Ivory Filter Flask: 11/20/12 edition

Good morning! Between November 13 and November 19, there were 30 new academic positions posted on the C&EN Jobs website. The numbers:

Total number of ads: 30
- Postdocs: 3
- Tenure-track faculty:  20
- Temporary faculty: 1
- Lecturer positions:  1
- Staff positions:  5
- US/non-US: 27/3

La Jolla, CA: UCSD's Laboratory for Bioresponsive Materials wishes to hire a synthetic chemist as a postdoctoral fellow.

Why are you here, exactly?: One of the weirdest things about ACS Careers C&EN Jobs is the misplacement of all sorts of ads. You really can tell that institutions are just spamming ads out there, with no hope of an actual return. (I'm developing opinions about recruiting, which is maybe a sign that I've been at this too long.) So it's with that comment that I note that Harvard University is searching for an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering in the august pages of C&EN Jobs. Perhaps it has something to do with the desired subfield?

We are particularly interested in: 1) emerging and/or ‘beyond-CMOS’ devices (including, but not limited to, nanoscale, molecular, low-dimensional, and quantum-effect devices); 2) all aspects of CMOS integrated circuits and systems design; and 3) emerging applications, including, but not limited to, bio/medical-technology (e.g., implantable systems, imaging, neuronal interfaces, biomolecular sensing and analysis), terahertz technology, and optoelectronics. 

I guess there's chemistry buried in there somewhere.

Chicago, IL: UIC is looking for a B.S./M.S. synthetic chemist for work in a tuberculosis therapy program. Is this a temp position?

Shanghai, China: NYU Shanghai (yes, you read that right) is looking for non-tenure-track instructors of science (probably chemistry in there) for a one year term in Shanghai. You know what? As hokey as this seems, this is probably a good opportunity for someone.

Mahwah, NJ: Ramapo College is looking for an assistant professor of analytical chemistry; Ph.D. desired.

What is the strategy of the Harran defense?

C&EN reporters Jyllian Kemsley and Michael Torrice are covering the second day of the preliminary hearing of Professor Patrick Harran on charges stemming from the death of Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji in January 2009. Jyllian has a nice summary of the point of a preliminary hearing: "The purpose of the preliminary hearing is for the prosecution to present evidence to a judge, who will decide if there is enough to take the case forward to a trial." Her summary post of day 1 is up. You should go over there and read it.

For those who are really interested in the details of it, I've summarized/paraphrased the Harran defense team's (as represented by attorney Thomas O'Brien) questions below the jump:

There's gotta be money to be made here

As most of you know, the US is undergoing a bit of an industrial revolution because of natural gas extraction due to hydraulic fracturing. I was interested to read this Wall Street Journal article about recycling the (huge amounts of) water used in the process:

...From energy industry giants Halliburton Corp. HAL +3.68% and Schlumberger Ltd. SLB +2.04% to smaller outfits such as Ecologix Environmental Systems LLC, companies are pursing technologies to reuse the "frack water" that comes out of wells after hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"—the process of using highly pressured water and chemicals to coax oil and gas out of shale-rock formations. 

While the recycled water can't currently be cleaned up enough for drinking or growing crops, it can be cleaned of chemicals and rock debris and reused to frack additional wells, which could sharply cut the costs that energy companies face securing and disposing of water.... 

After a well is fracked, contractors typically clean the water that flows back out of the well by filtering it or adding a chemical that attracts small solid particles, making it easier to remove these contaminants. Some companies treat water at the well, while others bring it to a facility built nearby.... 

The interest in water recycling is creating opportunities for small companies such as Select Energy Services LLC, a closey held Houston firm that said it has had a rapid rise in demand for its water-recycling services. It currently has full-scale operations in four areas including North Dakota and Colorado, up from one at the end of last year, as more companies examine recycling frack water.

It seems pretty apparent to me that old-fashioned industrial needs (like wastewater treatment, etc.) are going to be a stronger engine of job growth in the US than expected.

[Also, how long do we think that natural gas prices will stay low and oil prices will stay relatively high? If that's the case, does this mean good things or bad things for chemists employed in the petrochemical industries? I think it means good things, but maybe that's my optimism creeping out for the day.]

C&EN: BASF opens an R&D facility in China

Jean-Francois Tremblay has an interesting short article about BASF opening an R&D facility in Shanghai. Some of the language sounds familiar to me:

“By 2020, 50% of BASF’s R&D will be conducted outside Europe,” said Andreas Kreimeyer, a board member who oversees BASF’s research organization, at an inauguration event. “Shanghai will work on global topics.” The firm plans to take advantage of the Shanghai center’s location to team up with leading scientists at universities and research institutes throughout Asia... 

[snip] After Kreimeyer assumed responsibility for R&D in 2003, he led an effort to reconsider BASF’s commitment to centralizing research in Germany. He and his colleagues concluded that the pros of keeping basic research in Germany did not outweigh the cons. The new strategy has been under way for the past two to three years, he told C&EN in Shanghai.“Centralization has the big advantage that you have all the company’s top experts in one location,” Kreimeyer said. But BASF seeks to work with the world’s top scientists, and that is more easily achieved through a greater geographic spread, he said. “The argument for decentralization is stronger, but you have to make sure that the required communication and cooperation take place.” (emphasis CJ's)  

Another advantage of decentralization is likely to be greater creativity. The China R&D center will mostly be staffed by scientists from Asia, which BASF expects will lend a greater diversity of thought to its research activities, noted Martin Brudermüller, the firm’s vice chairman and head of Asian operations.

It's difficult not to look askance at some of the language, even if where BASF puts its R&D is of no particular significance to me.* I wonder if Mr./Dr. Kreimeyer has announced to German BASF employees where 50% of company R&D is going to be, or if that's a statement only made outside their ear shot.

[UPDATE: I should note that BASF was actually hiring quite strongly for very specialized people in their NJ facility for quite a while, so the US is benefiting from their very strong position in the chemical sector.]

I am also terribly amused at this set of statements on tax incentives (emphases mine):

In Shanghai, companies that set up R&D facilities can benefit from incentives including cheap land, subsidies, and exemption from import tariffs. The incentives were not a major factor in BASF’s decision to establish the R&D center in Shanghai, said Stefan Dreher, a BASF vice president who managed the set-up of the facility. More important, he said, is that China’s business hub is a natural location for a research center serving Asian customers.

“Asian hair is different. Construction materials are different,” Dreher said. “It’s too slow to ship all the materials and samples to headquarters and expect that they solve all the problems.” Without a major R&D center in Asia, he added, BASF would lag in responding to requests from its customers in Asia.

The incentives are never the reason that companies act, is it? (There's also an amusing (but probably small) dissonance is saying that Germany is close enough for planned communication and cooperation, but too far/slow to respond to customer needs for R&D. Huh.)

Burn unit physician testifies on details of Sheri Sangji's death

From the Westwood-Century City Patch comes a dispatch on today's preliminary hearing on the evidence against Professor Patrick Harran. The medical details of Ms. Sangji's death are quite graphic:

...Dr. Peter H. Grossman told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench that it initially appeared that 45 percent of Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji's "total body surface area" had been burned, but the amount was later increased to 48.5 percent...

[snip] The doctor said the young woman told him after being transferred from UCLA Medical Center to the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital that a chemical she was working with spilled and ignited, resulting in her clothing catching on fire. 

