The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 158 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 158 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

"Bad Blood" quote of the day

I'm reading John Carreyrou's "Bad Blood" - it's awfully good. The last quote I highlighted: 

One of the assistants kept track of when employees arrived and when they left so that Elizabeth knew exactly how many hours everyone put in. To entice people into working longer days, she had dinner catered every evening. The food often didn't arrive until eight or eight thirty, which meant that the earliest you got out of the office was ten. 

That's diabolical. 

People are bailing from San Francisco?

Via SF Gate:

Rent a moving truck from Las Vegas to San Jose and you'll pay about $100. In the opposite direction, the same truck will cost you 16 times that, or nearly $2,000. 

What accounts for the difference? The simple laws of supply and demand, says economist Mark J. Perry. With so many people leaving the Bay Area, there are not enough rental trucks to go around. Perry, a University of Michigan professor, published his findings in a new study with public policy think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI). 

CBS News reported recently that operators of a San Jose U-Haul business have trouble getting their rental vans back "because so many are on a one-way ticket out of town." The revelation inspired Perry to compare the costs of U-Haul rentals for trucks leaving San Jose versus those heading into the city. 

Silicon Valley has arguably one of the highest costs of living in the nation. The cost of leaving isn't cheap, either. Perry tracked the costs of renting a 26-foot U-Haul truck to San Jose from six cities deemed destinations for those moving out of the Bay Area — Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Nashville and Atlanta. 

In every model, the price of renting a truck outbound from San Jose was at least double the amount of renting the same vehicle in the opposite direction. See the prices in the above gallery. 

I guess I would like to know who is leaving San Francisco, and who is staying. The income level of the people outmigrating would be interesting to know. 

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: Interesting long cover on cannabis farming by Melody Bomgardner
• Also, an ending call-out to chemists to join the field
• The latest Stereo Chemistry podcast, on bones (by Kerri Jansen)
• Cool story about a U.S. Army bioengineer (article by Prachi Patel)
• Alán Aspuru-Guzik has a quantum computing startup? (article by Sam Lemonick) 
• Hanford researchers demonstrate a nuclear waste vitrification process (article by Jeff Johnson) 
• Some d00d answering reader questions 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 550 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 550 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List finished with 590 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 25 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 25 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Postdoctoral position: Boron Specialties, Pittsburgh, PA

From the inbox, an industrial postdoctoral position at Boron Specialties:

Boron Specialties (a small, woman‐owned, Pittsburgh‐based fine chemical company) is seeking a postdoc for a 2‐year position, with the possibility for continuation thereafter. Successful hires will be asked to split time between analytical method development and synthetic chemistry (primarily inorganic) across a number of scales in conjunction with senior scientific staff. We seek energetic, enthusiastic applicants excited about playing an integral role in the growth of a small company. 

Requirements:

1. Ph. D. in chemistry (inorganic preferred) with a publication record to indicate achievement.
2. Willing and able to participate in a robust safety culture and comply with all environmental, health, safety, and security rules, regulations, and laws.
3. Experience with multinuclear NMR, FT‐IR, MS, ICP, and GC.
4. Experience with highly reactive, air‐sensitive, and toxic materials, and an ability to safely manipulate materials under air‐free conditions.
5. Willing and able to perform tasks ranging from analytical titrations to multi‐kg syntheses.
6. Demonstrated project management experience
7. Must be able to solve complex technical problems using both inductive and deductive reasoning.
8. Excellent written and verbal communication skills are essential to the position
9. Able to legally work in the United States

Desirable attributes:

1. Hands‐on knowledge of electro‐ and electroanalytical chemistry.
2. Strong mechanical aptitude.
3. Able to represent the company at trade shows and scientific conferences.
4. Experience in supervision and direction of junior staff / technician‐level employees.
5. Experience with standard operating procedure development.

Send a CV (with full publication list) and contact information for 2 references to Bill Ewing (bill@boron.com).

Boron Specialties is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit and business need.

Ad here. Best wishes to those interested. 

