Yes, when it’s exam time, the Krasnow Institute lecture room fills up to the brim. The physics professor (at the back in the black T-shirt) is our very own Rob Cressman. The camera only caught half the room, the other half is equally as jammed. And that’s only half the class!
We are quickly approaching the end of the academic year with the Spring exam period and it’s worth a pause, to look back. Most salient of course is the new research wing, which is now larger than the original Krasnow Institute facility that we moved into in 1997. I’m looking forward to an official grand opening in the Fall, but we’ll begin moving our scientists as soon as the semester ends.
Second, this past year was marked by a highly successful collaboration with our friends in Singapore with the Decade of the Mind VI Conference this past October. Sadly we mark the passing of the intellectual founder of the Decade of the Mind project, Dr. James Albus. Jim was an intellectual giant and we’ll all miss him.
Third, the Institute is minting its first Computational Social Science doctorate at Commencement next week, Mark Rouleau. This is a milestone both for the Institute as an Academic Unit of Mason, but also for the United States–Krasnow’s CSS doctorate program is the first of its kind in the nation.
So all told, a great year. We’ll be having our annual Krasnow Science Retreat at the end of the month and then hopefully a bit of rest as summer sets in.
Here are some more i-phone pictures of the new Phase II space. In the top photo, one of our brand new wet labs, and in the bottom, a corner faculty office with views of Mason’s faculty housing, Masonvale.
Enjoy!
From my first days as director, I have always been struck by how our Institute was internationally incredibly diverse. This has continued to the present, one can’t walk the hallways without hearing several languages going on at the same time (not including the constant Java and C++).
At the same time, particularly since we began the Decade of the Mind initiative in 2007, the Institute itself has been reaching overseas. Our faculty have recently visited East Africa, Moldova, Singapore and, as I write these words, we have a critical mass in Paris.
In less than a month, I’ll visit Berlin for the second time in two years and we just recently hosted a scientist from Indonesia.
This both reflects, the very real internationalization of “advanced studies” and, more importantly, a changed outlook: while US research universities (including Mason) remain superb, there is an entire global generation that is coming of age and they are highly literate in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields–and hence the potential for growing new gardens of collaborations.
In the next five years, I hope that we can do something substantive along these lines both in Asia and Europe, combining both research and education.
The site is here. Really exciting tracks in neuropolicy and complexity models in the context of policy decisions.
If you’re a federal or private sector executive and want to learn more about these key areas fast from some of the top scientific researchers in an intelligent lay-person (think Scientific American) format, this is the week-long event for you.
Today I spent a while on the phone with our public relations folks trying to put into words a concept that really, on reflection, was quite simple: the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study is a national scientific gem and that’s evidenced everywhere, from our Nobel laureate scientific DNA to the way we win our scientific respect: competitively with the likes of Harvard, Yale and Caltech–not by our Washington connections.
Sometimes it’s better to just say what you have to say directly and not beat around the bush.
As we prepare to take delivery of Krasnow Phase II in the Spring, the Institute will have approximately 55 thousand square feet of dedicated research space. We’ll have superb wet-labs, core support facilities and instrumentation clusters to support the bench-top science that is so important to our research program. But we’ll still have a center, one department and one of our top laboratories scattered around the campus. It will be time to build the wing that will not only bring those key academic and research elements under one roof, it will also provide Mason’s Institute for Advanced Study with a superb state-of-the-art auditorium (although really simulatorium should be the correct word since this facility will enable the presentation, in real time of multiple computational models), faculty offices and teaching labs for the academic programs that we participate in.
When Phase III is done, Krasnow will have all it’s faculty, trainees and students under one roof. It’s my belief that by creating that proximity, we will further facilitate the trans-disciplinary science that has become part of our identity. The new wing, off the south end of the Institute will take us up to approximately 75,000 square feet. We’ve received our first gifts to enable this effort and I’ll keep loyal readers posted on our progress.
Here in Washington, we can already see the orange and red of leaves on the streets of our neighborhood. This weekend in the mountains, the passing of summer was even more abundantly clear with crisp temperatures, and the velvet Milky Way extending across the night skies, Cygnus nearing the zenith. This has been the hottest summer I can remember in Washington. But it also was the snowiest winter on record. A year for extremes I guess.
This past week I got a hardhat tour of the new Phase II construction including a harrowing trip up to the new roof. What a view! The new Krasnow will have have many more wet laboratories to complement our computer modeling. I hope to expand greatly on our translational research partnership with Inova Health Systems, to continue our investment in integrative neuroscience using the full spectrum of methods from molecular and cell biology, and to move into new model systems (for us) such as zebra fish. At the same time, we keep our eyes firmly on our bread and butter–the scientific opportunities that have already brought us success–in neuroinformatics, computational neuroscience, cognitive sciences and a massive integration of all of these areas with the computational tools for studying complex adaptive systems.
A week from this Monday, I’ll be giving the academic year’s inaugural Monday afternoon lecture on the State of the Institute. To telegraph a bit of my remarks, Krasnow is thriving, two decades following its founding.
We’re moving briskly ahead with our plans to offer two short courses for decision makers–one track will cover neuropolicy, the other computational social sciences–we’ll hold them here in the Washington D.C. area, probably here on the George Mason University campus.
The faculty will be world-class, as will the attendees.
Today I’m back in the office after a week off. The construction outside seems to have advanced, not only here on our building, but all around the Mason campus where new buildings seem to sprout like mushrooms. We are making plans already for three conferences which will make use of the new hotel and conference center here on campus.
A shout-out is in order for our incredible administrative staff here at Krasnow, who kept things humming during my absence. They are a brilliant bunch. I’m very lucky to work with them.
Discoverers and Discoveries 