In graphic testimony, the doctor described Sangji as "having quite a bit of pain," with second- and third-degree burns on various portions of her body, including her neck, hands, breasts, abdomen and lower extremities. She underwent a number of procedures, including the removal of "non-viable tissue" and the placement of cadaver skin on her wounds during her hospitalization, he testified.

The prosecution introduced 20 photos—shown on a large courtroom screen—of Sangji's injuries. "Her overall condition was worsening and she was becoming septic," Grossman said of the process of the blood system becoming infected with bacteria. 

Grossman noted that Sangji's heart stopped during one surgical procedure and doctors were able to get her back to the hospital's intensive care unit in critical condition. She was eventually declared brain dead and taken off life support Jan. 16, 2009, he testified. 

On cross-examination by defense attorney Thomas P. O'Brien, the doctor said he was "surprised, quite surprised that she ended up going through the course she did" and he had believed that she was going to make it out of the hospital alive.

I don't really have much to add to this (apart from horror), other than that I finally have the answer to my questions about what caused her death.

#SheriSangji preliminary hearing actually began today

At 1:30 pm Pacific today, the preliminary hearing for Professor Patrick Harran on charges relating to the death of Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji at UCLA began. C&EN reporters Jyllian Kemsley and Michael Torrice were there to cover it. A more detailed report is coming from Dr. Kemsley -- watch The Safety Zone for an update (expected Monday AM.) Here are the relevant Tweets:

#SheriSangji hearing today: DA called fire dept investigator, burn doc, pathologist. Hearing resumes Mon 1:30 pm PST 

[as to which fire department investigator was called to testify] checked notes: City of LA fire dept arson investigator

It is my understanding that a preliminary hearing is used to determine the quality and quantity of the prosecution's evidence and that we're not likely to hear much from the defense. It will be interesting to see if Drs. Kemsley and Torrice will report any probing questions from Professor Harran's defense team.  

Would you like to know more?

We can ill afford another Klendathu.

context: here, here, and here (video.)    

Is Dovebid a complete scam for instruments?

Why the hell not? 

Is there anyone who has had experience using Dovebid to purchase old instruments (GCs, HPLCs)? What's your experience been? Mine has not been very positive.

[It's like sight unseen, right? Who the hell does that? Is there a rating system? How is this not a complete scam?]

Also, should you buy a used HPLC or a used GC? I get the sense that there's real risk there, but I don't really know. 

It's okay to have a script (of sorts)

I am, believe it or not, mostly an introvert. I think I went to my first ACS conference (2005, San Diego) and did not meet a single person that I did not know already (actually, that's not entirely true. I seem to recall meeting a senior grad student from Pitt. Nice guy. Can't remember his name.) I did a little (a lot?) better in 2008 in Philly, but not too much. Now, I think I could just spend time talking to people, the next time I go to a conference.

So I bring to you Kiyomi Deards, who is a science librarian at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. She has written a nice guide for networking for introverts. One of the things I really like about her comments is that she actually has a script for meeting people (not just going to a conference or a meeting, but actually introducing yourself to people):

Introduce yourself. This is probably the hardest thing to do, some ways you can do this are: 

a. (Hold out your hand.) [Say your name] from [Insert Name of Your Institution], and you are?
Follow up: And what do you do?
b. Hi, I’m [say your name] from [Insert Name of Your Institution], I really like your dress/purse/speech, etc. Make sure you really like what you are complementing people about, never be insincere.
c. Find a friend who is outgoing and get them to introduce you to everyone. (I once met 30 people in one afternoon this way.)

Believe it or not, I actually will mentally practice what I'm about to say, when I talk to a new person. I'm glad that Kiyomi has informed me that I'm not the only one.

#foodchem: Secret ingredients, secret recipes

This is written for Central Science's food chemistry (#foodchem) carnival.

Where would dessert be without it?
Credit: misanthopology101

At grad school gatherings, a good friend would always bring his mother's special dessert. This stuff was incredible; it was creamy, chocolatey and crunchy and utterly delicious. It represented everything that was warm and friendly and homey about the American Midwest, even as it may have been bitterly cold outside.

Naturally, he was sworn to secrecy about the ingredients and the recipe and (honorably, rightly) refused to give it out. I was reminded of that when I read a recent column in The Atlantic when drink columnist Wayne Curtis visited the Benedictine distillery in Fécamp, France and talked about the secret recipe for the liqueur:

That notebook, in turn, had been associated with the Benedictine monks, who she said had helped devise the recipe. Any chance that I might glimpse this exalted tome? “No, it’s not here,” the guide said. “The location is a secret that nobody knows. We just know that it’s in a safe place.”...  

[In reference to other distillery tours] A top-secret formula is usually involved, known only to a small cabal. (At the Angostura bitters plant in Trinidad, I was told that only three people alive hold a key to the room where the barks and spices are mixed.) 

The author goes on to talk to chemist and absinthe distiller T. A. Breaux, who addresses the science nicely.

“Big spirits makers have chemists on staff, and if they’re worth a damn, there’s not a whole lot that you can keep secret,” says the chemist T. A. Breaux. Determining the exact processes used to extract flavor from a liquor’s various ingredients can be trickier. “You can do steam distillation, maceration, or ethanolic distillation,” Breaux says, and the tastes of the resulting products will vary widely. But he adds that here, too, chemical analysis can crack the code. “Anything can be resolved eventually, depending on one’s determination,” Breaux says. He cites Chartreuse and Campari—two liqueurs whose ingredients are guarded with particular secrecy—as examples of products he could probably figure out if he so chose. 

Chemistry is different, of course; intellectual property both protects patent holders from infringement, yet forces them to reveal the contents of their drugs. At the same time (perhaps like the distillers), the willingness to divulge the methods of manufacture can be equally small. I remember asking a salesperson of a raw material of ours recently over lunch about the broad outlines of how they made it. He tried to pull the same baloney as the Benedictine tour guide above, telling me that no one knew how it was done and there were maybe 4 people in the company who knew the details of the chemistry. (I think I grunted, rolled my eyes and went back to eating my burger.)

[Is this dichotomy seen in the home as well? It seems to me that there are many more burdensome special techniques (slow roasted for 14 hours in a clay pot at an unknown temperature, blah, blah) than there are secret ingredients.]

In the home kitchen, I think we're faced with the same problem as the distilleries, where secret recipes would ultimately yield to determination. Yes, I could purchase 2 gallons of Cool Whip and 14 brands of store-bought cookies to figure out the exact flavor and texture of my friend's dessert, if I wanted to. But why do it? It would have been fun to crack the recipe (and chemists love a challenge!), but without my friend's company and the warmth of a grad school gathering, it would just be another dessert in a 9X13 pan.

36.8% of chemistry Ph.D.s work outside of science and engineering?

From a comment on In The Pipeline, I tracked down this interesting chart in the Biomedical Workforce Task Force report (a.k.a. the Tilghman report) from earlier this year. It's on page 62. It has some interesting numbers, especially this chart on the fate of Ph.D. chemists.

I note that the chart says that the number of doctorates is "weighted", whatever that means. Also, the data is from NSF SESTAT (the statistics service of NSF) and the 2003 (?) or 2005 (?) National Survey of College Graduates. The chart in the report is really grainy, so I copied all the percentages to a Google spreadsheet and redid the chart above.

