Grad News Forum

On Friday, May, 17^th graduate student leaders met with two graduate alumni over lunch to discuss leadership and the role of the graduate community at Dartmouth.

Student leaders, including Graduate Student Council (GSC) executive board members, met with Melody Brown Burkins and Allan Weatherwax, the current graduate alumni reps to the Dartmouth Alumni Council.

Burkins, who serves as Senior Director for Research and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Vermont, received her MS and PHD in earth sciences at Dartmouth. During her time here she also served as president of the GSC (1998-1999) and won the Hannah Croasdale Award for excellence in research and teaching.

Weatherwax , professor of physics and the Associate Dean of Science at Siena College, received his PhD in physics from Dartmouth in 1995. Weatherwax serves on numerous national and international committees and is currently a member of the Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He is an author of more than 75 engineering and science papers. The Weatherwax Glacier is named in his honor to recognize his research efforts in the Antarctic.

Both alums offered a great deal to Dartmouth during their time here and continue to do so with their position on the alumni council.

The discussion, joined by Dean of Graduate Studies, F. J. Kull, was organized to strengthen links between current and former graduate students.

The discussion was wide ranging. It began with a focus on career paths for graduate students. The group also got into a deep conversation about how the graduate community can better present its contributions to the wider alumni, showing what benefits graduate students bring in terms of supporting professors and students in education and research.

Speaking on the lunch, outgoing GSC President Julia Bradley-Cook said “It’s exciting to realize how quickly the graduate alumni network is growing, and how valuable it can be.”

Bradley-Cook continued “I hope that graduates from our programs consider staying involved, whether it is through the externship program, or promoting research through the alumni research grant.”

by Dan Durcan

In the coming year, Patricia Wadsworth, professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will join Melody Brown Burkins on the Graduate Alumni Council. She will be taking over from Allan Weatherwax, who is completing his time as a member of the council this spring. Professor Weatherwax earned his PhD in physics in 1995 and frequently returns to campus to provide guidance to graduate students. The Graduate Studies Office thanks Weatherwax for his active participation on the Alumni Council and in the graduate community more generally. “Alan Weatherwax has been a great graduate representative on the council, and we will miss his leadership,” observes Assistant Dean of Recruiting, Jane Seibel.

Professor Wadsworth is an active member of her local Dartmouth Alumni Club in the Pioneer Valley, and she is looking forward to becoming involved in the Graduate Alumni Council. She completed her PhD at Dartmouth in 1983, working with Professor Roger Sloboda. The Graduate Forum recently had the opportunity to speak with Professor Wadsworth about her time at Dartmouth and decision to join the Graduate Alumni Council.

Graduate Forum (GF): What inspired you to study biology at Dartmouth?

Patricia Wadsworth (PW): My decision to study at Dartmouth stemmed from working at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. I had completed my undergraduate degree in biology at St. Lawrence University, and I took a summer job at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. My boss at MBL was Ken Edds, who received his PhD degree working with Professor Robert Allen, who subsequently moved to Dartmouth as Chair of Biology. Dartmouth researchers often perform research at the Marine Biological Lab over the summers, and I actually worked with several others from Dartmouth there. Dr. Edds had very much enjoyed working with Professor Allen, and he encouraged me to pursue my PhD at Dartmouth.

GF: What types of activities were you involved in while a graduate student?

PW: I spent a lot of time working in the lab, but in addition to that I also participated as a graduate student representative to the biology faculty. There was not a Graduate Student Council at that time, but individual departments did have graduate student representatives to inform them of graduate student happenings and concerns, so I participated as a rep. I also really enjoyed the many outdoor activities that the Hanover area offers. I took up cross-country skiing and went to the Dartmouth Outing Club cabins. There was a lot of camaraderie amongst the biology graduate students, and we would have different evening gatherings throughout the term.

GF: How did your graduate experience at Dartmouth prepare you for your position as a professor?

PW: As a graduate student, I had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant for several different courses. I feel that being a TA was great preparation for the teaching that I do now. The undergraduate students at Dartmouth are very bright and working with them was both challenging and satisfying. Although at the time I was primarily interested in being in the lab and working on my research, I think it would have been much harder for me to transition to a faculty position had I not had the chance to observe Dartmouth professors teaching and work with undergraduates there.

GF: What was it that made you decide you wanted to be a part of the Graduate Alumni Council?