Paper towels

A list of small, useful things:

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Nessa's second article in Chemistry World
• Interesting post by Kat Day on palytoxin in aquaculture
• Personal reflections from Scott Denmark on the future of organic chemistry
• This article about a way to avoid using horseshoe crab blood in endotoxin testing (and the Lilly biologist who has been championing it) was really interesting. 
• I feel the article elides the inertia associated with cGMP, but still worth a read. 
• The latest from handwavingchemistry
• Juvenile Facts about Uranus, from Science Shenanigans
• "The Chemistry of Death and Desire" (and indole)

An open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Have a good weekend!

Ask CJ: What prior approvals are required for lab work at your company?

From the inbox, a good safety-related question:

We recently had a minor chemical exposure incident here at Random Chemicals Inc., and the safety analysis made its way up to corporate EHS. This prompted some reviews of our lab practices and the powers that be are considering implementation of some kind of approval process for any "new" synthesis procedure. 

They are allowing us to have some feedback into how that would look, so thats nice, but of course the worry is that a lot of red tape just for starting what could be a simple reaction. Do chemists at other companies have similar approval processes? What does it look like when you want to start something new in the lab, just order the chemicals and do it, or does someone have to sign off?  

I suspect that there are bands of chemicals and types of reactions (and sizes) and someone who plans on running a 20 L fluorination probably gets a lot more attention and needs a lot more upper-management approval than someone who is planning on running a 50 mL reaction with some nBuLi. All the Dow items that came post-Sangji seem to have indicated that (for example) large companies require a lot more written procedures and warnings and checks than, say, a typical academic synthesis laboratory.

Readers, what do you think? 

Well, that's a good reason for a shortage

Via The Truth About Cars, an interesting shortage due to an industrial incident:

Ford has paused production of the F-150 at its Kansas City Assembly Plant after a fire at one of the facilities belonging a Michigan-based supplier created a parts shortage. Meridian Lightweight Technologies makes instrument panel components for the pickup.
Roughly 3,600 unionized plant workers at the Kansas City facility have been told to cool their heels at home from May 7th to 14th, according to an Automotive News report. 

A fire and series of explosions ripped through the Meridian factory last week, injuring two people and leading to the evacuation of 150 workers. The conflagration reportedly happened during a 1:30 a.m. shift change. 

Eaton Rapids City Manager Aaron Desentz told the Lansing State Journal the fire seemingly originated in an area of the plant called the “tunnel,” where workers put magnesium scraps on a conveyor belt to be melted down.

That sounds like something that might catch on fire... 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 143 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 143 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

27 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 13 new positions posted for May 16 and 14 new positions for May 12. 

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 153 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 153 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

17 students, 1 teacher burned in ethanol-boric acid flash fire in Nashville

From a variety of sources, including the ACS DCHAS listserv, an incident at Merrol Hyde Magnet High School in Hendersonville, TN (article by NewsChannel5): 

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. - A hazmat situation injured multiple people at Merrol Hyde Magnet High School in Hendersonville. 

An official said at least 17 students and one teacher were triaged at the scene Wednesday morning, and multiple patients were taken to area hospitals. 

Six students were treated at Tristar Hendersonville Medical Center, while five students were taken to Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. 

The teacher was reportedly treated and released from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Reports from school officials said the educator involved was a first-year chemistry teacher.

I find it grimly amusing that this article (and a number of others, including Nashville's The Tennessean) seem to believe that flames spontaneously result from the mixture of ethyl alcohol and boric acid (which was used in this case.) I don't think that's true - I think you need to light it on fire, which is probably what happened here.

Yet another incident where there was a combination of:

• fire
• alcohol 
• students being too close

that has caused injuries and teachers getting fired and lawsuits being filed in this country time and time again.

Another reminder that the American Chemical Society's Committee on Chemical Safety specifically asks teachers to discontinue the traditional Rainbow Demonstration and use the safer Flame Test.

Why don't industrial members attend ACS National Meetings?

Also in this week's C&EN, a really interesting article about new approaches to the ACS National Meeting by Kevin Edgar, the chair of the Committee on Meetings & Expositions, including this interesting paragraph:

Another M&E initiative aims to enhance industrial member attendance at ACS meetings. The proportion of industrial ACS members has dropped in recent years, and it is critically important to all of our members that we maintain strong connections to industry. We understand that much of the loss of industrial members is a result of economic trends that ACS cannot control and has a limited ability to influence. We are looking at ways to create a more inclusive industrial community at meetings, to connect with the expo, and to enhance the overall industrial member experience.