From the inbox

From an astute reader, a polymer scientist position for Honeywell in Kansas City, MO. What might you be doing, you ask?:

The Kansas City Plant is a U. S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration facility managed and operated by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T). 

I think you might be helping to make nuclear weapons. You need a M.S./Ph.D. in chemistry, with 2+ years experience with polymers (7+ years desired.) See job ID# 00207348.

And here's this advertisement from On Target Laboratories:

On Target is seeking accomplished organic chemists with Ph.D. in organic or medicinal chemistry with minimum 3 years of postdoctoral experience. The candidate will be expected to design and synthesize Near Infra Red (NIR) dyes, photodynamic therapeutic agents, and small molecular ligands to target cancer and inflammatory diseases. Experience in total synthesis of natural products, gram scale synthesis, drug discovery techniques such as SAR studies, purification and analytical techniques (HPLC, LC/MS, NMR, fluorometer, UV-Vis, etc.), in vitro studies, in vitro assays, and in vivo (imaging and efficacy) studies are plus.

I'm going to assume you guys mean 3 years experience after you graduated, right? Right? 

Daily Pump Trap: 11/15/12 edition

Good morning! Between November 13 and November 14, 35 new positions were posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 7 (20%) were academically connected and 17 (49%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Not bad?: The Metropolitan St. Louis Wastewater District wishes to hire a lab manager; B.S. degree in chemistry, 8+ years experience in environmental testing desired. 70k to 105k.

Golden*, CO: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is looking for a postdoctoral fellow to perform electrochemistry research.

Groton, CT: Pfizer is searching for a postdoctoral fellow in cheminformatics.

Hickory, NC: Shurtape Technologies desires a senior analytical chemist; Ph.D. in chemistry, 5-8 years experience desired.

Zeroes!: Vertex Pharmaceuticals wishes to hire a Ph.D. analytical chemist, 0-3 years experience.

*Thanks for the catch, Miss MSE!

LaClair retracts hexacyclinol

Well, it's not like that ever happened:

The following article from Angewandte Chemie International Edition, “Total Syntheses of Hexacyclinol, 5-epi-Hexacyclinol, and Desoxohexacyclinol Unveil an Antimalarial Prodrug Motif” by James J. La Clair, published online on February 9, 2006 in Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com), has been retracted by agreement between the author, the journal Editor in Chief, Peter Gölitz, and Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. The retraction has been agreed due to lack of sufficient Supporting Information. In particular, the lack of experimental procedures and characterization data for the synthetic intermediates as well as copies of salient NMR spectra prevents validation of the synthetic claims. The author acknowledges this shortcoming and its potential impact on the community.

Never mind!

Hat tip to @JamesDFirth, who put it on Twitter first.

(Those looking for context, this Derek Lowe post from 2006 will do nicely.) 

Process Wednesday: Why is the drying taking so long?

From a 2006 Organic Process Research and Development paper [1], a reason why tray dryers don't work very well:

The model describes the drying process as a penetration process. It is assumed that there is a drying front that moves from the equipment wall into the bulk solid, parallel to the wall. Particles between the drying front and the wall are assumed to be completely dry, and particles beyond the drying front are assumed to be completely wet. This is shown schematically in Figure 2.  

The heated surface is shown at the bottom. Below the drying front there is a layer of dry solids with zero moisture content. Above the drying front a layer of wet solids is shown in black. This layer of wet solids is assumed to be at boiling temperature at the prevailing pressure. The vapour phase consists of the pure liquid component.

So as far as I can tell, this means that, in a tray dryer with no movement, the material you want to dry will always be furthest away from the heat source. Grrrrrrrrreat.

I've worked at places with tray dryers in the past; we had to routinely break the vacuum, go in there with a scoop and turn the stuff over by hand. It's remarkable how fast a 20L rotovap can work by comparison to a medium-sized tray dryer; one can only imagine how fast a double cone dryer works in comparison.

1. Hoekstra, L.; Vonk, P.; Hulshof, L.A. "Modeling the Scale-Up of Contact Drying Processes." Org. Process Res. Dev., 2006, 10 (3), pp 409–416.

Taking a year between undergrad and grad school?

The excellent and mysterious @jfreebo speaks in the comments on taking some time between getting your undergraduate degree and graduate school in chemistry:

...I have a bachelors degree in chemistry. I had decided not to pursue a PhD after seeing the working conditions of those grad students with whom I conducted research (aka, I bumbled around the lab like the undergrad I was). I don't think those students had correct assumptions about what a real working life was like. I don't think they had the same feeling that someone working at a large corporation has: you may be brilliant, but you may still lose your job, sometimes for arbitrary reasons. I think too many graduate students put up with complete BS from a PI because they don't have the private sector experience that teaches you to quit and find a new boss sometimes, or that the people you work for often don't have your best interests at heart.

Summer internships don't solve the problem. After your summer of fun, you get scooped back into the mothership, not having experienced many of the real pressures of industry. 

I'd argue a lot of candidates would do well to take at least a year off before starting graduate school. You would then learn valuable life skills: how to craft a resume and interview so someone actually wants to pay you to produce something; how it often happens that companies and your bosses have opposing incentives from what you want in life; you may learn you like something better than chemistry, or that you like a certain aspect of chemistry better than another; etc. 

The world will not end. Grad schools will not think you have the plague. 

As you can see below, I asked about it on Twitter and lots of people responded. Most of the responses were quite positive. As someone who worked for a year as an analytical/formulation chemist in between undergraduate and grad school, I saw a lot of the benefits that folks talk about. I think there are two caveats:

• Financial: what's the typical grad school stipend? 20k? 22k? What's the typical entry-level chemist salary? 30k? 40k? If you take a year to work, the transition from a higher income to a lower one is going to be a challenge (if not a very big one.) Living below your means (always good advice) in preparation wouldn't hurt. 
• Time: I know that I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I really believe that your 20s are a very formative time in your life. If you decide to spend some time out of school in your 20s, make it count! Don't hang around your apartment playing Goldeneye (not that I would know anyone who did such a thing), go and learn and experience life and talk to people on other career paths like @jfreebo suggested up there. 

Readers, got any other suggestions? 

A year off

Found graffiti

You never know what you'll find on a nice evening's walk with your wife. 

Daily Pump Trap: 11/13/12 edition

Good morning! Between November 8 and November 12, there were 95 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 26 (27%) were academically connected and 59 (62%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Wichita, KS: Koch Fertilizers (yes, that Koch) is looking for a B.S. chemist to run its QA systems; 15+ years in management of quality control desired.

Berkeley, CA: Lawrence Berkeley National Labs is looking for a Ph.D. chemist with synthesis experience to be a molecular catalysis chemist.

Cudahy, CA: DayGlo Color Corp. is looking for a senior chemist to work on research towards new product development. B.S./M.S., 3-5 years exp. 54-62k offered. (Meh, especially for southern California.)

Albany, OR: W.R. Grace is looking for a M.S./Ph.D. organic/organometallic chemist; process experience desired. 

Ivory Filter Flask: 11/13/12 edition

Good morning! Between November 6 and November 12, there have been 33 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. The numbers:

Total number of ads: 33
- Postdocs: 2
- Tenure-track faculty:  25
- Temporary faculty: 1
- Lecturer positions:  2
- Staff positions:  3
- US/non-US: 27/6

Worcester, MA: Worcester State University is searching for an assistant professor of organic chemistry.

