX. Congratulations, you're the new team. You have (whatever) years until we make another decision on layoffs. Breathe easy until then."
4. After 2 months of survivor's guilt and freaking out, everyone settles down and gets to work, ignoring that future date until it's soon enough to worry.  

If you go over and look at the comments, it's pretty clear that people prefer to be surprised or at least not have months of dread, knowing (but not knowing) when the axe will fall. 

My very best wishes to those at the AZ Waltham site, and to all of us. 

Prof. Harran, UC Regents in negotiations for plea, arraignment postponed until March 7

Professor Patrick Harran (UCLA), his lawyer Thomas O'Brien
and  Craig Moyer , lawyer for the UC Regents
(credit: Al Seib, Los Angeles Times)

From the Los Angeles Times, the arraignment for Professor Harran and the UC Regents was delayed until March 7:

"The delay, granted Thursday, will allow plea negotiations to continue between prosecutors and the defendants, who were charged in December with three counts each of willfully violating occupational health and safety standards, resulting in the death of Sheri Sangji, a staff research assistant."

Wow. Never thought I would see the day.

Guess Kevin Reed was just talkin'. 

The Layoff Project: Sadly, still relevant

With the news of 2,200 R&D people from AstraZeneca being let go (and an overall layoff of 7,300 AZ employees) overall and two site closures, I'm sorry to say that The Layoff Project is still relevant.

Below is a summary of all the stories of laid-off chemists so far:

• BQ: "I feel frustrated I cannot help anyone."
• TK: "It was very hard to shake off the sense of anger and betrayal."
• RG: "I was proud that I didn't cry in front of them."
• TN: "Be prepared for strong highs and lows."
• LM: "There is no shame in losing your job, not in this economy."
• NT: "You are either networking or not working."
• RK: "I seem to have lost purpose."
• Ortho: "Don't be afraid to ask people for help."
• Anon: "They herded us out like cattle."
• bbooooooya: "Not helpful, sitting around being bitter."
• Old pharma hand: "You are in the middle of a very emotional and stressful period."
• PH: "And then, life happened."

If you know anyone affected by today's events or recent layoffs, please let them know about this post and this blog. Please let them know that there's a community of chemists here that really cares about their fellow scientists and that can empathize with them. 

If you have a story to tell (or know someone who does), please e-mail the blog (or have them e-mail the blog) at chemjobber -at- gmail/dot/com. If you feel so inclined, let your friends and your coworkers know about The Layoff Project, too. 

The Layoff Project is an attempt to collect the oral histories of chemists who have been affected by the changes in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. The explanatory post is here; stories can be left in the comments or e-mailed to chemjobber -at- gmail/dot/com. Confidentiality and anonymity is guaranteed. 

Daily Pump Trap: 2/2/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 31 and February 1, 175 new positions were posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 5 (3%) are academically connected and covered in next Tuesday's Ivory Filter Flask and 162 (93%) positions were posted by Kelly Scientific Resources.

Forever training, I hope: The Air Force Technical Applications Center (on Florida's Space Coast) is searching for a measurement section chief. The desired applicant will be an expert in nuclear radiation monitoring, mass spectrometry and radiochemistry. Master's degree desired.

Pittsburgh, PA: PPG Industries is looking for a B.S. chemist to be an analytical chemist; HPLC/LC-MS experience would be helpful.

South San Francisco, CA: Genentech desires 2 Ph.D. analytical chemists, both on the development side of the house.

Holy Kelly: Lots of positions, most seemingly somewhat relevant. And then there's this job description: "

You think I'm kidding? Go see for yourself.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) 289, 708, 3,037 and 56 positions respectively for the search term "chemist." 

Your labmates' noses

A list of small, useful things (links):

• David has a funny post about butane and another one about poison ivy. 
• Paul Hodges says the Baltic Dry Index is down -- DOOOOOOOOOOM. 
• Want a science career with the Feds? Glen points to a new website.
• What's wrong with this ad?, asks Paul.
• Adam posts one of the all-time best Far Side cartoons.
• Th'Gaussling is looking at extractive metallurgy. 
• Matt talks about alchemy and symbolism -- slay that Minotaur!
• Dr. Freddy says, "Always prioritize people over projects."
• John worries about pirating organs. There's a bad joke in there somewhere. 
• STEM_Wonk asks, "What would federal R&D look like with President Gingrich?"
• Josh Bloom argues for extending pharmaceutical patents.