It sure seems like people in industry prefer to attend smaller conferences, even as the registration for a National Meeting (~$400) is a lot more than the $1000 or so that you'll pay for a practitioner-level conference.

I'm not sure I have a solution for the National Meeting folks, other than maybe to make them just a little less pricey. Anyone else have a better solution? 

This week's C&EN

A few of the articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: "Cosmetics that take on the stresses of modern life" (article by Marc Reisch) 
• Takeda bought Shire (article by Lisa Jarvis) 
• EPA to ban methylene chloride as a paint stripper (article by Britt Erickson) 
• Academic chemists moving to Canada (article by Sharon Oosthoek)
• Cool article on new fluorine chemistry from the Gouverneur group (article by Bethany Halford) 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 549 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 549 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List finished with 590 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 24 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 24 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

View From Your Hood: West Coast tower edition

Credit: @HartwigGroup

Via Twitter, from the Hartwig Group: "#WestCoastBestCoast I never get sick of this view #viewfrommyhood Ok fine, actually view from the balcony."

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in (with a caption and preference for name/anonymity, please) at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.) 

Grad students: Who wants to write for C&EN?

From the inbox:

C&EN is looking for grad students to write about their experiences for the magazine. To be considered for this paid opportunity, send a roughly 250-word essay on an issue you face as a graduate student to cenprojects@acs.org. Include your name, university, country, and year in school. Deadline is May 31.

Best wishes to those interested. 

The Layoffs Will Be Projected

A grim tidbit from the New York Times about the work environment at Nike (amidst an article about sexual harassment by Julie Creswell, Kevin Draper and Rachel Abrams):

...The callousness that some women experienced extended at times to the work force at large, employees said. By the summer of 2016, for instance, Nike had decided to stop making golf balls, golf clubs and other equipment. Members of the division were summoned to a meeting inside the Clubhouse, the nickname for one of Nike’s buildings. 

There, horrified employees watched their names appear on a large screen, directing them to different rooms, where some would be laid off, according to one person who attended the meeting and two people who were told of it. The person said it left employees with the impression they were being let go via PowerPoint presentation....

(Emphasis mine) I suppose I understand the need for some level of efficiency in the case of layoffs of multiple people, and the logistical difficulty in separating large groups of people in a corporate headquarters. But this just seems rather cruel - surely envelopes (all the same size, all the same color) or some other paper-based mechanism would be less horrifying? 

Dr. Phil Smith - Novartis Statement

Novartis statement - 17:15 CET:

In February 2017, Novartis entered into an indefinite employment agreement with Dr. Phil Smith. With the recent advances in photoredox chemistry, Novartis believed that Dr. Smith could advise the company as to how Novartis might approach certain organic chemistry matters, including iridium photocatalysis.

The agreement was for an indefinite term, and paid Dr. Smith 9,000 USD per month. In March 2017, Novartis had its first meeting with Dr. Smith under this agreement. Following this initial meeting, Novartis determined that business conditions completely unrelated to Dr. Smith's skills in the laboratory had changed, and that Novartis financial conditions required the decision to not engage further.

As there was no contract and happily Dr. Smith could be terminated for any reason, payments were stopped immediately in March 2017.

with no apologies to Novartis

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 132 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 132 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

23 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 17 new positions posted for May 9 and 6 new positions for May 3. 

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 150 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 150 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

"The truth is, all of nature contains chemicals"

Unusual tack for a consumer products company. Here's hoping S.C. Johnson has success with this.

(TIL Fisk Johnson has a Ph.D. in physics.)