Will there be Dunder-Mifflin sponsorship?: The University of Scranton is also looking for an assistant professor of organic chemistry.

Geaux to Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University is searching for an assistant professor of computational chemistry; I understand they have a new building?

Nice try: The University of Wisconsin-Stout (in Menomenie, WI) desires an "instrumentation innovator", i.e. an instrumentation specialist. M.S./ABD is desired.

Huh: Mississippi State is looking for an instructor/lab coordinator for its general and organic chemistry labs. Little did I know that the University is located in "Mississippi State, Mississippi."

Podcast: "The Doctoral Glut", See Arr Oh and Chemjobber

Last Thursday, there was the ACS Webinar titled "Doctoral Glut Dilemma", with Professors Richard Freeman and Paula Stephan, discussing the issues surrounding Ph.D. chemists. This weekend, See Arr Oh and I talked about the webinar, and recorded it for a podcast, which is below:



[I should really thank See Arr Oh for really encouraging me to get this posted as soon as possible, and actually serving to make my weekend reasonably productive.]

Contents:
0:00-10:45: Intro, discussion of the "demand-side" problem with chemistry
10:45: Are young chemists just screwed?
13:00: Oh, how we hate the term "transferrable skills."
15:00: CJ's analogy of the job market as a gigantic DMV
17:45: Professor Freeman's "personalized medicine" terminology for distinguishing yourself in the job market, discussion of the "purple squirrel" problem
22:00: The importance of industrial internships in getting hired
23:45: When will the job market in chemistry get better? Try 3-4 years, says Prof. Freeman.
24:15: Prof. Stephan's strong suggestion that university departments report the job outcomes of graduates. (Link to my comments on the Tilghman report.)
31:00: Will lower-tier Ph.D. programs go away? Answer: No.
32:30: Taking alumni employment statistics with a pound of salt.
35:00: What about alternative careers?
38:35: Chemical entrepreneurship is the future!
41:00: Concluding thoughts

Public recording of a bet on a carbon tax

Melody Bomgardner and Alex Tullo have a blog on cleantech at C&EN's Central Science called "Cleantech Chemistry." She wrote this about the post-election results:

Perhaps most fascinating to me, though also the most far-fetched, is discussion about whether the fiscal cliff, tax reform, and the deficit will drive Congress to think about introducing a carbon tax. Hmmmm…

I found this interesting, but hard to believe. I have publicly bet Melody that this will not happen:

How's this: if Obama, Reid or Boehner (not their staffs) mention a carbon tax (not cap/trade) as a revenue source between now and Labor Day 2013, I will send you the coffee mug (or other sub-$20 item) of your choice. 

She has agreed, and if it doesn't happen, I will get a C&EN coffee mug, or some other swag.  

The 3rd quarter of 2012 was not so great for chemical, pharma firms

From this week's C&EN, I see storm clouds brewing. From Melody Bomgardner, 3rd quarter earnings for chemical companies were not looking so great:

Against the backdrop of a slowly strengthening U.S. economy, chemical firms saw earnings slide again in the third quarter, in large part because of rapidly declining prices. Out of 21 firms tracked by C&EN, Dow Chemical, DuPont, and eight other companies reported lower sales and earnings in the quarter compared with last year. 

The results prompted promises by chief executive officers to heighten the cost-cutting moves they have been implementing throughout the postrecession recovery. As they announced financial results, Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris and DuPont CEO Ellen J. Kullman unveiled additional restructuring plans, including layoffs, to be implemented in the fourth quarter and beyond (C&EN, Oct. 29, page 7). Then, one week after Dow’s Oct. 23 announcement, the company amended its tally of layoffs, saying it will cut 3,000 positions in the next two years, an increase of 600 from the original statement and equal to 6.3% of the firm’s workforce.

From Ann Thayer, same thing goes for the pharma companies:

For the third consecutive quarter, no relief came as combined sales and earnings declined at the major pharma companies tracked by C&EN. Overall, quarterly sales fell 5.0%, and earnings for the companies that reported them dropped 9.1%. For the first nine months of the year, sales were down 3.0%, while earnings declined 5.4%. By comparison, in the first half of 2012, sales slipped just 2.1% and earnings were down 3.5%. 

Four companies reported double-digit drops in sales, and five had similar-sized slides in earnings. Hardest hit was Bristol-Myers Squibb. Its third-quarter sales plummeted 30.1% to $3.7 billion, and earnings dropped by an even larger 34.3% to $685 million. U.S. patents expired in March on its high blood pressure drug Avapro and in May on the blood thinner Plavix. Excluding these two products, the company’s sales were up 7% compared with the third quarter of 2011.

Does anyone foresee another round of layoffs from Big Pharma? By now, I can't see how they could cut more (he said naively.)

Why does ACS Publications increase its journal prices?

From this week's C&EN, a long and interesting article by Lila Guterman about ACS Publications and its customers (mostly university librarians) who are pretty unhappy with ACS' price increases:

Jenica P. Rogers, director of libraries at the State University of New York, Potsdam, said the price of ACS’s all-journals electronic licensing package would have consumed more than 10% of her 2013 acquisitions budget. It was, she said, outside the range of what her small university could afford. Her blog posting received more than 100 responses in comments, Listserv postings, and blog posts by other librarians. In October, Rogers posted on her blog that other librarians had told her they intend to cancel as well. ACS says it has seen no uptick in cancellations in recent years. [snip] 

...ACS’s price increases in recent years, [ACS Pubs President] Crawford says, have been “well within scientific publishing industry norms.” For its all-journals package, the increases in both 2010 and 2011 were 7%; in 2012, the increase was 6%; and in 2013, it will be 5%—except for smaller academic institutions and community colleges, which will see no price increase. These price increases include the seven new journals ACS has introduced since 2010. However, customers seeking relief had the option to decline the new titles and, as a result, would have seen smaller increases of 5% in 2010 and 2011, and 4% in 2012. No new-title increment was added to the 2013 subscription fees. 

Explaining the yearly increases, Crawford says, “Manuscript submissions for consideration continue to rise at double-digit rates, and our published article output increases upward of 5% annually, with concomitant costs.”

If you read further in the article, you'll see that instead of charging a flat fee, ACS Publications charges you a rate based on your usage level (among other things). The more you use, the higher the fee apparently. If you read the whole thing, you'll see that ACS proposed to one small college an 1,800% increase in fees, that seemed to have gotten bargained down to a series of increases in a year (that included a 70% increase for the 2012-2013 year.)

Does anyone have a good answer as to why they do this (other than "because they can?") It seems apparent to me that they're burning up a lot of good will on the part of professors and librarians (not that anyone in DC cares about that, apparently.) I would expect this sort of behavior from Comcast, not a titular non-profit.

[2nd question: does anyone know something prominent at ACS that's funded substantially by ACS Publications? Like maybe there's a $30 million picnic for sick kids that takes up all of ACS Pubs' profits -- yeah, that's the ticket...]

Chemistry is The Answer

Thanks to Fortune Magazine, a great look back at how enthusiastic people were about the products of chemistry back in the 1970s. (Harkens back to the now-classic "When Chemistry Was Swell" post by Carmen Drahl.) Gotta love the smoking 1L 3-necked RBF in the above show tune.

In These irony-laden Times, I just don't think that it works well to use music to promote chemistry and chemists. But I'm probably wrong, and there's probably a very talented chemist/songwriter out there.