Did I miss anything? Let me know!

UPDATE: MB wants to know "Why would you ever make polyperoxides?"
UPDATE 2: SeeArrOh has a tasty-seeming recipe for a microwave breakfast sandwich. I am tempted. 

Offered without comment: President Obama confronted by unemployed engineer family

Via @UnstableIsotope, the reality of unemployed STEM (how I dislike that term!) workers:

President Obama vowed to take a look at a Fort Worth woman’s husband’s resume on Monday in an attempt to help him find a job. 

Participating in the first-ever virtual interview on the social networking site Google+, Obama was asked by Jennifer Weddel why her husband, a semiconductor engineer, is unable to find a job. (The Fort Worth woman also inquired why the government continues to extend H1B visas when there are many Americans without jobs.) 

In the beginning, Obama told Weddel that her husband “should be able to find something right away.” Unconvinced, Weddel kept pressing. 

“Send me your husband’s resume,” Obama said, after the woman voiced her frustration. “I will follow up on this.”  

“I’ll have to take you up on that,” Weddel responded with a smile.

Best wishes to Mrs. Weddel and her husband. 

Process Wednesday: Vortexes aren't good?

Undesirable? (Credit: eHow)

More on the engineering of reactors, this time from Mr. Ozzie Frietas, the technical sales manager for De Dietrich Process Systems:

The patented design of PharmaCore’s new, glasslined OptiMix reactors incorporates three vertical baffles on the walls of the reactor shell. Side baffles are common in metal tanks. They prevent the formation of vortexes that spin the entire fluid mass but do very little actual mixing or shearing. In baffled tanks, on the other hand, the baffles create turbulence that enhances mixing. They also optimize heat transfer, suspension and distribution of solids and gases, and mass transfer.  

Typical glass-lined reactors do not use straight flat baffles due to the challenge of attaching them to the reactor wall and encapsulating them with glass. Instead, they drop one or more baffles from the top head into the reactor. Under some conditions, these top-mounted baffles may not provide enough turbulence to suppress vortex formation. Vortices not only do a poor job of mixing, but they also splash liquid against reactor walls. In heated reactors, splashes soon turn into dried products that are difficult to remove from the reactor wall during
cleanup. 

De Dietrich developed the process to build wall-baffled, glass-lined reactors a few years ago. The company welds the baffles to the reactor wall prior to coating all steel surfaces with glass. The three baffles suppress vortexing and splashing. The symmetry of the three baffle/three mixing blade combination also minimizes bending loads that can deflect the agitator shaft and reduce seal life.

I'm terribly amused to learn that vortices "do a poor job of mixing." In the lab, the presence of a healthy-looking vortex is a sign to a chemist that things are mixing well, not badly. 

But then again, our friend Neal Anderson tells us this, too:

Without baffles, low-viscosity fluids tend to create vortices and swirl with poor mixing; baffles disrupt vortices and promote flow patters that lead to good mixing.

While I'm firmly convinced of the undesirability of removing dried product off the walls of reactors (boy, am I ever!) and the prevention of such, I'd really like to learn more about mixing and what's the best kind of mixing.  Vortices are poor at mixing? Could have fooled me.

Fascinating video from commenter marvinthefish -- I'm convinced!:

To be yourself, or to not be yourself?

Courtesy of Lisa Balbes: As assistant professor candidates are heading out for interviews, someone who has billed themselves as a consultant to professor candidates speaks up in the pages of Inside Higher Ed:

Because no matter where you are in your career, but most especially if you are just starting out, or (god forbid) a grad student, you are, as an academic, insecure, verbose, defensive, paranoid, beset by feelings of inadequacy,  pretentious, self-involved, communicatively challenged, and fixated on minutiae. 

Consequently, here’s how you act in interviews:  rambling, obscure, petrified, subservient, cringing, disorganized, braggy, tedious, emotionally over-amped, off-point, self-absorbed, defensive, and fixated on minutiae. 

