Another year in the books….

This is commencement week at George Mason and marks the end of another academic year at once of the most dynamic higher education institutions in America. I continue to be amazed at the growth of this place. With the Washington DC area topping many of the human development metrics, it’s easy to imagine what we might look like in a decade or two and be filled with optimism.

Here at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, we’ll be celebrating the minting of new PhD’s, our first short-course collaboration with the Santa Fe Institute and a incredibly intense scientific year. Our final Institute seminar brought Nobel Laureate, Bert Sakmann to campus. Our PI’s work on areas ranging from molecular neuroscience to complex simulations of labor markets, all with the common themes of complexity and cognition (writ large).

Next week, we come back and head into our annual science retreat where we walk the walk of transdisciplinary scholarship. I’m really looking forward to it.

Finally, there’s the professional satisfaction of seeing some of my fine neuroscience undergraduate students stand up and be awarded their bachelors degree this Saturday. Priceless.

NSF Panel Review Season

Not really a season, but actually the several weeks long crush before the actual panel review here at NSF Headquarters in Arlington. Extraordinarily intense because so much is on the line.

This year, for the second time running, I’m using a pdf annotation app on the iPad to keep things moving along. Saves a lot of trees.

Parked next to me on the DCA tarmack

the other day on my way out to Sandia National Labs was this plane:

Boeing’s new 787 dreamliner, this in corporate livery, no doubt the performance art equivalent of the “issue adverts” we always hear on the local news station–aimed squarely at Congress. It’s good to see the long delayed new jet flying–it’s currently in revenue service in Japan and will come to the States by and by–I believe the US launch customer is United.

Off to talk about open access

to a forum of our faculty put on by the library. As a journal editor I have mixed feelings about open access.

On the one hand, research paid for by tax payers should be available to those same folks without further payment. On the other, non-profit journals such as The Biological Bulletin (the journal I edit), add real value to content and need a business model to keep themselves solvent.

Next week off to Sandia National Lab. And Commencement is coming up too. Busy times….

A.A. Gill’s London…

A terrific portrait of one of my favorite places, in today’s NYT travel section, here.

 There’s an interesting assertion hidden in the piece (if I understand it correctly): that for each of us humans currently living on the Earth, there are fifteen human ancestors. I’d be interested both in the underlying data and in the trend-line.

Whirlwind of a week…

There is something about the end of the semester that magnifies the intensity for work for students–finals, but it’s also true that we faculty feel something along the same lines. And it’s not just that we have to grade exams, there something about the intensity of university life that ticks up as the weeks go by towards Spring commencement.

This week we took a day trip out to Madison to learn about the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation or WARF. It’s an amazing organization that exists to support the research activities of one of America’s flagship publics.

This evening, Mason’s 40th Anniversary Gala will celebrate Alan and Sally Merten’s sixteen years leading this wonderful public institution. I’m looking forward to seeing plenty of old friends and colleagues and meeting some new ones.

What are the causes of the reversal in Mexican migration into the US?

Both the FT and LA Times report on this development.

Money quote from the LA Times:

Between 2005 and 2010, 1.4-million Mexicans immigrated to the United States, less than half the number that migrated from 1995 to 2000. At the same time, the number of Mexicans and their children who moved to Mexico in the same five-year period rose to 1.4 million, about double the number that did so from 1995 to 2000.
The estimates are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and on Mexican census data. The most recent data indicate that the historic flow of migrants into the U.S. might even have started to reverse.

Both papers attribute the phenomenon at least partially to immigration politics and unemployment within the US.  The FT mentions in passing “improving economic conditions” in Mexico. It would be interesting to take a fine grain look at the labor economics of Mexico to gain a better understanding of how much of this demographic shift is coming from our Neighbor to the South.