Space is at a premium right now at Krasnow for a number of good reasons.

First, quite a substantial number of new grants have come in (congrats to all the involved PI’s–you know who you are!). Those new grants imply increased need for spaces to house graduate students and postdocs.

Second, we de facto house most of the neuroscience graduate students–one way or another.

Third, of course the construction projects that are commencing.

The result of this is that we’ll need to be very efficient. As Harold Morowitz once described the space policy at the Santa Fe Institute: “no more than two Nobel Laureates to an office!” But seriously, I urge every PI to think out of the box in terms of how you are utilizing your currently assigned space. Please understand that under the currently cramped conditions, some of our currently held assumptions will need to be revisited.

Jim

As Institute Director, my policy is to have, in as much as is possible due to scheduling constraints, my door open to all at the Institute–this includes all support staff, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty. Sometimes this gets complicated: suppose someone from one of our Centers comes to me on occaision and speaks out of school?

This is an unavoidable complication. Everybody at Krasnow should have equal access to the Director’s ear–that’s part of the reason for this blog (you can leave comments I think). My job is to weigh the various points of view, the sometimes conflicting perspectives and try to arrive at solutions (or at least suggestions) that are best for the Institute and the University, while at the same time retaining sensitivity to the needs of the individual, all of whom are valued friends and colleages.

One thing Center Directors can do: urge your staff to keep you in the loop, so that neither of us is blind-sided. After seven years in this job, the most important thing I have learned is the importance of keeping folks in the loop. Let’s all work on that together.

Jim

Having grown up with parents who were PI’s in neuroscience themselves, I’ve seen a lot of graduate students over the years–besides having been one. One curious aspect of what I would call the “unspoken rules” of graduate student culture is the notion of the need to actually be in the lab. Why should that be–particularly during the early years of the doctoral education?

Or, to put it another way, why should that be true above and beyond doing the things that one is assigned to do in the lab as far as research and other tasks are concerned?

The first thing I would say is that even if there were no explanation for it, it’s definitely a really important unspoken rule. Most advisors and faculty members that I have met have a constant weather-eye for who is, and who isn’t in the lab. And furthermore, I would venture that such folks often factor that information into their general opinion of a graduate student.

But I think there is also reason behind this madness (smile). By immersing oneself in such a disciplined way within a tight community of scholars, there is an osmosis of knowledge that is quite independent of the more formal training that would normally be going on. Example: at 2 in the morning early in my doctoral education at Michigan, I remember learning a trick for producing buffer solutions more quickly from a fellow graduate student who had the laboratory bench opposite my own. I think there are countless such opportunities.

Where faculty members are coming from is the realization that becoming a productive scientist is so incredibly difficult, so challenging, that the student needs to deploy every possible channel for learning during those crucial years of graduate school (some call it gradual school for good reason).

But there is also a certain amount of “jumping through hoops”–no question. The attitude of “I did it, so you’ll do it too”. With regards to this aspect, I would only say that it’s very important to show one’s own personal motivation to one’s advisor.

Interestingly there is another field where this notion of “being in the lab” is an unspoken rule–that’s serving on Congressional staff up on the Hill. Perhaps similar reasons are in play there.

Jim

Many people have noticed: while the conference table in the Great Room makes for great visuals as a background for a meeting, it’s not exactly optimal for hearing what others are saying. In otherwords, the accoustics are not so good. I’d also add that, for the years that we’ve had the Krasnow Holiday party in the GR, it’s a tad big. My sense is that there’s a bit too much open space for that sort of party.

On the other hand, the GR has performed extremely well on ceremonial occaisions, such as when Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa, arrived at Mason several years ago. And when there’s a string quartet on the mezzanine with a fundraising dinner going on below, it’s been hard to imagine a more beautiful location on campus.

Individuals, tongue-in-cheek, have suggested filling it up with water to make a large aquarium. Others have pointed out that it might make an idea aviary (although with its windows I have my doubts).

One thing is clear: as we move forward with the construction, we’re going to be using the GR a lot more, because it’ll become swing space–as with the mezzanine.

Maybe for the duration of the construction we do need some more couches and comfortable furniture to tide us through.

Jim

On August 4, I’ll head up to Woods Hole for the first of a series of extended visits that will continue over the next five years of my editorship of The Biological Bulletin (www.biobull.org). This is an interesting scientific homecoming for me–I conducted my first experiment (an impalement of a Hermissenda Type B photoreceptor) there in 1978–which is quite a long time ago, even for me.

I arrived in Woods Hole, fresh from a bachelors degree in Chemistry from Amherst College and a summer in DC, where I had interned for the New England congressional delegation. After a summer of policy related activities, I have to say I was very skeptical of how much I would enjoy actual experimental biology, particularly because, at least on the map, Woods Hole looked like it was at the very end of the planet (relative at least to the US Capitol Building where I had been working). But arriving on a beautiful early Fall day, coming around the famous bend in the road the reveals the Village, I remember very specifically becoming optimistic that maybe this would be a good experience.

