Conference Notes

This week I attended my first scientific conference as an assistant professor. Being from the academic linage of Canada and Israel, it was my first foray into the US scene and as a result, I didn't know a single person – except  I did run  into someone I had done my undergrad with and hadn't seen in a ten years (How depressing. I can now measure my life in decades!).

ON the first morning I started I randomly introducing myself to people, including another brand new professor. We politely asked each other how things were going with teaching and setting up the lab. She decided to trump everything I said. I had one grant submitted, she had four. I just had my two grad students start, she already had three that were doing productive research. It made me feel slightly panicky. Thankfully, the talks started so I could escape this painful conversation. I sat down, calmed down, and got absorbed into a fantastic lecture by a Big Cheese.

You know how they say there is no such thing as a dumb question? Well, I asked a question early in the first morning to one of the speakers. Although the overal question was valid, I made a fundamental chemistry error and the speaker corrected me in front of 200 people: people that will review my papers, grants and eventually my tenure package. (Stupid resonance structures of amides. If it isn't sp3 hybridized, why draw it that way?!)

So the morning did not get off to the best start.

A little embarrassed, shaken and intimidated, I escaped to the bathroom at the coffee break. The loo was easy to spot; there was a large snaking line heading out of the men's, but I sailed right past into the ladies' next door. I finally discovered one of the few advantages to being in a completely male-dominated profession! Once alone and feeling a little defeated, I took a deep breath, rolled my shoulders back and decided there was nothing to do but pull my pants up (literally), roll my shoulders back and soldier on.

At the sink, another professor smiled at me in the mirror and said "That was a great point you made after the talk. The guy beside me was in that lab and he said it was really important even though his boss hadn't mentioned it." Well frick! Turns out no one cared about my mistake.

That evening at the poster session/mixer, I presented my post doc work on a big 3' x4' poster in a room crowded with 60 other posters and mingling folks using up their drink tickets. To people that stopped by and asked questions, l told them about my previous research and mentioned what tack my own nascent research group was going to go. I expected people to poo-poo the poster since it since my nano-star-of-David paper is already a shocking year and a half old and I thought it was old news.

Nope. I had a crowd at my poster the whole session. I had to talk until my voice became hoarse and started to give out. People were genuinely intrigued. I was delighted. 

The only bummer was when one dude decided to elbow his way through my fans, and without really grasping the bigger picture of my research, informed me that my idea was a waste of time. It took me a while to figure out what he was saying, as I sometimes have a difficult time with Chinese accents, but with the slurring drunkenness on top of that, it was near impossible. No amount of explaining that the idea and the research was only half complete world convince him that there was merit in it. Finally I gave up and with a self congratulating smirk he waved his drink at my poster and quipped "nice try" and weaved off through the crowd.

I spent the weekend meeting people, chatting science but more often chatting lamely about the climate in our respective cities. I had breakfast with an animated  and amusing older professor who introduced himself as Bob. It wasn't until later that I realized what his last name was and it turns out "Bob" literally wrote the textbook on inorganic chemistry and is rumored to be shortlisted for a Nobel. 

I hobbed with the nobs. I hobbed with the peons. I hobbed with whomever had the fortune or misfortune of sitting next to me.

But you know? I wasn't the only one looking a little lonely and uncomfortable. Like me, some of those folks were relieved just to have someone to chat to instead of standing awkwardly in the corner at the coffee break, self-consciously nibbling on a brownie.

In general, the folks I met were pretty nice regardless of their position on the scientific echelon.  One must always remember, that even the most renowned scientist is still just a regular guy when he goes to the grocery store. And the more experienced were more than happy to dole out advice to a new assistant professor.

It may seem a little cold hearted to shamelessly hob-nob, but this is a big part of how I need to succeed. The advice I am getting from my advisory committee is that I need to get my name out there and meet people in order to have my grant applications get more than a cursory glance. Folks are much more comfortable recommending to giving out a 750k grant to someone they have actually met.