This week's C&EN

A few of the articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: Ryan Cross on efforts to improve CAR-T
• The chemistry of 'smoke taint' in wines (article by Lauren Wolf)
• Efforts to make sterically hindered amines (article by Tien Nguyen)
• kudos for including "pluckable" in the article
• Manganese amination chemistry from the White lab (article by Stu Borman)
• I think this idea of incorporating labs into escape house games is pretty clever (article by Tien Nguyen)
• The latest podcast from the C&EN team (I'm in there somewhere, I think)  
• "How to fit in when you’re in a new environment" (by ACS Careers)

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 548 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 548 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On May 2, 2017, the 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 590 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 24 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 24 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Adjunct position: Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA), fall 2018

From the inbox, an adjunct position at Evergreen State College:

Chemistry 2018-19 Adjunct Faculty 

The Evergreen State College seeks a visiting faculty colleague to teach General Chemistry I, II, and III with lab in part-time courses in fall, winter, and spring quarters for our Evening and Weekend Studies program. Experience with student-centered pedagogy is highly desirable. Prior experience teaching STEM fields to diverse and underserved students, including returning adults, is also desirable. The course will be offered Mon./Wed. evenings, 6-10 pm for 6 credits per quarter.

Link here. Best wishes to those interested. 

Temperature probes

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Chemistry Blog needs you!
• This 30-year battle over who gets credit over a basic combinatorial chemistry technique is pretty remarkable. 
• anyone seen "The Duellists"? for some reason, I am reminded of that...
• Nice post from Molecular Dreams
• Sustainable Nano on hearing aids
• "Data thug" is an interesting term...
• Fascinating post on burn rates from Perlara

An open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Have a good weekend!

University of Minnesota biochemistry professor investigated for sexual harassment

It's not every day that you read this in the pages of a local alternative weekly (by Micah Emmel-Duke; via City Pages, the alt-weekly for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.): 

...“When are we going to have sex?” 

This is how University of Minnesota biochemistry professor Gianluigi Veglia often talked to and about the students and employees in his laboratory, according to two sexual misconduct investigations. His name is well known in his field. His curriculum vitae is 39 honor-filled pages long and meticulously lists the millions of dollars in grant funding he’s received through the years. He has taught at the U of M, which has shared in the bounty of his grant money, since 2000. 

“Take off your shirt so I can just see a little.” 

Accusers and witnesses detail many other instances of misconduct. Among the allegations: He told lab members he only hired them for their looks; he suggested women’s presentations would be more effective if they dressed in more revealing clothing; he told his female lab members (whom he frequently called “Veglia chicks”) to flirt with prospective students to entice them to join the lab; he even threatened to withhold Ph.D.s if complaints were filed. 

Veglia told investigators he simply hadn’t made many of these comments. Others, he said, were misinterpreted jokes or the vengeful lies of disgruntled and unsuccessful students. He declined to comment for this story. 

...Following the investigation, he was given typical sanctions, like attending sexual harassment training and meeting with his boss. A bigger blow was his removal as the director of the university’s Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center and the accompanying annual salary bonus of $10,000. 

Other sanctions sound tough but are not as harsh as they might seem. 

For example, Veglia isn’t allowed to supervise undergraduate students through the 2019-20 school year and was also removed from the two graduate programs he taught in, with his readmission to the programs contingent on his conduct, including “no reports of sexual harassment.” 

Veglia can still do research with graduate students and others, which means his federal funding will keep flowing into the school....

Here's the official investigation (what you can read, anyway). It's pretty remarkable to me that he wasn't fired. The miracles of tenure...

(The author of the piece is willing to be contacted about other instances of sexual harassment in the sciences, especially in Minnesota. micah.emmel.duke@gmail.com; Signal: 612-293-5088)

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 127 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 127 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

24 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 24 new positions posted for April 29.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 149 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 149 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Johnson and Johnson has a museum?

Via the New York Times:

Margaret Gurowitz, 56, is the chief historian for Johnson & Johnson at its headquarters in New Brunswick, N.J. 

What does a chief historian do? 

I create and organize exhibits at the company’s museum, “Our Story at the Powerhouse,” which is located in the 1907 Powerhouse building, including developing new exhibits in medical fields where the company has made an impact. One current exhibit is about medicine in World War I, and our main exhibit area includes more than 100 vintage and modern-day Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages tins and packages. It also includes rare surgical artifacts, large-scale vintage advertisements dating back to 1886 — the year the company was founded — and displays of some of the company’s best-known products. 

Are there other duties? 

