Grad News Forum

Graduate Student Appreciation Week, commencing April 6, is an annual celebration of the contributions that graduate students bring to Dartmouth. The week combines a wide range of scholarly and social activities.

Graduate students work hard.  Each one knows late nights and early mornings. However, all being said, you will have to look hard to find the graduate student who does not think this is all worthwhile. Graduate students’ dedication to their research and to the education of undergraduates is an invaluable contribution to Dartmouth. The research undertaken in both our PhD and Master’s programs, in both arts and sciences, reinforces Dartmouth as a world-class educational institution. TA-ships see graduate students burning the midnight oil, grading papers and then taking time away from their own work to spend time with students. Those who have done it know how much students benefit from the support of a TA, as a mentor and a role model. Despite the heavy workload and stressful life, graduate student’s community outreach and volunteer work is award-renowned, both in the local community and abroad.

Preparations for the poster session in Alumni Hall on Wednesday 10th April, 5pm-7:30pm.

So every year by the time it gets to spring term, some appreciation is due.

The idea for Graduate Appreciation Week came from the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS). In 1993, NAGPS established Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week (GPSAW) as a mechanism to support and appreciate graduate and professional students. Dartmouth proudly sponsors this decade-long tradition.

F. Jon Kull, dean of Graduate Studies, commented on Graduate Appreciation Week:

“I really think it is crucial for the work of graduate students at Dartmouth to be highlighted and appreciated. Being a graduate student is a fantastic thing; it shows a true dedication to learning and advancing in a field or discipline. Dartmouth as an institution is fortunate to have so many enthusiastic and talented graduate students. Their contribution is felt everyday.”

The full range of events can be found here. Keep an eye out for the Graduate Poster Session. The Poster Session displays the best of graduate student talent. There you will see the range of research undertaken and all the hard work paying off. President Carol L. Folt will announce the winners of the Graduate Faculty Mentoring Award at the session. In short, the poster session really brings together many aspects of the graduate student experience.

“Graduate Appreciation Week gives the wider community the opportunity to take stock of their valuable contributions,” says Kull, “The schedule of events shows students they are valued, and the poster session allows their work to be displayed. The poster session is a great opportunity to learn more about Dartmouth Graduate Studies and some of the fantastic things achieved here.”

After the poster session is Pub Night at Molly’s Restaurant and Bar—we all need a break once in a while.

For more information about some of the achievements of Dartmouth’s graduate students, keep posted to the Grad News Forum and our Facebook and Twitter streams.

by Dan Durcan

On Thursday, February 21, the Department of Chemistry hosted a graduate interdepartmental tea, with brownies that had the entire room smelling like chocolate.

The tea was the second in a series of events organized by the Graduate Student Council. The first tea event was held in January in the Mathematics Department. The goal is simple: monthly gatherings to facilitate networking and bring together Dartmouth’s graduate students from every field of study.

Members of the Department of Chemistry were warm hosts and added personal touches with little laboratory flask drawings on their welcome board. Students were fashionably late, but soon enough, Burke Hall’s Marx Lounge reached a near capacity crowd, with grad students from various departments attending. The teas, bottled beverages, fresh fruits, crackers and cheese, and cookies and brownies seemed nothing more than a catalyst for socializing, though I did hear the chocolate chip cookies were delicious.

“This time it was better advertised,” said GSC’s Academic Chair Richard Lopez, pleased to see attendees from beyond Burke’s walls. “I think there are people coming from five or six different departments here now.”

The date and whereabouts of the next interdepartmental tea are not yet decided upon, but the GSC plans on arranging one every month. Each tea will be held at and hosted by a different department, establishing a monthly occasion for graduate students to meet and mingle in a more cross-disciplinary setting. Check out the Gazetteer and the Graduate Studies’ Facebook page for updates on future events.

by Niusha Shodja

photos by Niusha Shodja

Zak Gezon, graduate student in EEB, moving insect traps to field sites in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab.

The Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) program continues to thrive with the addition of two new graduate students, Elizabeth Reinke and Christine Urbanowicz. Both Elizabeth and Christine were awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships, extremely prestigious and coveted fellowships.

During the past year, current students received an impressive number of fellowships and grant awards. Sam Fey and Marcus Welker both received the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Research Fellowships. In addition, Tom Kraft also received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, joining Vivek Venkataraman and Carissa Aoki, who have received this highly respected fellowship in prior years. Marcus Welker was awarded an NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship, Zak Gezon and Christine Urbanowicz were awarded NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Fellowships, Elizabeth Reinke was named a Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) fellow, and Laurel Symes was named an NSF Graduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in K-12 Education (GK-12) fellow.