I'm sure the comment stream will erupt with objections, but …  I’ve worked with enough interviewees — as a search committee member, Ph.D. adviser, and coach and consultant — to know whereof I speak. 

Sorry, academics. You/we suck at interviewing.
Here's what actually needs to happen.
You have to jettison "yourself." 

In its stead, you have to create a professional persona. That persona is a full-fledged adult who demonstrates a tightly organized research program, a calm confidence in a research contribution to a field or discipline, a clear and specific trajectory of publications, innovative but concise, non-emotional ideas about teaching at all levels of the curriculum, a non-defensive openness to the exchange of ideas, and most importantly, a steely-eyed grasp of the real (as opposed to fantasy) needs of actual hiring departments, which revolve ultimately, in the current market, around money.

In some sense, I actually agree with her. People are drawn to self-confident candidates and you want to be the best version of yourself. Keeping your speech disciplined is a good way of getting there.

At the same time, in the course of the day-long interview process that happens in both academia and industry, there is no way that you can keep up a facade for that long. Hiring committees and hiring managers (I'd like to think) are typically fairly perceptive people. Contacts with references and direct questions to interviewees will reveal whatever negative tendencies you might have. If the reality is far from the illusion, people on hiring committees will respond negatively.

On the other hand, I find her business model remarkable. On her website, she writes: "My clients: Get  grants. Get tenure track jobs. Get tenure." (Really? Eyebrow raise.) She charges $20 for an initial consultation. She charges $110/hour for a Skype interview consultation. Wow -- I'm guessing she gets a fair number of takers. (Shouldn't someone do this for chemistry assistant professor interviewees? Maybe, maybe not.) 

Daily Pump Trap: 1/31/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 26 and January 30, there were 32 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 16 (50%) were academically connected and are covered in the Ivory Filter Flask.

Experimental Station, DE: Dupont is searching for a Ph.D. analytical chemist to become a specialist in gas chromatography instruments. 3+ years industrial experience is desired.

Madison, WI: Kensey Nash is a medical device polymer company; they desire an experienced M.S./Ph.D. polymer chemist to work on "synthetic polymer hydrogels and coatings used to improve medical care." 7+ years experience desired.

Still searching: Toyota is looking for the ever-elusive advanced battery materials specialist. I wonder what these folks are commanding these days? Six-figure salaries? Your finest meats and cheeses? (Ann Arbor, MI)

Woodland Park, NJ: Cytec is looking for a Ph.D. organic/polymer chemist to become a postdoctoral fellow. No remarks as to length of stay or salary.

Monroeville, PA: PPG Industries is searching for a Ph.D. organic chemist to work on photochromic dyes.

Westlake, LA: Sasol North America desires an experienced M.S./Ph.D. chemist to perform chemical research for personal care products. 

Ivory Filter Flask: 1/31/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 24 and January 30, there were 23 academic positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Let's do the numbers:

Total number of ads: 23
- Postdocs: 6
- Tenure-track faculty: 8
- Temporary faculty: 1
- Lecturer positions: 1
- Staff positions: 7
- Ratio of US/non-US positions: 22/1

Northfield, VT: Norwich University is looking for an assistant professor of analytical chemistry. Norwich is apparently a private military college in central Vermont -- take along a snow shovel?

Tabuk, Saudi Arabia: The University of Tabuk is a new Saudi university; they're searching for new professors for both their male and female campuses. Here's the pay and benefits:

Salary scale is for Assistant Professors 13,000-15,800 Saudi Riyal (SAR), for Associate Professors 17,000-19,400 SAR and for full-Professors 20,800-23,300 SAR per month. There is an additional up to 25,000 SAR annual tuition allowance for children’s education and one time 12,000 SAR furniture allowance. Faculty members can also earn an additional two months' of base salary for eligible funded research activities. Free round-trip air-ticket is provided annually to the employees and for up to three of their dependents from Tabuk to their point of origin. Saudi Arabia is tax-free country. Preceding salary amounts are take-home pay. Faculty members also get 2 months of paid summer vacation. 