Have a good weekend! 

ACS Webinar on the doctoral glut: be glad you're not a biomedical scientist

credit: ACS Webinar

There was a lot that I could say about yesterday's ACS Webinar with Professors Richard Freeman and Paula Stephan, and hopefully I'll be saying more of it next week. But what I found fascinating about their presentation was this graph above. Stephan suggested that the issues with chemistry Ph.D.s is demand-related -- basically, as the manufacturing sector has slowed, the industrial demand for chemistry Ph.D.s has slowed as well, even as graduation of Ph.D.s has remained relatively flat. [Professor Freeman made the interesting point that he thinks that many, many more people should be doing masters degrees instead.]

[Is anyone else terribly amused by the comment in the ACS Webinar blog post where someone says that their hiring managers cannot find chemistry Ph.D.s to hire?]

As I said a long time ago, I had been warned away from the biomedical sciences, and that turquoise line up there is one of the reasons why. 

How sports psychology might apply to job searching

As I talked about yesterday, Kate Clancy (a professor of anthropology) had an interesting couple of posts a couple months ago on the application of sports psychology to her life in academia. She lists the factors that she does and does not control, and how she rates herself on each one. I've taken her list and modified it a bit for my work:

Factors that I do control: time I put in, effort, my decision making, my attitude (needs to improve!), how I interact with coworkers, my knowledge of the literature, my lab skills, my writing.

Factors that I do not control: When the plant starts or ends a process, my bosses' decisions, our customer's decisions.

I think this applies doubly to those who are seeking jobs. Job seekers do not control: the broader economy, the relative lack of chemistry jobs, the massive supply of chemists that are out there, the location of those jobs, the HR departments and their hoops, the employers and their needs. However, there are a lot of things that job seekers do control: the amount of time spent searching, applications written, effort spent networking, the appearance/quality of your CV, your interview presentation, etc.

I fully admit that I spend much more time bit complaining about the factors than I do not control, rather than the factors that I do. Readers, how about you? 

Podcast: Janet Stemwedel and Chemjobber talk chemical academia

A while back, Janet Stemwedel and I had a conversation about her post on the dueling narratives between Daniel Lametti and I on the value of a science Ph.D. Shortly thereafter, she and I had a conversation on graduate school in chemistry and its current state. The conversation, lightly edited for sound, is below:

[I have to take this moment and openly apologize to Janet, in that it took me close to two months to edit the recording and post it. After editing it, I remembered what an excellent conversation it was, and it didn't deserve to languish. So, Janet, I sincerely apologize.]

[From now on, I'm going to make myself edit/post within a week.]

Some time markers:
0-8:00: Introduction
9:00: What are the odds, dear listener, that you're going to get a position as a tenure-track professor?
12:00: The pie chart of Ph.D. chemjobs, including CJ's long digression on the data that's out there on the issue.
21:30: What is the unemployment difference between a non-high-school graduate and a new Ph.D. chemist?
25:00: Will we ever get to retire?
30:00: Janet's impressive time-to-degree.
35:30: Will the problem of the Ph.D. glut be solved by less funding?
39:00: Is science academia a meritocracy? Are we good at picking people to hire?
49:00: The tough economy and larger cohorts in graduate school
55:00: Conclusions
57:00: A brief, but really important, digression into Professor Kate Clancy's sports psychology post on things that you can control, and things that you cannot. I am terribly remiss in not posting on this sooner, and I will. 

Yet more tyranny of the negative slope

Go over to See Arr Oh's place today, and check out his tabulation of the number of Division of Organic Chemistry fellowships, and how they rose and fell over the years. It's a pretty sobering graph he has there.

One thing that I thought I would point out (in repetition of See Arr Oh) is how M&A activity has affected academic organic chemistry in a mundane but still quite profound manner. (See right). I've stricken the names of companies that have been bought out or otherwise closed -- it's quite the remarkable list, on the 1997 side.

While we can argue about the benefits of M&A activity for society at large (future CJ and his Roth IRA may be benefiting), it is abundantly clear to me that the track record of M&A for the bench-level chemist is no good at all.

[Does anyone have the back story to what happened to the DOC fellowships? (Apart from the obvious, that is the funding companies went away.) What's the benefit of funding one of these? Just goodwill in the community and prestige?]

Daily Pump Trap: 11/8/12

Good morning! Between November 6 and November 7, there were 41 new positions posted on C&EN Jobs. Of these, 7 (17%) are academically connected and 30 (73%) are from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Crap: There was one position for chemists, 2 for chemical engineers. Oof.

Frazer, PA: Teva Pharmaceuticals is looking for a B.S./M.S. process chemist, with 5  years of experience.

Hiring?: Sophie Rovner's article about the tepid job market had a number of smallish companies looking for folks. Lubrizol indeed has 1 synthetic chemist position (Ph.D. by Dec. 2012 available), Ashland seems to have a healthy number of positions and Cambrex has ~5 analytical-type positions at its Charles City facility.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov have 268, 689 , 2588 and 8 positions for the search term "chemist."

The Wreck of 1CJ196

"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"

A question for #RealTimeChem Day (click to enjoy hundreds of chemists around the world, tweeting their results):

What should you call a dead reaction in your hood that you just haven't cleaned up yet? A derelict? Something that CJ should clean up, but just can't bear to pitch into the red can?

Suggestions being taken. (And yes, it got pitched. Sigh.) 

The Apodaca Challenge: What would I do with the ACS?

Rich Apodaca (the open-source cheminformatics guy) is a long-time reader and commenter on the blog, and he had a really good challenge for me (and for all of us):

I'm curious - you've seen the chemistry jobs situation from a vantage point few chemists have. What should ACS be doing to help its membership? 

Assume ACS is now in the mood to try something bold to address the #chemjobs situation - something it's never done before. Something that could change the rules of the game. Maybe even something with a significant element of financial/existential/credibility risk. 

What would it be?

I am not confident enough in my abilities as a policy wonk that I can offer concrete recommendations about what to do. But since you asked, here are a few ideas that I have:

• Triple or quadruple funding to the ACS Department of Member Insights and Research so they can: 
• Do the ChemCensus every year. Increase participation (advertising, paying people?, getting away from self-reporting) so that we get MUCH better information as to what's happening to ACS members. 
• Expand the scope of the survey to attempt to reach all chemists, not just ACS members. 
• Do longitudinal tracking of a cohort of chemists, so that we figure out what is happening to chemists over the course of their very long careers. 
• Talk to member employers to ask them "What are you looking for?" and to drill down
• Make sure that academics and employers have a much better picture of the hiring market
• Have ACS representatives (members, ACS employees, whatever) show up at key conferences to give lectures on what the job market looks like. Do this ONLY after the above studies are complete (2-3 years), so that people actually have solid, reliable data. 
• Offer more benefits to ACS members. Right now, what do you get? A deal on life insurance, C&EN (worth the cost, IMHO) and access to C&EN Jobs. Thaaaat's about it. 
• Layoff insurance?: For larger companies, there's typically a severance package. That's not the case for smaller companies. Is there a case for ACS-subsidized unemployment insurance that goes past the federal 99-week limit? 
• Shouldn't there be a list of long-term unemployed ACS members, who somehow get special care? 
• Last, and craziest: How about a Rooney Rule for the long-term unemployed? For the uninitiated, the Rooney Rule is a rule instituted in the NFL that requires minority coaching candidates to be interviewed (not necessarily hired) for head coaching and other senior general manager type positions. Why not ask employers to consider/talk to/phone interview one long-term (longer than 6 months) unemployed chemist per opening? 
• Better yet -- why not require recruiters at ACS National Meetings to interview at least one long-term unemployed member? (You could pay them to do it -- give them a break on having a booth, or lower the membership fees for their employees, or something.) 