Graduate students applied for and were awarded a significant number of research grants. Some highlights include a grant from the Garden Club of America awarded to Carissa Aoki, a grant from the Explorers Club awarded to Julia Bradley-Cook, and a grant from the Orthopterists Society awarded to Laurel Symes. These honors, as well as other grants, resulted in research that was presented at national and international meetings. Highlights include Mike Logan’s nomination for the Best Student Presentation Award by the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology at the 2013 meeting and Julia Bradley-Cook’s nomination for the Judges’ Choice Award for the 2012 IGERT Poster and Video Competition at the IGERT Principal Investigators Meeting. Research from current graduate students in the program has resulted in at least ten lead- or co-authored publications in the last year as well as a number of manuscripts in review.

For more details on any of these items and up-to-date information, please see our home page.

by Rebecca Irwin

Matt Cain

The past year has seen a number of awards and exciting events for the graduate program in the Department of Chemistry. Matt Cain, who worked with Professor David Glueck, shared the Hannah T. Croasdale Award, given annually to acknowledge those who best exemplify the qualities of a scholar. His work was also chosen to grace the cover of the journal, Inorganic Chemistry, Volume 49, Issue 17.

In March, Nick Tito and Xin Su took part in the Germany Exchange Program run by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS). They participated in poster sessions, lectures, and research site visits with ten other graduate students in and around Rostock, Germany. In July, Nick co-chaired the inaugural Graduate Research Seminar in Polymer Physics, which preceded the Polymer Physics Gordon Conference, at which he presented a poster. In August, he was one of fifteen graduate students selected nationwide to participate in the American Chemical Society Publications Summer Institute, working to develop new tools for online access. Nick was also recognized for his superb undergraduate teaching assistant work–he was the recipient of the Department of Chemistry’s John H. Wolfenden Teaching Prize.

Xin and Justin Foy were selected to attend the American Chemical Society International-Domestic Student Summit held in November in Raleigh, North Carolina. The main goal of the summit was “to discuss promoting cross-cultural understanding, skill flow, and increasing international collaboration.” They presented a poster and gave a talk.  Xin and Justin are students in Professor Ivan Aprahamian’s lab. Xin is also the Dartmouth representative to the NESACS Younger Chemists Committee (NSYCC), and Justin is the chemistry representative to the Graduate Student Council.

This fall the department welcomed six new graduate students to our program. They are now assigned to research groups and starting their research while also taking courses and serving as teaching assistants. We wish them the best as they progress through our program!

by John Winn

Thalia Wheatley, Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Science (PBS), discusses her approach to graduate mentoring at Dartmouth. Selected as one of this year’s recipients of the Faculty Mentor Award by Dartmouth’s Graduate Student Council (GSC), Professor Wheatley works to keep her graduate students happy, because she believes that happy, self-motivated researchers are more apt to produce creative work.

by Kerry Landers

In a recent editorial, the journal Nature stated that, when it comes to climate change research,“Scientists must acknowledge that they are in a street fight.” Is this true? Has public discourse about climate change become so heated that even a respected scientific journal calls it “a street fight”? As graduate students in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program here at Dartmouth, we have been fascinated by the disregard for science in shaping public policy in our federal government. We have often asked ourselves why this is the case, and quickly realized the complexities of this question. A few months ago we decided to formally address this question by organizing a multi-day series centered on the theme of how politics and rhetoric subvert science in shaping public policy, with climate change being the major case study.

The Communication Street Fight: Scientists, the Media, and Politicians in the Climate Change Debate

-Talk: Shawn Otto, April 30, 4 pm, Oopik Auditorium, Life Sciences Center
Free and open to the public

Otto is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and filmmaker who advocates for “smarter politics” in our national discourse on scientific topics. Along with other advocates, he helped organize an online discussion on scientific questions between candidates Obama and McCain in the 2008 election. He has also written a book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America about how the American discourse on science has changed, and the impact that has on policymaking.

-Talk: Dr. Peter Frumhoff, May 10, 4 pm, Oopik Auditorium, Life Sciences Center
Free and open to the public

Dr. Frumhoff is the Director of Science and Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This spring, the UCS will launch a national project on “Science and Democracy,” placing them in an ideal position to address this topic. Dr. Frumhoff is a global change ecologist, who has served diverse roles in the scientific and policy arenas. He was also a lead author in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment.