Considering their top end for full professors is ~$72k/year, I think they're going to need to do better than that. Nevertheless, might be fun.

Baltimore, MD: On the other hand, Johns Hopkins is searching for a conservation science postdoc with a salary of $56,000 a year. Sounds like that'd go pretty far in Tabuk.

Staff galore: Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, OK (home of Sonic!) is searching for a chemistry stockroom manager / chemistry instructor, with the grand salary of $33.8k-$41k a year. UC San Diego is looking for a chemical safety specialist (B.S. in science + 3 years EH&S experience needed.) Georgia Southern University is looking for a chemistry instrumentation manager.

What is the level of worker safety at Chinese chemical manufacturers?

In the New York Times' series on Apple's manufacturing facilities in China, there are some sad chemical safety stories to be found:

In January 2010, workers at a Chinese factory owned by Wintek, an Apple manufacturing partner, went on strike over a variety of issues, including widespread rumors that workers were being exposed to toxins. Investigations by news organizations revealed that over a hundred employees had been injured by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause nerve damage and paralysis. 

Employees said they had been ordered to use n-hexane to clean iPhone screens because it evaporated almost three times as fast as rubbing alcohol. Faster evaporation meant workers could clean more screens each minute.

I guess they can't get branched alkanes over there? I note that cyclohexane has a boiling point of 80°C, but isohexane's is 60°C.

(Note to any potential Google searchers: Mike Daisey is wrong that hexane is a "potent neurotoxin." Hexane itself is not the neurotoxin, it's the lysine adduct of the hexane metabolite, 2,5-hexanedione. (Not that it really matters to the poor kid whose hands are shaking.))

There's also a passage in the New York Times article about an explosion that killed a number of employees because of ambient aluminum dust from polishing iPad cases:

In its most recent supplier responsibility report, Apple wrote that after the explosion, the company contacted “the foremost experts in process safety” and assembled a team to investigate and make recommendations to prevent future accidents. 

In December, however, seven months after the blast that killed Mr. Lai, another iPad factory exploded, this one in Shanghai. Once again, aluminum dust was the cause, according to interviews and Apple’s most recent supplier responsibility report. That blast injured 59 workers, with 23 hospitalized. 

“It is gross negligence, after an explosion occurs, not to realize that every factory should be inspected,” said Nicholas Ashford, the occupational safety expert, who is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “If it were terribly difficult to deal with aluminum dust, I would understand. But do you know how easy dust is to control? It’s called ventilation. We solved this problem over a century ago.”

That's a pretty depressing thing to hear. What is frustrating, just like Ashford says, this is an easily monitored and addressable issue.

It really makes a person wonder about the other, less well-known hazards in Chinese manufacturing. What's the safety record of Wuxi PharmaTech, anyhow? It's my assumption that many Aldrich reagents are made in China -- do they audit their suppliers' safety?

If anyone knows anything about this, please e-mail me or write in the comments. I'd love to hear about it.

AMRI: A self-assessment by CEO Thomas D'Ambra

From this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News, the annual custom chemical manufacturing article (by Ann Thayer), with a section on everyone's favorite chemistry outsourcing firm (and former mass employer of organic chemists), Albany Molecular:

More recently, AMRI made cutbacks in response to changing customer needs and the economic environment. “This means investing in areas that are doing well and refocusing areas that have experienced decreasing demand,” D’Ambra says. Among its steps, AMRI is ceasing all internal R&D programs, except for generic drugs, and trimming its U.S. contract drug discovery staff. 

“During the last couple of years, we have seen steep declines in demand for U.S. discovery offerings, with concomitant growth to AMRI’s Asian locations,” he explains. “As we are cutting back our U.S. assets, we are continuing to invest in the growth of our Singaporean and Indian facilities and capabilities.” The company also may restructure its European contract research operations, including ­possibly closing its site in Hungary. 

On the manufacturing side of its business, AMRI’s U.S. API plant had a record year in 2011. “Many projects we have been involved with during the last several years are going commercial or are approaching the filing stage,” D’Ambra says. This progress has compensated for slower movement in earlier stage projects, he adds, where customers have taken longer to make decisions, leaving the company with a record backlog of outstanding bids. 