PW: There are really two reasons that I decided to get involved in the Alumni Council. The first is that as a professional, I feel that it is important to maintain connections with the institution where you studied. As a graduate student, you are heavily involved in the work of your advisor, and when you graduate, you tend to maintain that connection to your mentor as you become a young faculty member. However, it is also important to have broader connections to the institution as a whole and to have interactions with your other classmates. I think that at the time I graduated, there was less emphasis on mentoring activities and maintaining connections, but now there is starting to be more recognition of how important these mentoring connections are.

The second reason that I decided to join the Council was that I am already involved in the Pioneer Valley Dartmouth Alumni Club. My father-in-law, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1939, is very active in the Alumni Club, and I started attending events with him and really enjoyed them. They have annual dinners, activities for families, and other events two to three times a year. Based on my interactions with the Alumni Club, I decided that I would like to be more involved in the broader Dartmouth alumni community and joining the Council seemed like a great way to get involved.

GF: Do you have any specific goals for the Alumni Council?

PW: My main goal is to enhance the opportunities for graduate alumni to get involved in the Dartmouth community.

We thank Professor Wadsworth for taking the time to talk with us, and we look forward to working with her in the future to promote the work of the Graduate Alumni Council!

Like the rest of the world, Matthew Sturdevant, MALS ’08, was shocked and horrified when he first learned of the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., on December 14, 2012. But then he had to go to work and cover the unfolding tragedy for the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest daily newspaper.

A Courant staff writer since 2009 and a reporter for nearly 15 years, Sturdevant says, “Nothing could have prepared me for the mass murder of children. Many people feel the pain is still very raw. It’s harrowing and haunting, and yet it’s also uplifting to have seen a global outpouring of kindness in response to the tragedy.”

On April 15, Sturdevant was one of a team of Courant staffers recognized by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Runners-up to the Denver Post in the category of breaking news reporting, the Hartford Courant staff was cited “for its complete and sensitive coverage of the shooting massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and 6 adults, using digital tools as well as traditional reporting to tell the story quickly while portraying the stunned community’s grief.”

Sturdevant credits the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) faculty with helping him “expand my writing abilities,” and thus enabling him to convey such difficult news in an insightful way. He cites Professors Thomas Powers (a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist), Barbara S. Kreiger, and Sydney Lea as “hugely influential,” and says he chose a MALS nonfiction creative writing concentration over a journalism master’s program because he “wanted to broaden my learning and steep in the two years of a liberal arts education that Dartmouth provides.”

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Sturdevant

The Graduate Forum would like to congratulate Morgan Thompson on her recent publication in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Volume 20, Issue 1. Thompson, who defended her dissertation this fall in biochemistry, collaborated on the article with Ernest Heimsath, Timothy Gauvin, and Professor Henry Higgs, all of the Department of Biochemistry, and Dean Jon Kull of both the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Chemistry.

At Dartmouth, Thompson conducted research on proteins related to cell structure. She used a technique called X-ray crystallography to generate images of protein structures that are too small to see with even the most powerful microscope. Specifically, Thompson was interested in interactions between actin and formins, two proteins involved in facilitating cell movement. Actin molecules combine to form rigid filaments that give shape to cells, and formin molecules interact with actin to control actin filament growth.

In their recent article, Thompson and her collaborators investigated how formins promote actin filament elongation. Their work represents only the second example of a formin bound to actin visualized through crystallography, and the structure they modeled was probably closer to the way the proteins interact in nature than what has previously been observed. The process of crystallizing proteins to create structural images can cause them to act in ways that they would not naturally, explains Thompson, so it can be complicated to get images of physiological interactions. Research on the interaction of these proteins is significant because it increases our understanding of how cells change shape to move throughout the body, which is important for understanding various diseases, such as cancer.

One of Thompson’s main interests while at Dartmouth was in teaching, both undergraduates and younger students. She was a teaching assistant for four terms, for which she won the Graduate Teaching Award. Thompson also taught science to sixth graders in Enfield, New Hampshire, as part of a National Science Foundation Graduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in K-12 Education (GK-12) fellowship. In addition, Thompson led labs in several local fourth grade classrooms on the importance of hand washing, after her mother, a local fourth grade teacher, asked for her help in explaining germs to her students.