Those are some pretty half-baked thoughts. The only one that I really, really, really believe in is the first one. If you're in a hole and you want to climb out of it, you have to find out how deep you are. 

Readers, you guys are so much better at me at this stuff. Please, if you had crazy ideas -- what would you do with the ACS? 

Process Wednesday: Volume-Time-Output

From the recent Org. Process Res. Dev. review titled "The Eight Criteria Defining a Good Chemical Manufacturing Process", a fascinating rule of thumb for optimizing "throughput":

Criterion 4: Volume−Time−Output (VTO). VTO is defined as nominal volume of all reactors (m3) multiplied by the hours per batch, divided by the output per batch in kg (eq 3, determination of VTO). If the resulting number is  less than 1, the process for the chemical step is acceptable; if the number is far above 1, the process needs to be improved. Dryer and centrifuge operations during product isolation are not considered for VTO analysis, although these can be the rate-limiting operations. For a particular process, if long drying times define the bottleneck of a process, i.e. product isolation times are greater than reactor processing times, the VTO will have a reduced impact.

If you read further in the review, the authors talk about the reaction to the right (above), where the reaction  concentration of the RCM was improved by 20X by protecting an amide hydrogen with a Boc group. The authors offer a scenario in which they were thinking that they had to build a dedicated plant to handle just these RCMs, before they were able to optimize the process, which allowed them to run it in their current equipment. Count me a little skeptical on that front -- I have a hard time that the narrative was that dire, or that they actually considered building another plant.

Nevertheless, I like this, because it offers an interesting rule of thumb for "process intensification" and when you're close to using your plant/equipment efficiently. Readers, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

1. Dach, R.; Song, J.J.; Roschangar, F.; Samstag, W.; Senanayake, C.H. "The Eight Criteria Defining a Good Chemical Manufacturing Process." Org. Process Res. Dev. ASAP. dx.doi.org/10.1021/op300144g 

"A profound sense of loss"

From Susan Ainsworth's great article on chemists living and working far from their families (part of C&EN's Employment Outlook issue):

When Duane Burnett lost his job in big pharma at the end of last year, he initially focused close to home in his search for a new position. After all, he had put down deep roots in Kenilworth, N.J., where he had worked for more than 23 years at Schering-Plough and later at Merck & Co. after the companies’ 2009 merger. 

He finally landed the perfect position—one that “checked all his boxes”—as director of chemistry at EnVivo Pharmaceuticals. The downside? It was in Watertown, Mass., some 250 miles from his home and family. 

Burnett feels fortunate to have found a position that allows him to pursue his passion for discovering central nervous system drugs. However, accepting the job has meant that he has had to live apart from his family for eight months so far. As a result, “I have a profound sense of loss,” he says. “You can’t replace the time that you share over a meal or over other activities that keep you close as a family,” says Burnett. “I truly miss that time. It is the biggest sacrifice I have had to make, and I think about it a lot.”

The sacrifices we make to stay in this field can be costly.

And what about research assistant professors?

"How many Brukers were there at Hereford?"
Credit: poodfoison.wordpress.com

An astute reader writes in to ask:

Within my little research niche, I've noticed a lot of "research assistant professor" positions popping up.  The duties seem to be summarized as "chief post-doc with a more respectable title and no teaching responsibilities." 

This might be good news: Slowing the Ph.D. production rate somewhat and providing jobs for those already out there.  I was wondering if you or any of your readers has noticed these positions...and had any idea why they might be becoming more common.

I haven't seen this very often in the ads, but there have been so many run-of-the-mill assistant professor ads recently, I can't really remember.

If they're becoming more common, it's probably because certain institutions have enough soft money to support the position for the short/medium-term, but not for the long term. (Also, could these be "holding pattern" positions for favored postdocs?) It's my guess that the problem with these positions is that they're "soft money"-related, so as soon as the funding runs out, you're in the wind.

Readers, you know so much more about this than I do. Please, feel free to tell me what's up.

Anyone have anything to say about Kelly positions?

So I tend not to talk about the 100 bazillion Kelly Scientific Research positions that tend to pop now nowadays. It's mostly because I don't find them particularly relevant to Chemjobber's readership.

But a reader writes in with a good question: "Are these legitimate job postings that I should be applying for, or should I not waste my time?  I guess I do not fully understand what these are and am curious to know what you think about them."

It seems to me that they're mostly aimed at, for example, enticing employees from other companies (i.e. experienced workers). Here's a nice example: it's a temp-to-hire position in West Lafayette in process chemistry/formulation. They'd like you to have experience in:

"Polymorphism and Salt Screening in Pharmaceutical Systems, X-ray Powder Diffraction, Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Thermogravimetric Analysis, Optical Microscopy, Crystallization Studies, Co-Crystal Screening, Crystal Form Isolation, and Crystallization Kinetic Studies. The ideal candidate would have a bachelors or masters degree in chemistry and at least one year work experience in a lab."

So an young, but experienced B.S./M.S. process chemist -- why would they want a temp position? (unless, of course, they were out of work or were coming to the end of their previous contract.)

There's also a lot of lab technician or midnight QC chemist positions available. There's nothing particularly wrong with them, but they just don't seem to be very tempting. So I'm pretty "meh" about Kelly, which is why I don't post on a lot of their jobs. Readers, you've probably had a lot more experience with them. Any thoughts? 

Daily Pump Trap: 11/6/12 edition

Good morning! Between November 1 and November 5, there have been 106 new positions posted on the C&EN Jobs website. Of these, 32 (30%) were academically connected and 56 (53%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Seattle, WA: Seattle Genetics is hiring a principal scientist for its chemical development team. They've been hiring a lot for their process team, recently.

Ahh, you again: Millenium is once again advertising itself as having positions. Are they real? No one knows.  (There are 4 positions for the search term "chemist" on its career website, none for synthetic.)

Colorado Springs, CO: Pxyant Labs is looking for a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. analytical chemist with lots of experience with mass spectrometers and GLP.

And you, too!: Phenomenex is also looking for multiple positions.

Ivory Filter Flask: 11/6/12

Good morning! Between October 30 and November 5, there were 46 new academic positions posted on C&EN Jobs. The numbers:

Total number of ads: 46
- Postdocs: 6
- Tenure-track faculty:  37
- Temporary faculty: 1
- Lecturer positions:  2
- Staff positions:  0
- US/non-US: 43/3

"Anne of Green Gables" novel not included: (Sorry, PEIers.) The University of Prince Edward Island is hiring an assistant professor of chemistry for a position to start next summer. 

High Point, NC: High Point University is hiring for 3 positions: the chair of the department, a biochemistry faculty position and for an assistant professor of organic chemistry.

Northern paradise?: Stockholm University is advertising what appears to be a pre-doctoral fellowship position to study materials chemistry. 28k to 40k/year, with pension for your last two years. Huh.

Central paradise?: Indiana University-Kokomo is looking for an assistant professor of environmental biochemistry.