Despite the delays, D’Ambra is optimistic about the future and foresees a strong year in 2012. Although 2011 was a year of significant disruption for big pharma customers and financially tough for many small and start-up companies, the trend could be positive for outsourcing, he explains. “The tough environment will force some companies to operate more virtually than they might have wanted to in the past.”

I'm sure that there was a section about how badly Dr. D'Ambra felt about the fact that there were "steep declines" in demand for US contract researchers -- it just didn't make the editor's cut. Sigh.

(Incidentally, do Thomas D'Ambra and John Lechleiter give the lie to the thought that "we just need to get a chemist into management instead of those mean MBAs" stereotype?)

12 questions you don't want to be asked on an interview

You're at the white board in a conference room or sitting at a nice restaurant at lunch and someone leans over the table and says:

1. So tell me about your experience with angry bosses.
2. Did you have experience working on the weekends in graduate school? Did you like it? 
3. You're not one of those chemists that insists on proper PPE, are you? 
4. You don't expect a W-2 at the end of the year, do you? 
5. How would you feel about a part-time position in Bangalore? 
6. Do you know how many other candidates there are for this position?
7. Are you in chemistry for the money? I'm not. 
8. Do you think NMR is important for structure elucidation? How good are you at using IR for functional group identification?
9. Here's the complex natural product that my company is working on -- how would you synthesize it?
10. Do you prefer to be paid in drachmas or lira? 
11. You know, 70's vintage analytical equipment is quite good. Do you have any experience repairing old televisions? 
12. We have weekly naked group meetings -- got a problem with that? 

Enjoy the weekend, folks. 

How to talk about chemical safety

What's the best way to talk to a peer about how they're performing a particular chemical operation and its safety components? What if they're doing something really unsafe? 

I dunno, but here's one mostly ineffective way:

Hey! What you're doing there is REALLY unsafe. You're going to get yourself killed! And everyone around you, too! Are you some kind of idiot?

Here's another ineffective way:

What are you doing? [walks away]

 Here's how I might approach someone doing something unsafe:

Hey, uh, have you thought about the safety concerns with this method of doing something? No? Let's go look up some best practices on how to do this.  

I know that you're under pressure and trying to get this done -- I really appreciate that. But let's go find out if you could get hurt, eh?

That might be a little too diplomatic. It depends on the person you're talking, of course, and what approach you think might work the best. Readers, what do you prefer? 

What's going on out there?

Weekly unemployment claims (Credit: Calculated Risk)

It's really difficult to reduce something as big as the US and/or global economy into a few numbers, but let's try to see what's going on:

• Initial weekly unemployment claims have been trending down for a while (at right). 
• The national unemployment rate is at 8.5%; it will be interesting to see the numbers for January (reported next Friday.) 
• The 4th quarter of 2011 saw 2.8% real GDP growth. That's weak for a recovery, but the best rate since the 2nd quarter of 2010. 
• 2011 was a terrible year for new home sales because of distressed home sales (foreclosures, etc.) The Case-Shiller index is expected to show a 3.2% year-over-year drop in prices next week. 
• Paul Hodges says that crude oil inventories are up (good news)?

In related news, the Federal Open Market Committee intends to keep interest rates low:

In particular, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and currently anticipates that economic conditions--including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run--are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014.

Yay for borrowers, boo for savers.

Overall, the US economy appears to be muddling through. Trouble spots include oil prices, the European economy (and the continuing (resolving?) debt crisis) and the slowing Chinese economy. Let's hope employment for chemists starts on a positive trend, eh?

Man, I hope this isn't how they hire chemists in pharma

Credit: Wall Street Journal

You get to peek behind the curtain of job application software in the Wall Street Journal's article "Your Résumé Versus Oblivion" -- it ain't pretty:

Many job seekers have long suspected their online employment applications disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again. Their fears may not be far off the mark, as more companies rely on technology to winnow out less-qualified candidates... Recruiters and hiring managers are overwhelmed by the volume of résumés pouring in, thanks to the weak job market and new tools that let applicants apply for a job with as little as one mouse click. ...Most recruiters report that at least 50% of job hunters don't possess the basic qualifications for the jobs they are pursuing. 