I also oversee the company’s more than 19,000 artifacts, and decide on new acquisitions. I also maintain the company’s online museum, ourstory.jnj.com, which uses photographs, music and audio to tell the company’s story, and the company’s historical blog, kilmerhouse.com. We also partner with other museums and institutions to make the company’s history of innovative health care better known to the public.

 Gotta say, I don't think those virtual biotechs will have a museum...

This week's C&EN

A few of this week's articles in this week's issues of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: a fascinating story by Celia Henry Arnaud about the detection of drug metabolites in wastewater
• Great opening line, btw
• Cool article about hypersonic rocket fuel (article by Mitch Jacoby)
• Profile of UK chemist David Smith; a worthwhile read (article by Katharine Sanderson)
• Mechanochemistry takes silicon off one layer at a time (article by Mitch Jacoby)
• Kalexsyn purchased by Italian firm (article by Michael McCoy)
• A comment from the chair of the Committee on Technician Affairs, Aimée L. Tomlinson
• Lots of reader response on geoengineering.

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 545 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 545 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On May 2, 2017, the 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 590 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 25 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 25 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

View From Your Hood: Caltech edition

Credit: Julian West

By Twitter user @pushingarrows:

"California definitely has it good: here's a view from the top of the Beckman Institute."

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in (with a caption and preference for name/anonymity, please) at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.) 

Anyone ever heard of pharma chemists demonstrating or organizing?

Via a New York Times article, an interesting comment:

Some tech workers are already starting to flex their muscles. Employees from large tech companies led an effort to oppose the travel ban announced by President Trump last year. And employees of Facebook, Google, Intel, Cisco and Stripe attended a demonstration at the headquarters of Palantir to protest the company’s development of surveillance technology for federal immigration enforcers. Just this month, more than 3,000 Google employees signed a letter objecting to the company’s involvement in a Pentagon program that could use artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy of drone strikes. 

But these are just warm-up skirmishes. For maximum impact, tech workers will need to scrutinize not just their employers’ government ties, but their products, business models, and basic standards. And they’ll need to do it in public.

I am going to guess that the vast majority of tech workers don't do much organizing or demonstrating, and it is unlikely for unionization to happen in Silicon Valley any time soon.

I wonder when it was likeliest for chemical and pharmaceutical companies to unionize, and why it didn't happen? Does anyone know?  

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 117 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 117 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

21 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 12 new positions posted for April 23 and 9 new positions posted for April 18.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 146 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 146 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Warning Letter of the Week: accidental deletion edition

A friendly note to the president of Lijiang Yinghua Biochemical and Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in Yunnan, China from the folks at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research:

2.      Failure to maintain complete data derived from all laboratory tests conducted to ensure your API and intermediates comply with established specifications and standards.
Your firm performed HPLC assay testing for [redacted] API release to the United States, along with stability and intermediate testing, on your Waters HPLC system between September 25, 2011, and May 5, 2017. Official quality control data packages presented to the quality unit for batch disposition decisions reported the results of testing performed during this timeframe on this equipment. During our inspection, when we sought to reconcile assay results reported in the quality control data package for a released batch with the underlying electronic data, you responded that you could not provide the electronic data from laboratory analyses on this equipment for the above period of several years. You explained that the electronic data in question had been deleted by accident and was no longer available. (emphasis mine)

In your response, you stated that the electronic data had been downloaded to a “mobile hard disk for backup” and that you would be able to recover the data after you have upgraded your HPLC software. However, you did not include evidence to support recovery of deleted electronic data or demonstrate how you will prevent such deletions from recurring in the future.

Oops! Sorry! Never happen again, I promise.  

An interesting wealth transfer

Also in this week's C&EN, an interesting article by Jean-François Tremblay about Macau (a major gambling destination in Asia), this funny tidbit:

Macau’s $30 billion annual casino revenue pays for most of its government budget, which means that, indirectly, the casinos pay for scientific research in the city. The tax revenues provided by gambling are so large that the 600,000 residents of Macau not only pay no income tax but also enjoy free health care and receive a check of $1,000 per year, courtesy of the Wealth Partaking Scheme policy. 