Evanston, IL: Northwestern's chemical engineering department is looking for a postdoc in lithium-ion battery research.

To make glorious benefit nation of...: Nazarbayev University (Astana, Kazakhstan) is looking for professors of biology... on the website of the American Chemical Society.

ACS Webinar on the doctoral glut

ACS Webinars is holding one on "Are there More Scientists Than Jobs?". This is with Professor Richard Freeman (Harvard). It is also with Professor Paula Stephan (Georgia State), author of "How Economics Shapes Science." It will be moderated by Patricia Simpson, Director of Academic Advising and Career Services for UIUC's School of Chemical Sciences.

Let me be blunt and say this up front: Professors Freeman and Stephan are well-respected scholars on this issue, and have more-or-less come out on the "Yes" side of the equation above.

Tune in on Thursday, November 8 at 2 pm Eastern. I'll be listening (and Tweeting/liveblogging), and I hope you will be as well. 

ACS resources for unemployed chemists

Looks like there's going to be an online job club for unemployed chemists, run by ACS, on Tuesdays at 2 PM Eastern.

Click on the link for other ACS resources towards finding a job (I guess Chemjobber doesn't merit a mention -- sigh.) 

Human stories abound in C&EN's employment outlook issue

Credit: C&EN

From Linda Wang's excellent, yet excruciating story on unemployment among pharma chemists, some terribly sad stories:

“I’m listed as employed,” says “Eric,” 46, who was laid off in 2007 from his position as a senior chemist at Johnson & Johnson and is now an adjunct professor at three different colleges and universities. “I got reemployed, but is this what employment should be like for someone at my level?” [snip] 

...He teaches as an adjunct professor on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, splitting his time among three colleges and universities that are 50 to 70 miles apart. He leaves around 10 AM and doesn’t get home until after 11 PM, leaving little time to spend with his twin daughters, who are nine years old. 

Because of the length of his commute and the high cost of gas, Eric sold his car and bought a used Suzuki with better gas mileage. “The previous car was costing me about $1,000 a month in gas, and that was not sustainable,” he says. He has roughly $400 left in his 401(k). “Four hundred bucks is no 401(k); it won’t buy you a plane ticket anywhere,” he says. But he’s not one to dwell on his difficulties. “It’s tight financially, but the fact is we’re still surviving. It’s just a little harder, that’s all.”

I found this comment on ACS' Salary Survey data kind of amusing:

“The data that ACS has is for the most part self-reported, and that’s always going to underreport the truth,” says Lee H. Latimer, a consultant and longtime ACS volunteer, who was laid off from Elan in 2011. “Many may have a job, which keeps them from collecting unemployment, but they’re not working either in their field or in a position that comes anywhere close to matching their previous income”—meaning, he says, that they’re effectively underemployed.

And how about the PMP, that certificate of awesomeness from a couple of years ago?:

“Michael,” a Ph.D. organic chemist in his 50s, living in California, knows just how unsettling this roller-coaster ride can be. Since he was laid off from a biotech company in 2008, he has applied for more than 10,000 jobs, some 7,000 related to the chemical sciences and 3,000 outside of science. 

Meanwhile, Michael has earned certifications in clinical trial design and management, regulatory affairs, quality assurance and control, and project management. But “by the time that I finished, not only did the number of these jobs decrease, employers weren’t going to take anybody who doesn’t have experience. The training is not enough for them,” he says. “I went and retrained myself, but I still cannot get a job. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the people in these articles are in what is supposed to be the prime of their careers (late 30s to 50s). That it has become brutal for mid-career chemists (the people who are probably going to be most productive and have the most ability to innovate) is fundamentally clear. It is beginning to be clear that not a single organization (not ACS, not the pharma companies, no one in government) has any idea what to do about it. What a shame.

C&EN's 2012 employment issue: the numbers

I don't want to have the new numbers released from the ACS Department of Member Research and Insights from the March 2012 ACS Salary Survey to be lost in the shuffle, so here they are, pulled out of Sophie L. Rovner's article, which is worth reading in full:

• Overall member unemployment: 4.2% 
• Ph.D. member unemployment: 3.4%
• B.S. member unemployment: 5.9%
• Industrial member unemployment: 5.4%
• Academic member unemployment: 2.2%
• % of members unemployed at anytime during 2011: 8.2%
• % of members unemployed at anytime during 2010: 8.4%
• % of newly graduates unemployed in October 2011: 13.3% 
• % of newly graduates unemployed in 2010: 10.6% 
• % of Ph.D. graduates unemployed in October 2011: 8.8%
• % of B.S. graduates unemployed in October 2011: 13.6%

Also, check out this chart from the article (right), which indicates the brutal reality facing new graduates in chemistry.

Credit: C&EN*

Anyone who buys into facile claims that America needs more scientists and more chemists needs to be able to explain this graph. 

Also, the larger picture for the chemical manufacturing sector:

Zeroing in on the U.S. chemical manufacturing sector, employment totaled 799,600 on a seasonally adjusted basis in September 2012, up 0.2% from the prior month and up 0.7% from September 2011, according to preliminary figures from BLS. That’s good news, but it’s little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their jobs in prior months. At the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, employment in the sector was 857,600. Five years earlier, it was 921,500. And 10 years before that—in December 1992—chemical manufacturing employees numbered 1.03 million.

Yikes.

*[NOTE: Corrected number for 2004 for ACS members. Numbers include unemployed and seeking employment. Data for 2012 on new graduates are not yet available. SOURCES: ACS Starting Salary Survey, ACS Comprehensive Salary and Employment Status Survey.]

Chemjobber welcomes ACS leadership to early 2009

Chemical and Engineering News is running its annual employment issue. I'll be covering it more tomorrow, but I am taking the following passage from Linda Wang's truly excellent story on unemployment in chemistry as a sign that this blog (and its truly excellent readership) was ahead of the curve and that the leadership of the American Chemical Society was behind:

The impact of this recession has been unlike that of previous recessions. “The fact is that the number of jobs has declined,” says Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, president of the American Chemical Society. And the usual methods for obtaining a new job aren’t working. “If the jobs aren’t there,” Shakhashiri says, “no matter how much you network, you’re not going to find them.” 

“The situation today is a tragedy of national proportions,” says Madeleine Jacobs, ACS executive director and chief executive officer. “It’s devastating to individual lives, and it’s devastating to this country.”

More in the AM, but I just want to point out that we have NEVER heard this kind of language from ACS leadership. Welcome to Chemjobber, my friends -- I suggest you start at entry 1. 

What's the best disaster planning for a chemical laboratory?

I am sure that all of you were horrified by Hurricane Sandy and its continuing aftermath, especially the situation with the NYU medical center and the loss of all the research mice. From Derek Lowe:

...thousands of genetically engineered and/or specially bred rodents were lost from an NYU facility due to flooding. The Fishell lab appears to have lost its entire stock of 2,500 mice, representing 10 years of work. Very bad news indeed for the people whose careers were depending on these.

Here's C&EN's coverage of Hurricane Sandy and its effects on both chemical academia and the chemical industry.

I think it is worth having a conversation about whether/if it is possible to disaster plan for an academic chemical laboratory or a small chemical company.* If it's a relatively slow-moving disaster like flooding or a hurricane, one imagines that there's planning that can be done ahead of time (things like regular backups of digital data, etc.) If it's an earthquake or an alien invasion, there's not much to be done. Obviously, physical safety and security is of primary importance. (Ready.gov is a great place to start for these sorts of things.) Get your car gassed up ahead of time, etc. Board up your house, get your stuff ready to go, whatever.