The screening systems are one way companies are seeking to cut the costs of hiring a new employee, which now averages $3,479, according to human-resources consulting firm Bersin & Associates. Big companies, many of which cut their human-resources staffs during the recession, now spend about 7% of their external recruitment budgets on applicant-tracking systems, the firm says.

I'm not especially surprised by their comments about small companies, but it is interesting to hear some unscientific numbers:

Résumé overload isn't just a big-company problem. Job seekers often are surprised when they don't hear back from small businesses. These businesses rarely hire enough people to make an applicant-tracking system cost-effective, but even a one-time posting on a well-trafficked job board like Monster.com can garner hundreds of responses. Only 19% of hiring managers at small companies look at a majority of the résumés they receive, and 47% say they review just a few, according to a recent survey by Information Strategies Inc., publisher of Your HR Digest, an online newsletter.

Having survived feeling my résumé into a large-company database in the recent past and actually receiving a phone call (that ultimately resulted in a offer!), I have to say that (like the first paragraph), it was my assumption that there was some sort of black hole involved. The request that resumes be in "Word document format" was yet more evidence that computers were involved.

I once spoke to a man who was hired by a major government contractor (and employer of physical scientists) in Utah. He told me the best way to deal with the software was to copy the job description and its keywords and paste it into the top portion of my résumé. I see this is in the article's advice:

Forget about being creative. Instead, mimic the keywords in the job description as closely as possible. If you're applying to be a sales manager, make sure your résumé includes the words "sales" and "manage" (assuming you've done both!).

Good heavens. I, for one, quail at our new screening overlords.

Daily Pump Trap: 1/26/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 24 and January 25, there were 19 new positions posted. Of them, 7 (37%) were academically connected and will be covered by Tuesday's Ivory Filter Flask. Two positions were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Zeroes!: The good folks at BASF (Iselin, NJ) are hiring an associate engineer for a position running an automotive catalytic reactor. No experience needed, salary "very competitive." Also, a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. chemist/chemical engineer position (in the same laboratory)?. Maximum 8+ years experience needed, descending for higher degrees.

San Francisco, CA: MAP Pharmaceuticals is working in the neurology area. They're looking for a Ph.D. analytical chemist to work on assays and drug formulation, it appears. 2 openings available.

Birmingham, AL: Once again, Southern Research Institute is looking for a Ph.D. chemist for a "senior scientist" position where they'll perform drug discovery. With the comment that they're looking for someone who has attracted outside support in the past, why don't they just call this an "assistant professor" or a "principal investigator" position and be done with it?

Eugene, OR: Life Technologies is looking for a B.S./M.S. chemist for a process chemistry position in their production department.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) 244, 699, 2,952 and 48 positions for the search term "chemist." 

A poem, by Kelly Scientific Resources

[throat clearing] From the pages of ACS Careers, a poem by Kelly Scientific Resources:

the employee is occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions

fumes or airborne particles

while performing the duties of this job

Process Wednesday: retreat curve agitators

Retreat curve agitator (Credit: Southern Glass)

I don't know what you think of when you imagine the agitator in a large-scale reactor, but I think I always imagined something that looked like a boat propeller. So it's come as a surprise to me to become familiar with the graceful lines of the retreat curve impeller that comes with a glass-lined reactor.

For a little tutorial on the retreat curve impeller, I refer us to "Understand Flow Patterns in Glass-Lined Reactors", an article by Dickey et al. in the November 2004 issue of Chemical Engineering Professional:

Glass-lined reactors are essential process equipment in the pharmaceutical and speciality chemicals industries. A typical glass-lined reactor included a retreat curve impeller (RCI) near the bottom of the vessel and usually a single baffle mounted through a nozzle in the vessel head. The RCI with rounded blade corners may limit harmful turbulence effects while maintaining circulation throughout the vessel. Glass lining (the term "lining" is used to refer to the glass coating on the agitator and the inside of the tank) provides corrosion resistance, is easy to clean, and eliminates product contamination.  