Scientists seeking funding for specific projects obtain it through Macau’s Science & Technology Development Fund (FDCT), a government agency with a budget of $28 million per year and climbing. This may not seem like a lot given that the budget for the National Natural Science Foundation of China—one of the main funding agencies in the country—is $4 billion. But Macau’s FDCT funds researchers in a relatively small city where only two universities, already well endowed, engage in scientific research. FDCT funds about one-third of the requests it receives.

One-third! That's pretty good. "Your gambling dollars at work."

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: fascinating piece on the generics business by Rick Mullin
• Mosquitos like aldehydes?!?!? (article by Bethany Halford)
• I'll take a Ebola vaccine (article by Lisa Jarvis)
• Japan found a new source of rare earths? (article by Jean-François Tremblay)
• "Plutonium plant removal halted after radiation releases" (article by Jeff Johnson)
• The story of the Hanford seems to be one step forward, five steps back. 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 542 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 542 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On April 25, 2017, the 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 590 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 25 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 25 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Nickel spatulas

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• 10 year funding ban for a protein crystallographer from ORI
• Interesting Science story on graduate students in biology and mental health concerns
• If you haven't heard the audio of the Southwest Airlines incident, the pilot and ATC are amazingly calm. 

An open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Have a good weekend!

Got a career dilemma?

We are hoping to start a "CJ's mailbag" for my column at Chemical and Engineering News. Please feel free to write me (chemjobber@gmail.com) if you have a career-oriented dilemma that you'd like me to write about in the magazine. Also, you can submit your questions with this handy web form. Thanks!

National Academies calls for more data on graduate student outcome

Another report! (article in C&EN by Andrea Widener):

The U.S. biomedical research enterprise is gradually crumbling under the weight of thousands of trained scientists who cannot get jobs in academia, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences says. If the situation does not change soon it will undercut biomedical science’s “vitality, promise, and productivity” and, eventually, its critical role in the biomedical industry... 

...Lack of data about the outcomes of graduate students and postdocs is a particular problem, the report says. It recommends NIH force universities to collect that information by tying data reporting to grant funding. NSF should also collect more data by linking its existing data with the U.S. Census Bureau.

I don't love forcing these sorts of mandates on universities, but I think that we desperately need good data on past graduates and their career outcomes. Good news, if this is implemented. (that's a big 'if') 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 105 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 105 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

16 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 12 new positions posted for April 18 and 4 new positions posted for April 15.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 140 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 140 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Interesting pastimes

A particularly remarkable detail in Ryan Cross' profile of Professor David Liu: 

In 1999, fresh out of graduate school, Liu joined Harvard as an assistant professor. He was just 26... 

One or two failures are expected from someone with a natural tendency to push boundaries—both professionally and personally. Early in his career, Liu was banned from MGM Grand casinos after a night in which he made too much money playing blackjack. Soon after, he began informally teaching a group of card-counting Harvard undergraduates. Over the course of four years, they developed nearly optimal solutions for winning the game. 

“We went everywhere in the U.S.,” Liu says. “It was an amazing experience.” He still keeps a case full of poker chips from their travels.

The number of Ivy League/elite university card-counters must be quite high. I wonder how many people come out ahead?  

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: "Fighting ocean plastics at the source" (by Alex Tullo) 
• Cool profile of David Liu (by Ryan Cross)
• For those who enjoy being skeptical about "let the good times roll" economics news, this article by Alex Tullo is pretty fun.
• Really liked this article on the chemistry of raincoats by Bethany Halford.  
• This North Carolina Chemours/water pollution story sure doesn't look good (article by Cheryl Hogue) 
• Some d00d yapping about zombie projects

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 538 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 538 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On April 4, 2017, the 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 585 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

Postdoctoral position: organic/medicinal chemistry, York University, Toronto, ON

From the inbox: 

Postdoctoral Fellow – Synthetic Organic & Medicinal Chemistry  

A post-doctoral position is available in Professor Orellana’s research group at York University (Toronto, Canada). The successful candidate will support a medicinal chemistry effort by conducting hit-to-lead optimization, and will be responsible for the multi-step synthesis, purification and characterization of small drug-like molecules. 