But are there steps that chemists can take, if they believe their laboratory will be affected by a natural disaster or they might have to evacuate? Here's what I'm thinking about:

• Graduate students and postdocs, in case of evacuation, make sure that your laboratory notebooks are  at hand, and that you have multiple copies of your digital data. 
• Attempt to secure instruments (especially expensive ones!) that might be affected by the oncoming storm. For example, here's @TheModernScientist, talking about what to do with their NMRs. (I believe this chemist is in the NYC area.) 
• I think there should be an effort to power down or decommission any obvious chemical hazards. I'm thinking about the clichéd THF still or what have you. 

Readers, what do you think? Am I crazy for thinking about this stuff? Do you have experience from Katrina, Midwest floods or crazy blizzards that you can share? 

*(I'm basically saying that if you work at a large company, they should have the resources to deal with this on their own; it's much less likely that you'll be like See Arr Oh, chainsawing a tree out of the boss' driveway, or whatever. Whatever relationship you have with a large corporation, it is unlikely that they'll rely on you, the individual chemist for disaster planning, except for maybe the laboratories. Correct me if I'm wrong, naturally.) 

Thoughts from a campus recruiter

Since we were talking about corporate recruiting visits earlier, I thought I would talk to MP, a mid-career chemist who visited a major research university as a representative of their employer, looking for people to hire. I asked for general impressions of what it was like to sit across a table and attempt to evaluate graduate students and their work. What follows is a mashup of the e-mail back-and-forth, lightly edited:

Should you dress up? Most people wore a suit and tie (or suit for the women). I would say how they were dressed was the least memorable thing about the interview unless it was extremely casual. I would recommend dressing up for the interview.

What's the best way to present your work? It was best when the interviewee came prepared with a short overview of their research. One thing that surprised me was how little some people came prepared to talk about things they wrote on their résumé. Least effective interviewees were ones who wouldn't elaborate on what they did, what were their duties, etc. IMO, shorter, concise resumes are better. Some people had appended other items.

Cultural differences: I interviewed both chem engineers and chemists and I noticed a big difference. The Chem Es all had some kind of industrial experience, either internships or actual business classes. This was very rare in chem students. Chem Es were also more clear in their duties, like saying they supervised these people, they were in charge of this group duty, etc. I'm not sure if this is a chem/chem e cultural difference.

What distinguished the students who got it right from those who didn't? The ones who got it right had more things to talk about than just their research. The ones who got it "wrong" we're unable or unwilling to elaborate on things or were perhaps a little too honest (like admitting to hating certain tasks which would be a big part of their jobs.)

Any other general comments? As far as other advice, I'd recommend trying to take interview training, I think that would help some a lot. I'm also rather indifferent to the follow-up thank you email but I suppose it couldn't hurt.

Thanks to MP for insight into what a scientist is thinking during a recruiting visit. 

Unemployment rate up 0.1% in October, U6 unemployment down 0.1%

Credit: Calculated Risk blog

Fresh electrons from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate in October was up slightly to 7.9%, from 7.8% in September. The broader U6 measurement of unemployment was down 0.1% to 14.6%.

Chemical manufacturing payrolls increased by 1,600 jobs to 802,700 for the sector.

The news will be about the total nonfarm payroll number, with an increase of 171,000 jobs for October. Less discussed, but equally significant are the upward revisions of ~80,000 jobs for August and September.

There are 12 million people who are unemployed -- best wishes to them.

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

...And that's why I don't work retail

From the New York Times, the uncomfortable reality of attempting to work retail In Our Times -- that you'll be working shorter and shorter shifts:

At its store here, just east of San Diego, Shannon Hardin oversees seven self-checkout stations, usually by herself. Typically working shifts of five or six hours, she hops between stations — bagging groceries, approving alcohol purchases, explaining the checkout system to shoppers and urging customers to join the retailer’s loyalty program, all while watching for shoplifters. “I like it. I’m a people person,” said Ms. Hardin, 50, who used to work as an office assistant at a construction company until times went bad. 

But after nearly five years at Fresh & Easy, she remains a part-time worker despite her desire to work full-time. In fact, all 22 employees at her store are part-time except for the five managers. She earns $10.90 an hour, and with workweeks averaging 28 hours, her yearly pay equals $16,500. “I can’t live on this,” said Ms. Hardin, who is single. “It’s almost impossible.” 

While there have always been part-time workers, especially at restaurants and retailers, employers today rely on them far more than before as they seek to cut costs and align staffing to customer traffic. This trend has frustrated millions of Americans who want to work full-time, reducing their pay and benefits. “Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.

If you read further, large retailers like Jamba Juice have software that surges employees around lunchtime, and then cuts them shortly thereafter.

When I was coming up on the end of my postdoc, I thought to myself, "The worst case scenario is that I will work at the Walmart at the bottom of the hill." (the one next to the Fry's, for San Diego readers) But I am well-aware that retail is, in its own way, a terrible Wheel of Pain.

If that much is not clear, Mr. Flickinger, the retail consultant puts a little English on the ball at the end of the article:

Mr. Flickinger, the retail consultant, said companies benefited from using many part-timers. “It’s almost like sharecropping — if you have a lot of farmers with small plots of land, they work very hard to produce in that limited amount of land,” he said. “Many part-time workers feel a real competition to work hard during their limited hours because they want to impress managers to give them more hours.”

When you're comparing your workers to sharecroppers, you know that things aren't going so well for workers. Thank goodness that chemistry doesn't make people work part-time. Right? Right?

Corporate recruiting visits at Harvard Chemistry: The New Normal (?)

This is the 4th annual analysis of corporate recruiting at Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. As the graph at right shows, the recruiting season (so far) indicates a slight drop from 2011, but the situation more or less staying the same. (NB: the 2012 recruiting season is not over.)

It's surprising to me that corporate recruiting has not recovered back to 2008 levels. After 4 years, it appears that 10-15 companies is the new normal for Harvard. One presumes that full-bore large-company hiring of entry-level research chemists will be back for good when Harvard sees a big increase. It does not look good now.

(Those who want to see other universities' corporate recruiting schedules, click here for a look at Stanford in 2010 and here for MIT's corporate recruiting from 2002-2011.

Daily Pump Trap: 11/1/12 edition

Good morning! Between October 30 and October 31, 30 positions were posted on the C&EN Jobs. Of these, 9 (30%) were academically connected and 18 (60%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Ugh: Recently, it seems that there are more chemical engineering positions than chemist positions. Certainly, today, when there were 3 positions posted, one of them was for a chemical engineer.

Orange, TN: Invista is a polymer/fiber company; they're looking for a B.S. chemist to be a lab technician. 2+ years laboratory experience, experience with high-pressure equipment desired.

Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is looking for an Ph.D. analytical chemist to be a postdoctoral fellow (must be within 5 years post-graduation.) Program is "focused on the nuclear forensics applications of functionalized nanoscale materials. This position is responsible for collaboratively developing trace level organic and inorganic methods using advanced materials and methods." Hmmmm.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show 276, 685, 2567 and 11 positions for the search term "chemist."

That said...: It looks like the Army Research Laboratory is taking CVs for chemists (and other scientists with M.S. degrees or higher.)