Thompson found spending time in the classroom especially rewarding—she recalls the thank you notes that she received from students after she had visited their classes. “One student even wrote me that it was the best day of his life!” she recalls. While she found her work in the lab very interesting, it was this time working with students and witnessing their developing interest in science that Thompson found particularly meaningful. She also feels that it is extremely important for Dartmouth, an institution with such a variety of resources, to contribute to the surrounding community.

As a result of her experiences, Thompson decided to pursue a career in teaching. She now works as a high school teacher at the Pingry School in New Jersey, where she teaches biology to students in ninth and tenth grade and a course in molecular biology methods to eleventh and twelfth graders. She enjoys her job, and, in particular, is excited that she can teach complex molecular methods to her students. Thompson notes that the methods she is teaching her juniors and seniors are “the same ones I used in my lab at Dartmouth.”

Thompson feels that her experiences as a graduate student at Dartmouth prepared her well for her new position in that she was able to develop her teaching skills as well as work on her research. She is grateful to the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) for the teaching support that they provided, as well as to her advisor, Dean Kull, who always encouraged her in all of her teaching and outreach endeavors. Having her dissertation work published in Nature is a satisfying culmination to her graduate career, and Thompson is eager to continue working with students to encourage others to be excited about science.

by Elizabeth Molina-Markham

The final seminar in the Graduate Studies series, “Becoming a Faculty Member,” was held on February 15. Two graduate alumni came back to Dartmouth to give their advice on how to successfully obtain an academic job: Allan Weatherwax, professor of physics and the dean of science at Siena College, and Rose Finn, associate professor and department head of physics and astronomy at Siena College. Both are on the selection board for new hires for the science fields at Siena College and have useful knowledge about how to get an academic job.

Before the Interview:

Before you even arrive for the interview, make sure you “do your homework” and that you “know where you are applying,” advised Professor Finn. You should know which faculty members you will be meeting with and read up on their research. Another extremely important point is to understand the type of institution where you are interviewing—is it a small college or a large university? Even before you step foot on the campus, you should come prepared with a research plan that is tailored to that school, commented Professor Weatherwax. Do not make the mistake of asking for resources that are not in line with the size and type of institution where you are interviewing because this shows that you did not do proper research before applying for the job.

During the Interview:

During the academic interview, you will be asked about your past research and what you would like to do for future research. You also may be given a topic in your field to give a sample lecture on. It is important to prepare extensively for these questions and lecture and to be able to clearly convey your research and ideas. Keep in mind that you may be discussing your research and techniques with people who are not in your field of study, so do not rely heavily on technical terms and phrases. During the formal, question-and-answer interview process, Professors Weatherwax and Finn agreed that you should remain humble. When it comes time to meet one-on-one with faculty, use the knowledge you have learned about each faculty member and do not be afraid to “ask people about themselves,” remarked Professor Finn. Being genuinely interested in your interviewer and their work is an easy way to be remembered.

When an Offer Has Been Made:

Once an offer has been made, it is time to negotiate, explained Professors Weatherwax and Finn. Have previous knowledge of the salary range of the position (either by asking directly or through the school’s human resources department). You can also ask for additional research start-up funds. If the salary or start-up funds cannot be negotiated, Professor Weatherwax explained that negotiating for use of equipment is your next step. Another issue to negotiate during this time is the job of your spouse/partner. While some schools cannot hire multiple family members in the same department due to institution rules, certain arrangements may be made for a spouse to become an adjunct or a three-quarter-time faculty member, depending on the situation.

In conclusion, in order to be a great candidate for an academic faculty position, acquire a postdoc (or two!), be prepared to discuss your research and future research plans in detail, research the department and faculty members at the new institution, and do not be afraid to negotiate once you have an offer.

by Molly Croteau

Celia Chen, a research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth in 1978 and her PhD in biology in 1994, was recently involved in negotiations in Switzerland as a part of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Chen represented Dartmouth as a member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Mercury Partnership.

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

Graduate Studies wants to congratulate Ernest Heimsath on his new position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Ernest recently defended his dissertation in biochemistry in December, under the guidance of Professor Henry Higgs. He will be moving down to Bethesda, Maryland, in March to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Bechara Kachar in the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), focusing on the functioning of auditory cells.

Ernest grew up in both Texas and Virginia and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), where he was supported by the NIGMS-funded Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) program. While a junior at UTSA, he participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program—now the Academic Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE) program—at Dartmouth. He enjoyed working in the Department of Biological Sciences that summer and appreciated the friendly, open-door policy of Dartmouth faculty. Ernest notes that he chose Dartmouth for graduate school partly as a result of this positive experience, as well as out of a desire to get to know a new area of the country.

