A new post on the blog-specific outcomes of the Krasnow study is available at:

http://krasnowconstruction.blogspot.com/

– Meredith

There are now two doctoral programs with a special relationship to the Krasnow Institute: the neuroscience program and the program in computational social sciences. Both programs are currently admnistratively housed within Mason’s School of Computational Sciences.

It would be nice I think to set up some informal graduate student linkages between these two programs based on their ties to Krasnow. One idea might be for a brown bag lunch series that would alternate appropriate topics between the two programs.

Jim

In academia, as in much of the rest of the work world, you’re judged by the commitments that you keep. While in the early years of a science career in academia, this may come as something of a surprise–there is no doubt that in teaching, collaborations, grant writing–anything where you are working as part of a team, or representing a team (or faculty)–it is absolutely crucial to follow through on the work-related promises that you make.

Occasionally, however external events intervene and it becomes impossible to do whatever it is you told others you would do. Perhaps a family illness, or maybe a fantastic job opportunity in Singapore. I wish I could write otherwise, but it’s simply a fact that even under those circumstances one has to be prepared to accept the professional accountability that comes with a life in academic science–and that accountability can be harsh indeed.

And often invisible.

That’s why it’s so incredibly important to not promise more than you are certain you can do–even if you wish to be collegial, friendly etc. My sense is that it’s better to say no, if you’re not entirely certain you can fulfill the commitment.

Jim

After 60 days more or less without a drop, it’s finally raining in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Lots. Buckets in fact. I’ve been spending the afternoon making a Provencal beef stew from a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated. This is one of those all day affairs that fills the house with good olfactory entertainment while it cooks slowly.

Reminds me in many ways of the very long experiments that I used to conduct during my thesis work–where I’d drive back through the snowy weather to the lab around 2AM to finally develop the autoradiograms on a protocol that had begun early the previous morning. I’d be barely awake as I would stumble into the darkroom–but then of course, there was the first look at the results…and that, like a slowly cooked dinner, was always worth it.

Jim

Design presentations were held on September 15. Did you have a chance to review the design proposals? If so, what did you think? Without mentioning names, you can offer your comments and feedback on the Krasnow Construction blog (refer to today’s “Site Plans” post):
http://krasnowconstruction.blogspot.com/

I often get asked what it was like to grow up with neuroscience. As most of you know, my Dad, James Olds, was a neuroscientist who used electrophysiology to study reward systems and learning in the rat over a 22 year period between roughly 1954 to 1976. The biographic details are located in the link at the top.

Actually both my Mom and Dad were active in the field. My Mom, Marianne E. Olds, continues to publish, and my sister, Jacqueline Olds MD is a practicing psychiatrist in Cambridge Massachussets. So neuroscience was very much part of the family.

One of the most interesting aspects of having neuroscience in the family was at least listening to arguments about what the hippocampus actually does starting at a very young age–around the dinner table. I remember being perhaps in first grade when my parents took me into the lab and showed me the wonders of the Amon’s Horn stained with cressyl violet in a coronal section under a research microscope. Now I at least knew that they were arguing about a quite beautiful structure!

Another interesting part of growing up in neuroscience was meeting such luminaries as Sir John Eccles or E. Roy John long before I understood what they were famous for. And of course, it’s entertaining today to be see the gradual recognition among senior neuroscientists that I am indeed the ten year old they met with my parents in Moscow back in 1966.

We also got to see the use of computers in the neurophysiology laboratory from day one–my Dad had one of the first DEC PDP-8’s off the assembly line and he immediately put it to work (it was compact fridge size) doing real time single unit acquisition from freely behaving rats. Later, when he moved to Caltech and began to collaborate with colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (early 1970’s), the entire recording head stage became wireless and with multiple units being recorded simultaneously onto magentic tape, while the animal wandered around its environment.

What I remember most vividly though was my Dad teaching. This picture is of him teaching undergraduates at Caltech. You can see he really got into it! And without powerpoint!

Cheers,
Jim

The Krasnow great room is filled right now with distinguished faculty, students and guests of Center Director, Professor Claudio Cioffi-Revilla as we celebrate formally the commencement of a new Krasnow Center. I’ve written about this subject before, but let me reiterate: complex social systems are an emergent of human cognitive activities. As such, it is very clear that the study of how human interact in social networks is clearly within the larger domain of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. We welcome Dr. Cioffi and his center to Krasnow–confident that the intellectual cross-pollination will prove extraordinarily fruitful.

Jim

Just a quick update. I had lunch with Meredith today and she’ll be posting a wrap-up on her blog real soon. The other good news is that she’s preparing a manuscript about this whole process for a scholarly journal in the architecture field.

Thanks from all of us Meredith!

Jim

I did a media interview this morning regarding the intelligent design controversy. Interestingly the conversation meandered somewhat away from the subject of evolution and the origin of life (and the universe) and more towards the question of academic freedom: who can say what within the academy and how the notion of free speech is actually somewhat different than being free to teach students to your religious point of view.

That is: my being free to stand in the Johnson Center with a protest sign is qualitatively different from my being free (as a professor) to teach intelligent design as part of the curriculum for say…a biochemistry course….as opposed to perhaps a senior elective in theology.

Furthermore, how is this fine line manifest in such gray areas as promotion and tenure decisions?

Interesting food for thought…

Jim