For a full description please visit: http://orellangart.wixsite.com/orellanagroup/join-us  

Interested candidates should submit application materials (CV, research summary and references) directly to aorellan@yorku.ca

Best wishes to those interested.  

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 24 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 24 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

View From Your Hood: greenhouse edition

Credit: abbeycjackson

By Twitter user @abbeycjackson:

"View of some of the Duke greenhouses from the lab window. I feel pretty bad for the poor succulents."

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in (with a caption and preference for name/anonymity, please) at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.) 

Job posting: synthetic organic chemist, Newark, DE

From the comments, positions at FMC:

FMC Agrochemical Solutions has multiple Ph.D. (Synthetic Organic Chemist) positions open in Newark, DE. These positions are analogous to medicinal chemistry positions, but compounds are optimized and developed for ag use (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides).

Link here. Interesting chemistry, interesting challenges. Best wishes to those interested. 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 142 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 142 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

14 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 6 new positions posted for April 10 and 8 new positions posted for April 8.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 135 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 135 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Jacksonville student injured in chemistry demonstration fire in February

From Anne Schindler of First Coast News:

A chemistry experiment gone awry resulted in at least one severely injured student at Westside High School on 103rd Street. 

First Coast News has confirmed that the February accident resulted in extensive second-degree burns and hospitalization of the male teenager. 

The Duval County School District does not appear to have told the general public or even parents of other students who witnessed the accident. But litigation is likely pending – which could end up costing taxpayers countywide. 

According to information obtained from sources and the sole public record that district officials have released, the incident happened at Westside High School on Feb. 28 during a class science experiment. 

According to people familiar with the case, it occurred in the lab of chemistry teacher Asante Dean. 

Dean has been chair of the school’s science department since June of 2015, according to his LinkedIn page, and has taught at the school since June 2013. 

First Coast News requested the incident report, which teachers are required to file after any classroom accident. The school district refused to provide it, citing an unrelated public records exemption which applies to personnel records. 

District officials also declined to say if parents were notified – including those whose kids witnessed the accident. Asked for any notice sent home, school district officials cited FERPA -- a federal exemption designed to protect students academic and discipline records...

We will see if this ends up being related to an alcohol fire. We're about due for the first one of 2018... 

Warning Letter of the Week: "we made it, it's good" edition

An epistle from the Division of Pharmaceutical Quality Operations III to the president of Continental Manufacturing Chemist, Inc. in Madrid, Iowa: 

1.    Your firm failed to maintain adequate separate defined areas necessary to prevent contamination or mix-up (21 CFR 211.42(c)).
You manufacture several over-the-counter (OTC) drug products and medicated otic and oral care products under contract. These drugs include [redacted] Ear Wax Drops, [redacted] Oral Rinse, and fluoride toothpastes. You also manufacture numerous non-pharmaceutical materials in your facility, including a weed killer and adhesive remover. 

You did not utilize any quarantine markings or physical segregation of finished drug products from the lawn care and cleaning chemicals in your warehouse. You did not designate your quarantined finished drug products with quarantined status. During the inspection, your Vice President of Operations stated that your firm does not quarantine any finished products before they are released by quality because you “thought of the product as good once it was manufactured.”

Your response stated that your warehousing space is “tight,” and you have recently acquired additional off-site space to store packaging components. You also stated that you would implement a procedure by July 1, 2017, for labeling the status of finished drug products.

Just in case you were thinking about mixing the lawn care products and the toothpaste... 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 535 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 535 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On April 11, 2017, the 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 588 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 23 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 23 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Funny biodiesel story

Also in this week's C&EN, an story of an unusual use of biodiesel: 

I read your article about biofuels in the March 5 issue with interest. Since I retired, I have volunteered aboard a WWII ship located on the Ohio River in Evansville, Ind.: LST-325. LST stands for landing ship, tank. This ship landed tanks and supplies at Normandy, in addition to other beaches of Europe. It is an operational museum ship that transits the rivers of the Midwest annually, opening for public tours. 