While at Dartmouth, Ernest’s research has focused on polymerization of the protein, actin, which is the basis for many cellular structures. In particular, actin helps form filopodia, which are protrusions some cells use to sense their environment and help them migrate throughout the body. In a recent article published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Volume 287, Issue 5, Ernest examined a particular type of formin, which are proteins that regulate actin polymerization. He discovered that one formin in particular, called FMNL3, has unique effects on actin dynamics, which help to explain its role in assembling filopodia.

Ernest met Dr. Kachar in 2011 at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting, after being inspired by his work on sensory neurons in the inner ear, which was recently featured in Cell Picture Show. Ernest’s work at the NIDCD will relate to his previous research in that these neurons contain structures called stereocilia, which share much of the same actin-based architecture as filopodia, although they can be orders of magnitude larger and also more stable. Once formed during development, stereocilia last throughout your entire life and do not regenerate. As stereocilia are directly responsible for hearing, and dysfunctions in many of the components within them are attributed to hearing disorders, Ernest is excited about the clinical relevancy of the work he will be doing.

Ernest observes that his experience in Professor Higgs’ lab has prepared him well for this next career move. He says that he will miss the sense of community in the lab, as well as the unique Dartmouth environment. Dartmouth professors, explains Ernest, are “approachable,” and “faculty really care about developing grad students.” They are “down-to-earth” and open to being corrected, which is conducive to productive learning and research. Overall, Ernest is very satisfied with his graduate experience and looking forward to getting to know another new area of the country as a postdoc.

We wish him the best in his new position!

by Elizabeth Molina-Markham

For almost a year now Rebecca Munsterer, a 2005 graduate of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program, has been publishing a novel, The Stonehouse Caper, online, one page at a time.

Publishing fiction serially is not a new idea. Charles Dickens released all his novels in installments, often in weekly or monthly magazines. Munsterer studied Dickens and other Victorian era writers as an English major at Colby College, where she focused on creative writing. After earning her certification to teach high school English at Colby, Munsterer wanted to continue her education as well as work on her writing. She sought a curriculum broader in scope than what is normally available in traditional Master of Fine Arts programs and chose MALS at Dartmouth.

About her experience in the MALS program, Munsterer says she especially enjoyed the small workshop-style classes and an opportunity to experiment with a variety of genres: journalism, creative non-fiction, and screenwriting. For her thesis, she wrote five thirty-minute screenplays, comprising On Campus: Creative Non-Fictitious Television for the College Bound Audience.

“Learning to write well also makes you a better reader,” she observes, “and the critical reading skills I developed in the program have been particularly useful in my work in the Admissions Office.” Hired part-time to read applications while still a MALS student, Munsterer is senior associate director of the Office of Admissions at Dartmouth, reading an average of one hundred and sixty undergraduate applications a week in the busy season. During other parts of the year she recruits prospective students in New Jersey, Florida, and abroad.

After completing the MALS program, Munsterer wanted to experiment with composing fiction online and searched the web to see who was working in this domain. “There were blogs to follow and some people who were posting via email, but I didn’t find anyone who was writing serially online.” She believed in the idea enough to put up her own money to create a logo and website, and subsequently launched Novel Nibble, with a goal “to promote literacy and entertainment—one page at a time.”

Initially, she thought an important element of her experiment would be interactivity that would allow readers to provide feedback and ideas—to “take a nibble.” She quickly found that readers just wanted an escape and were not necessarily interested in getting actively involved in helping to develop the story. She also discovered that readers were really interested in her and the writing process. “They want to know how I discipline myself to write every day, how I motivate myself, things like that. I quickly learned that there are a lot of people out there who want to write a book.”

After exactly one year, The Stonehouse Caper will end with the final installment coming on March 23. Noting some of the limitations of her publishing style, Munsterer says, “I don’t think the format is exactly what my readers want.” But what began as an experiment has been a huge success, with more than 15,000 visits to the website since it was launched and a host of loyal followers. The best thing that has happened is that it has led to a book deal.

In April 2012, Munsterer attended a media panel at the Greener Ventures Entrepreneurship Conference at the Tuck School of Business, at which she met Carey Albertine, co-founder of In This Together Media. Albertine began to follow Munsterer’s online novel and, subsequently, hired her to write a book. “They wanted a book about Christmas with strong female characters,” Munsterer says—so she wrote Mrs. Claus and The School of Christmas Spirit. Published in November 2012, the book sold well and for one week was the number one children’s holiday book.

