Here’s the latest information based on this morning’s teleconference
with the Siemens team. The installation is most likely to begin in
the first week in February. We’re looking at ten weeks. And the
magnet delivery date is right now scheduled as April 24/25.

Joining me on the director’s blog over the next months will be Mike Herman who is our project engineer/coordinator at GMU Facilities Planning and Dr. Layne Kalbfleisch (who has been a guest commentator before)–Layne co-heads up our Neuroimaging Core with Dr. Kevin McCabe. This will be the location for all information regarding construction/installation projects.

Welcome Mike and welcome back Layne…

Jim

Of course this practically means Linux or OS X these days. But why? I think there are several good reasons. First, understanding how to make things happen in a command line driven environment gives an insight into how a computer actually works. If you understand how to go from source code to compiled executable it gives you some notion of what is really going on under the hood. Second, flavors of Unix explicitly deal with security and permissions in a way that Windows doesn’t (or at least in a way that I can understand). Thus understanding how to change ownership and/or the permission status of a file practically makes you a more secure computer user. Third, there is a lot of free opensource software out there in the Unix world, both explicitly scientific (think octave or genesis) but also office oriented (open office for example). Finally, your chances of getting infected by a virus or worm is greatly reduced, since the folks who write these malevolent programs are writing them to the masses (read Windows machines).

For me there are strategic goals of the institute: overarching objectives that are necessary to fulfill the ideas and goals set by the founders of Krasnow, some fifteen years ago.

These type of goals stand in stark contrast to the tactical demands of the moment.

And it’s for these strategic goals that, in science administration, as in life, it’s worth going to the mat.

If one recognizes one’s strategic goals clearly, then it’s relatively easy to tease out those times to stay in the round of poker.

Jim

Eventually there are battles you can’t win–in science administration as in life. Knowing when to fold your hand (in the poker sense of those words) helps minimize losses and at the same time preserves political capital for another day.

But it’s a fine line–because there are many important issues that are worth the fight and it’s often one’s apparent single-mindedness, stubborn refusal to give in that carries the day in the end.

So when to fold? I think the general answer to that is on two occaisions: first, you fold when your argument is clearly positioned by your opposition as counter to the best interests of the larger institution or company. Second you fold when continuing to push is overtly against the best interests of your direct report. In the former case, you fold because it’s good policy, in the latter because it’s good politics.

Jim

The Phase I Krasnow Expansion Projects are of course getting under way and I thought this might be a good time to give a picture of what institute life will be like approximately 18 months from now when we’re moved in.

First, Krasnow will be larger in terms of research groups. I’m anticipating that there will be at least one new PI in place (with his or her laboratory group) and we’ll be in the process of recruiting for the second of six. This new PI will be a cognitive neuroscientist and I expect his/her research area to complement our existing cognitive neuroscience strengths. Obviously this new group will be a heavy user of NIKI (NeuroImaging at the Krasnow Institute) where I hope we’ll be looking at several instrumentation upgrades to our existing 3T Allegra system.

Second, Krasnow will once again become, if briefly, a place with ample space to spread out although we intend the research usage of the new space to be far greater than that of the old space. But there certainly will be a welcome break in the relentless up-tick in our population density.

Third, our academic connections will be on order of magnitude more intense than they have been. We’ll be seeing Krasnow involvement in everything from undergraduate research experiences to of course doctoral programs but also including post-graduate medical education opportunities. That will be a reflection of the growth of the University, especially in the life sciences.

Of course our woods will be intact (mostly) outside the east-facing windows and we’ll probably be facing the same issues with parking that we always have.

And…

we’ll be beginning the intense push for the Phase II expansion project, which will add an additional 12,500 square feet of research space to our facility. This will be an opportunity once again for input from our entire community of scholars and staff.

Will all of this be worth the various inconveniences along the way? I certainly think so. It will allow us to build scientifically upon our current strengths and to achieve critical mass across all of the fields (Computer Sciences, Behavioral Biology and Neuroscience) that our founders envisaged over 15 years ago.

Jim

One way to facilitate research collaboration between research groups at an institute is to view each new PI hire as an opportunity to bring the existing complement of scientists together.

As an example: one might hope that by hiring a new cognitive neuroscientist who uses fused data from say fMRI, dtMRI, MEG and Near Infrared Imaging one might succeed in bringing together existing groups where one group operates pretty much exclusively in the domain of brain nuclei or cortical regions and another group that operates pretty much in the domain of neurophysiology and perhaps aspects of cytoarchitecture.

This is of course strategic hiring and is often thought to be at odds with the traditional search committee approach of academia, but I don’t think it has to be. You just need search committees with a strategic focus on the future of your institute.

Jim

One natural tendency for a research institute that is growing rapidly is to metastasize hierarchically. One example of this is to form a large number of centers within the institute, each center somewhat autonomous in terms of its research agenda.

The problem with this is two-fold:
First, the new centers tend to act as within-institutional barriers to the type of cross-pollination that is so important to significant scientific progress.

Second, the new centers are tempted to view themselves as somehow more significant scientifically than individual PI laboratories, and this tends to cause friction. Additionally, this creates a dynamic for PI’s to join centers or form new ones rather than be “left behind”.

Nevertheless, at Krasnow we have a number of very successful centers and so far, we have been reasonably lucky with regards to the two issues I just mentioned. I think one reason for that is the Annual Krasnow Scientific Retreat, which brings together all Krasnow scientists to discuss research in a non-center-centric fashion for a day and a half.

Another reason for our good fortune is that the Krasnow Institute itself is extraordinarily well-designed as far as facilitating interactions between groups. The challenge of course is that now at least one of our centers is off-site.

Jim

One of the major problems that an institute director faces is cajoling and nudging research groups to reach out beyond themselves–to continue to intellectually communicate with other research groups within the institute as a whole. In the next several blog entries I’m going to be writing about this problem from a number of viewpoints.

Just a quick look ahead to the Krasnow Science Retreat in January. First of all, kudos are once again due to Krasnow Director Emeritus, Harold Morowitz, for organizing the Retreat for a third year running. Second, we’re going to have two major discussions on the second day of the Retreat that I’d like folks to start thinking about:

1) We need to start making a list of individual PI’s that we would like to bring to Krasnow over the next several years as we expand into the new space. This year we’re going to be getting fairly specific and naming names for our wish list.

2) We need to think about the superstars we want to invite for the 2007 10th anniversary of the Krasnow Facility Celebration. We’re already deep into the planning process for this very important event in our history.

Jim

Usually these two shouldn’t mix–at least in the public arena. What I mean is that if you are involved in high-level science administration, then I think it’s probably not terribly wise to have a high profile on science policy issues when they intersect with politics–especially partisan politics.

Let me explain:

Usually, science administrators have to deal with decision makers at various levels of government. They also generally have fund raising responsibilities which brings them into direct contact with donors who may also be involved in politics. If one is perceived as partisan–on any issue–then one runs the risk of being de facto labeled. And as soon as one is labeled, then all bets are off as far as advancing the causes of your institution when the other party or faction is on power. And of course such change is bound to happen eventually.

I worry that too often, science administrators ignore this basic tenet and eventually end up paying a cost through their institution. Very often it’s done in the name of academic freedom–which is of course nonsense as far as a science administrator’s job. There will be plenty of time to spout off when one returns to the instructional faculty.

Cheers,
Jim