It was, of course. There was an invertebrate zoology course with collection trips on Woods Hole’s famous research vessel, the A.E. Verrill (which was called affectionately by students the “Vomitin’ Verrill”), the library that in those days had wide open stacks 24/7 365, and the electrode-pullers that were so primitive as to induce superstitious behaviors in all of us trying to pull the perfect glass micropipette electrode. At least one of our regular scientific visitors to Krasnow was there with me–we were both initiating our training prior to heading off to graduate school. And I know he remembers those heady days also very vividly.

Well, enough reminiscing. I do hope that, for those of you who haven’t been there, you get some feeling for the affection that many of us in science feel for the place. I’ve returned many times since those first days in the late ’70’s, but never before in a position to pay back to the place, some of what I think I owe to it for making science come alive to me.

Jim

One of the most important values of academia is the notion of civilized discourse–where one may disagree substantively with one’s colleagues, but the tone of interaction always remains civil. This is particularly important at an institute for advanced study, where scholars from many, often disperate, backgrounds come together. And no where is this idea more important than the case where there is an implied power relationship between two individuals: be it faculty and support staff, senior faculty and more junior faculty, or faculty and trainees.

While this ideal, may be impossible to always achieve, it’s important to strive for it–because our reputation rests on this aspect of our daily work life, just as certainly as it rests on our scientific achievements.

For myself, I try to think very carefully before I hit the email send button–no matter how tempting it might be to send off something that was composed in anger (or with hurtful sarcasm). But more importantly, I try to think how the other person that I’m interacting with might feel–this in both direct conversations and electronic communications. It’s that manifestation of “theory of mind” that I think is crucial to civil society.

None of us is perfect in this respect, but by being concious and aware of these interpersonal details, we create a better place to do our science.

Cheers,
Jim

So I wanted to expound a bit more on why I am so enthused about CSC joining Krasnow. Perhaps the best place to start is with the notion that social complexity is an emergent of cognitive complexity. This notion: that the complex adaptive natures of social networks (from say families to entire cultures) is itself a product of the human minds that make up those social networks is not so farfetched. It certainly underlies the basic raision d’etre for the new field of neuroeconomics–where we are also now actively involved. It also to some extent subserved some of the Krasnow work with language in the Great Apes, and some of the very early interests in language development at the Institute. So I think we’re intellectually on very solid ground here.

I also think that the neuroscience at Krasnow can bring a level of biological plausibility which will be very helpful to the folks at CSC who are using agent-based modeling to study emerging social behaviors. One area that I’ve been involved with is a collaboration with Claudio Cioffi and Sean Luke to study how including mnemonic functions in agents might affect emergents in modeled social networks. I’m very hopeful that this line of research will eventually be fruitful.

In any case, I’d like to welcome our colleagues on board. We’re the better for their joining us….and we’ll plan some appropriate marking of this joining for the Fall.

Jim

Just a bit of a preview for news that will be released more formally this week: George Mason’s Center for Social Complexity (http://socialcomplexity.gmu.edu) will be joining the Krasnow Institute. The new center (Krasnow’s 4th) will be physically housed in Research I. I’m really pleased about this addition to the Institute and it certainly makes sense given the history of collaborations between us. The effective date was July 1.

Jim

I often recount the story of UC Irvine–which was born as a new University of California in 1965 and recently was ranked by US News and World Report as one of the very top research universities in the country. Interestingly, the school was initially considered primarily a commuter school, built around a ring with large parking lots surrounding the ring in lieu of dorms and research buildings. Irvine itself is in Orange County–a county with roughly similar demographics to Fairfax County Virginia–about a million people, adjacent to an important city (Los Angeles).

I’ve written a lot of Irvine, here is not perhaps the place to extoll their praises, but as a case study they are quite interesting. One of the themes to that school’s success has to do with being in the right place at the right time. They were born into a County that was, at the time, growing extrordinarily quickly, in a state, California, which if I recall correctly would be the seventh largest economy in the world, were it considered separately from the United States.

We’re in the right place at the right time also. Our area’s economy currently would put it (if it were a country) into the top twenty nations–ahead of Argentina, Austria, Dennmark, Ireland, Israel, Norway, South Africa and Turkey. The median household income here is second only to San Francisco-San Jose, while the annual employment growth as more than double that of any other metropolitan area last year.

In terms of education, our area has the highest percent of the population with an advanced degree. And of course, Northern Virgnia now can boast of having the largest public university and the largest hospital (INOVA Fairfax) in the Commonwealth. Add to that HHMI’s Janelia Farms complex, and I’d argue things are poised to be very fruitful for us at Krasnow.

My own sense is that in the not too distant future, we’ll be reading about Mason in a very similar fashion to the story I just related about a new university on the West Coast.

Jim

Well, we’re finally underway. The Krasnow RFP has been given to the three competing design build teams this afternoon. Fourty five days from now, we’ll begin the selection process. That’s great news and I’m particularly grateful to our Project Engineer at Facilities Planning, Mike Herman, for his help.

Also I had a pleasant surprise on the drive home tonight listening to All Things Considered on WETA–the Krasnow spot aired right at 5PM. It’s really great to hear about Krasnow science in the context of NPR’s wonderful news show. These are exciting times at the Institute.