I think it was in 2011 when the ship was going up the Illinois River heading for Henry, Ill., [that] we stopped in Beardstown, Ill., to receive a donation of 10,000 gal [about 37,850 L] of biodiesel. We added it to about another 5,000 gal [about 18,900 L] of conventional diesel we already had aboard. When we returned to Evansville from this cruise, we had a few thousand gallons remaining in our tank. 

The ship was inactive for about a year, but when we tried to restart its engines in 2012, we had great difficulty. After 11 months of storage, as your article clearly states, the biodiesel was a gelatinous mess. We had to clean our tanks, all the fuel lines to our filters, and then on to our engines. After flushing with conventional diesel fuel, we finally were able to start our engines. 

There needs to be a warning label on biofuels indicating that they need to be used almost immediately. It should not be stored. 

Robert J. Hargrove
Macon, Ga.

I can't imagine the mess that must have been to clean out a 10,000 gallon tank with a gelatinous mass of biofuel; did they just solubilize the mess and pump it out? Yuck!  

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• Cover: "Recycling Renewables" (by Melody M. Bomgardner and Alex Scott)
• Bet you didn't think you'd get to read about bat fungus this week. (article by Emma Hiolski)
• R&D spending in the chemical industry is up slightly (article by Marc Reisch)
• interesting glovebox/hood combo there
• The presentations at the "Science of Sexual Harassment" symposium at the spring National Meeting
• Photoredox reactions for chiral amines (article by Stu Borman)
• "Azidophenylalanine poses explosion risk" (article by Carmen Drahl) 
• I didn't realize there were problems with certain ballistic vests (article by Marc Reisch)

Paper towels

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Derek covers a paper (with an odd co-author) on the ability of chemists to predict highly-cited papers
• Th'Gaussling with some pretty cool pictures
• Funny post at Practical Fragments
• Quite the tempest over plagiarism in an atmospheric science paper
• Stu, on his very tempting hobby
• Martin, on ChemDraw 17.1

An open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Have a good weekend!

Ask CJ: odd interview styles

From the inbox, a darn good question:

I have an interview coming up for a job with [redacted government research organization]. They have advised me that the interview will be for an hour, where in the first 15 minutes I'll be given the interview questions and time to prepare answers. Have you come across this style of interviewing before? Do you think it says anything about the type of questions to expect? 

I've never heard of such a style, although I do remember the campus interview I had with a top 50 chemical company where someone asked me what my proudest accomplishment of 6th grade was - I was given a few minutes to think on that one. (didn't help.)

Readers, what say you?   

This week's C&EN

A few of the articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News: 

• Cover: Livestock emissions still up in the air (by Britt Erickson)
• Interesting piece on photoswitchable drugs
• Four billion Canadian dollars for Canadian science (article by Sharon Oosthoek)
• 10% more for American science, too (article by Andrea Widener, Britt E. Erickson and Cheryl Hogue)
• AI in the lab (by Rick Mullin)
• Perspective on AI in the laboratory by Nick Lynch
• "The chemistry of modern moonshine" (by Kerri Jansen)
• Letter to the editor arguing for starting college students earlier in undergraduate research
• What percentage of readers of this blog did some kind of research as a high school student during summers? (raises hands)

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 131 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 131 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

28 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 11 new positions posted for March 28 and 17 new positions posted for April 4.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 130 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 130 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

couldn't resist

reference here

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 534 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 534 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On April 40, 2017, the 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 585 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

Ask CJ: How to get a job at non-English speaking universities?

From the inbox, a very good question (slightly redacted and edited for clarity): 

...Faculty openings in Canada are few and far in-between so [I] have been exploring the possibility of Europe, but [am] not sure about the whole foreign language thing? [I] know of a couple examples of English-speaking people working at non-English institutions but were wondering if you have any experience or advice? For example is there a way to know an institution would be open to hiring someone that is not fluent in the institution's operating language? 

Sorry for the lack of specific questions. We really aren’t sure where to start... any insight would be appreciated.

I'm not sure if I have anything helpful to add, other than that I have notice that many European professorship advertisements will have some kind of statement about language requirements.

Readers, what has been your experience? I honestly don't know of very many American or Canadian ex-pats who are teaching in Europe on the tenure-track, but I haven't tracked it too much. (There's always Nazarbayev University!) 

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 23 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 23 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.