The retreat curve of the RCI blades provids better radial flow than radial flow impellers with similar power characteristics. The impeller is placed near the bottom of the vessel to maximize the allowable range of liquid levels and to produce circulation from the bottom to the top of the vessel. The baffle (occasionally two baffles) is mounted from a nozzle in the top head because mounting to the side of a glass-lined vessel is difficult. The impeller and baffle always have a rounded cross-section without sharp corners because high stresses in the glass can cause the brittle coating to fail. 

There's a lot in those paragraphs that I don't really understand (radial flow? turbulence effects are harmful?), but it's interesting to me nonetheless.

In other #SheriSangji news, CalOSHA's report is released

Over at The Pump Handle, they have a copy of CalOSHA's senior investigator's report on the Sheri Sangji case. It's quite a doozy, with pointed questions up and down UCLA's EH&S chain.

The investigator, Brian Baudendistel, gets to ask questions of everyone in the case, including Sheri Sangji's labmates. Here's the LA Times' story on the report. ScienceCareers also has a contribution. More on this report later. 

Readers speak on potential prison time for Professor Harran

Last week, I asked if anyone thought that Professor Patrick Harran should go to prison. As I've said before, the felony charges are likely to be an opening gambit between the prosecutor and the defense. No one expects that he will serve the maximum prison time (4.5 years), which is the harshest punishment available to the state in this case.

That said, I was curious to know if there was anyone who thought that he should go to prison, other than to teach all chemistry PIs a lesson (an option, I note, that I find unjust. Patrick Harran should not go to prison for the sins of all academic chemistry.) I did receive two responses from people who thought that he deserves prison time. The first response by VT:

Harran deserves some prison time.  

Lots of people sell pot. Only some get caught. Those who are caught get punished. I think someone in one of your comments section compared it to drunk driving. I think that this analogy is actually the best. You can drive drunk. You may or may not get caught. If you do get caught, you are going to be busted. If you get caught after having an accident which kills someone, you will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. And, unless your lawyers are good/your pleas for mercy are stellar/your judge is understanding, you are doing jail-time. 

Harran was unsafe. He got caught. He got caught when there was an accident that killed a student. The question here is severity of the punishment. Harran did not kill his student (as in the DUI analogy). But he was responsible for her safety. I think he gets time. 3-6 months.  

I don't see how he gets out of jail-time for this. Especially considering that his jury of peers will most likely not include any scientists.  

It is my opinion that, if Harran serves time, he deserves to go back to his current job at UCLA. 

The second contribution is from KO (one notes that Sangji was an employee, not a student -- the concept of personal responsibility still holds, in my opinion):

I do believe that Professor Patrick Harran deserves jail time.   

This opinion is based off the structure and nature of the student/PI (principal investigator) relationship.  A graduate student is not considered a full time employee of the University.  Therefore, not subject to the oversight of OSHA or other federal regulatory offices and this is therefore a direct liability.   In the case of industry, individual employers are generally protected from personal liability due to the nature of corporate law.  Since the university cannot claim the student as a full time employee, they accept full liability for said student.  And the person in charge of the student's training and direct oversight is the PI.  It reasons that the personal liability rests on the PI shoulders and the University takes liability for the system ensuring compliance and safety.  In this case both are at fault.  However, since you cannot arrest a university, the university should be held financally responsible and the PI held personally responsible for the safety and well being of the students.   Since the PI is not running a corporation or even an LLC then the PI is not protected and hence fully liable.

After reading all the comments, I think there are 3 or 4 general strains of thought about why Professor Harran deserves prison time:

• Harran going to prison will encourage chemistry PIs to change their ways. 
• Professor Harran's the PI, he's the captain of the ship, someone died on his watch, he deserves punishment. 
• He was being unsafe, he got caught, he's subject to the letter of the law. 
• If this happened in a meatpacking plant and Harran was the supervisor, he'd be facing charges and prison time. Why is it different if it happened at a laboratory? 

Finally, I want to highlight this comment from Anon011720120457p:

I think his tenure should be revoked. As for community service, if he gets probation and no jail time: volunteer work in a rehab hospital that treats burn patients. That will bring home the seriousness of his negligence in supervising Sangji.