About the future, Munsterer says the online experiment will continue as A Nibble a Day in which she will publish her stories, poems, and reflections in daily installments of less than five hundred words. But the big news is that the Christmas book was so successful that In This Together Media has asked Munsterer to write a second holiday book. Stay tuned!

by Michael Beahan

The Graduate Studies Office and I are seeking nominations for a Graduate Alumni Representative to sit on the Dartmouth Alumni Council. Nominees are expected to represent the interests of graduates of Dartmouth’s Graduate Programs, drawing on their own experience as grad students at Dartmouth to guide them in promoting the interests of the programs.

Nominees should be exemplary members of the graduate alumni community who have a real interest in developing and strengthening relationships between students past and present. Founded at the beginning of the 20^th century, the Alumni Council has long served as the major connector between the alumni community and Dartmouth. The council acts as an intermediary between the two institutions, keeping the alumni informed on the developments in Hanover and making sure that Dartmouth is aware of alumni sentiment. The council also nominates alumni candidates to the Board of Trustees and facilitates alumni service.

The newly appointed representative will replace councilmember Allan Weatherwax, ’95 A&S, joining councilmember Melody Brown Burkins in the graduate program delegation. Weatherwax earned a Ph.D. in physics from the College. Brown Burkins studied earth sciences, earning a masters and a Ph.D. Now, she’s the Senior Director of Research & Strategic Initiatives at the University of Vermont. In an interview with the Graduate Forum back in September, Burkins Brown said she was “impressed that the Dartmouth Alumni Council works so diligently to both connect alums back to campus and to truly represent the diversity, range, and breadth of Dartmouth’s alumni community.”

Nominations can be sent to Jane Seibel, Assistant Dean for Graduate Recruiting and Diversity. Please feel free to nominate any graduate alumnus – including yourself – who’s voice would be a positive addition to the conversation happening here at Dartmouth.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Sincerely,

F. Jon Kull

Dean of Graduate Studies

Dartmouth’s Graduate Studies Office coordinates a Graduate Studies Externship Program, pairing current graduate students with alumni from Dartmouth’s graduate programs.  As part of the program, students spend a day shadowing their alumni host, becoming acquainted with their host’s place of employment and discussing professional goals. For his externship, Justin Richardson, a student in the Department of Earth Sciences, spent the day with Dr. George Linkletter, who has an AB and an AM in geology from Dartmouth and a PhD from the University of Washington. Dr. Linkletter is the senior vice president of the environmental consulting firm, ENVIRON. Justin writes of his externship:

The experience and insight gained from my externship with Dr. Linkletter was invaluable to my career development. Dr. Linkletter is an accomplished scientist and environmental consultant in Irvine, California, who credits his scientific success to his time at Dartmouth College. We began chatting in his office, which had a wonderful view of Orange County and a framed picture of Dartmouth Hall above his computer. As he told wonderful tales of faculty and life in Hanover, I was proud to be at Dartmouth College in the very department where he had studied.

Dr. Linkletter then offered a unique view of research outside of academia; he has worked both as a research scientist and as an environmental consultant. Dr. Linkletter described his research experience and work with consulting firms, all of which showed the applicability of skills learned in graduate school. Afterwards, Dr. Linkletter introduced me to some of ENVIRON’s past and current projects on soil and groundwater contamination. I noted that a consultant approaches a problem very differently from a research scientist. During the two conferences I attended, it was fascinating how their work moved between science, law, and business. Not only do they deal with scientific questions, but they are also held to legal timelines and financial guidelines.

Later in the afternoon, I met with two research scientists and discussed how they navigated from graduate school to a fulfilling profession. A theme emerged in these conversations: if academia does not suit you, do not feel compelled to pursue an academic career. The two scientists currently work on challenging scientific questions. However, they have greater control over where they live and the hours they work compared to when they worked in academia. A consultant’s work is more challenging and stressful than work in academia. The health and finances of residents facing contamination issues rests directly on their ability to properly conduct a study, correctly interpret the results, and act based on those results. However, Dr. Linkletter emphasized that the size and function of environmental consulting firms differ; some are small, personable firms, while others are large institutions with many employees.

As the workday came to a close, I was happy to know that working in consulting can be so captivating and rewarding.

by Justin Richardson