This to me seems to be a punishment that's probably closest to what will actually happen.

Readers, what do you think?

Daily Pump Trap: 1/24/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 19 and January 23, there were 52 new positions posted on the ACS Careers database. Of these, 13 (25%) were academically connected and 33 (63%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Argh: Do you know what's annoying? Clicking on a Kelly Scientific position and being told it's not active at this time, again and again and again.

Palo Alto, CA: Genencor is searching for 2 B.S./M.S. chemistry positions, both biochemistry/analytically-oriented. 

Daeduck, South Korea: SK Pharmaceuticals is looking for a M.S./Ph.D. chemist for pharmaceutical process chemistry research.

Cambridge, MA: Have a degree in petroleum thermodynamics and interfacial science? Schlumberger-Doll's CO2 mitigation department has a position for you.

You again: Sapling Learning is once again searching for a M.S./Ph,D. teacher of organic chemistry to work at its Austin, TX based headquarters for teaching and test writing.  

Ivory Filter Flask: 1/24/12 edition

Good morning! Between January 17 and January 23, there were 19 new academically-connected positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Let's do the numbers:

Total number of ads: 19
- Postdocs: 2
- Tenure-track faculty: 11
- Temporary faculty: 2
- Lecturer positions: 3
- Staff positions: 1
- Ratio of US/non-US positions: 17/2

Lindsborg, KS: Bethany College is a private 4 year school -- they're searching for a tenure-track professor of organic chemistry. Ph.D. desired, ABD acceptable. Very close to the geographical center of the United States!

The Yankees Win. Thhhhaaaaa Yankees Win: (Sorry, had to indulge.) Yeshiva University (NYC) is looking for a tenure-track professor of chemistry; no subfield specified.

Durham, NC: Duke University is searching for a postdoc with skills in protein-polymer conjugate synthesis.

Madison, WI: UW-Madison desires a Ph.D. chemist for an undergraduate chemistry coordinator position; this position has the biggest grab bag of descriptors ever. Caveat emptor. 5 years experience!?!?

Philadelphia, PA: Temple desires a lecturer in organic chemistry.

I got a gal: Kalamazoo College is searching for a visiting assistant professor in organic and general chemistry. 

No Foxconn City in the US? Not because we don't have enough "engineers"

(Via @NCharles -- thanks!) In the New York Times, a fascinating look at why the US doesn't have a facility making the iPhone:

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight. 

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. 

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

But the authors, Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, begin to make mistakes when they start talking about the difficulties of hiring engineers in the US:

Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States. 

In China, it took 15 days. 

Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. (emphasis CJ's) Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.

I find this a very frustrating conversation to attempt to have with the mainstream press, who apparently don't have enough experience in technical fields or with technical people to understand what's going on here.

What is an engineer? To me, an engineer is someone who's graduated with a degree in engineering from an accredited university and then, if required, takes the needed licensing examinations to gain a professional engineer's license. But, of course, being the son of an engineer, I'd say that.

What companies want (and what they can find in China in spades, I gather) are experienced engineering technicians and/or supervisors. Someone who used to work on the line, and worked their way through their organization and are willing to relocate and/or work for a new employer. Basically, they're looking for people that in the US military would be called non-commissioned officers or senior enlisted types (corporals, sergeants, etc.) We don't have enough people at that level of experience in the US who can relocate at a moment's notice (or be willing to live in dorms, or work 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week, or whatever relatively harsh conditions are going on at Foxconn City.) But they're not engineers, and Bradsher and Duhigg are fooling people who are going to be making these assertions at their Georgetown cocktail parties. "Pity, Charles, the US doesn't have enough engineers. We ought to make more of them."

(Even then, there are plenty of people who are willing to work at the crazy-go-nuts pace and conditions that an Amazon warehousing/shipping facility performs at. Are they skilled mathematical technicians? No, probably not. That might be an issue.)

Needless to say, consumer electronics assembly is something that the US has lost for the near and medium term. Obviously, that's undesirable, but that's the truth of it. I hope we are wise enough not to lose any more industries overseas.

Best wishes to all of us.