-Film Screening: “Bidder 70”, May 14, time and location tbd
Free and open to the public

This event addresses the role of activism in the public discourse on climate change. Acclaimed author Terry Tempest Williams will lead a discussion following the film. On December 19, 2008, Tim DeChristopher, as Bidder #70, derailed a federal oil and gas lease auction, by bidding on and winning 22,000 acres of land with no intention to pay or drill, effectively safeguarding thousands of acres of federal land. DeChristopher’s disruption of the auction enabled the Obama Administration and Interior Secretary Salazar to invalidate the auction, citing inadequate analysis of the environmental effects on surrounding areas and failure to assess contributions to global climate change. For his disruption of the auction, DeChristopher was indicted and convicted on two federal charges.

Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies, the Department of Biological Sciences, and the Graduate Student Council

Contacts: Carissa Aoki — Carissa.F.Aoki.GR@dartmouth.edu, Jeff Lombardo –Jeffrey.A.Lombardo.GR@dartmouth.edu, Chelsea Vario -Chelsea.L.Vario.GR@dartmouth.edu

Hua Yang is a second year graduate student in Dartmouth’s Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. Originally from Anhui providence in eastern China, Hua received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Beijing University, and has served as director of Dartmouth’s Chinese Student Scholar Association (CSSA) since June. A member of Professor Bradley Duchaine’s lab, Hua’s graduate research examines prosopagnosia—a cognitive disorder which prevents the recognition of faces by affected patients.

Funded by both the Chinese Embassy in New York City and Dartmouth’s Graduate Student Council (GSC), the CSSA hosts events which help students and scholars from China celebrate traditional Chinese festivals, and meet students from different backgrounds. This past year, Hua organized community-building events in New Hampshire with Chinese Student groups from other institutions—including Brown, Harvard, and Northeastern—and worked with thee undergraduate student groups—Dartmouth’s Chinese Culture Society (DCCS), the Chinese Dance Troupe, and China Care Club—to plan activities that could be enjoyed by both undergraduate and graduate students.

“In the past, the CSSA didn’t host that many events with Dartmouth’s undergraduates. However, upon being appointed director of the CSSA, I thought ‘the more the better,’ so I chose to reach out to the undergraduate student groups this year. As a result, more students from mainland China have attended the CSSA’s events, and I think that a larger percentage of Dartmouth’s student body have experienced traditional Chinese culture,” says Hua.

In the future, the CSSA plans to coordinate more events with other Dartmouth student groups, and will continue to increase campus awareness of Chinese culture, issues, and politics. In addition to the holiday celebrations, performance events, and outings hosted by the CSSA, Hua hopes that in the coming years the student group will invite scholars from Dartmouth and other academic institutions to talk about issues like Chinese politics, economics, and culture.

Hua’s graduate research builds directly upon the work she did at Beijing University. As an undergraduate, Hua worked in a vision science lab where she examined how an individual’s visual perception is shaped by their visual experience. Currently, Hua is a member of Prof. Bradley Duchaine’s lab at Dartmouth, and is researching the cognitive disorder Prosopagnosia, or “face blindness” as it is commonly called.

“People who suffer from prosopagnosia are unable to recognize other’s faces. Depending on the severity of the disorder, face blindness has the potential to significantly impact an individual’s social life. My research focuses on both the developmental processes which lead to the disorder and explores if face recognition and impairment is strictly a human trait, or whether other primates also share a common underlying mechanism of this disorder,” explains Hua.

Both the research on face blindness being done in Hua’s lab and the cognitive disorder itself have received a large amount of press over the past years. This March, Professor Duchaine was interviewed by CSB correspondent Lesley Stahl in a two-part series on prosopagnosia which aired on 60 Minutes, and since 2010, articles on face blindness have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Germánico, The New Yorker, The Sunday Times, and radio shows including National Public Radio (NPR).

“The condition of face blindness often follows a traumatic accident where an individual’s brain is damaged, but it can also occur during the cognitive development of an individual. Currently, my lab is testing individuals for prosopagnosia so that we can more fully understand both the causes of face blindness and the condition itself, explains Hua. “While there is currently no cure for face blindness, I hope that the research my lab is doing will one day help people who suffer from the disorder.”

To increase the population sample they screen for prosopagnosia, Hua’s lab has used media outlets including local television and radio stations, and a website—which has been translated into six languages—to raise awareness of the research being done on the disorder at Dartmouth. While airtime on local television and radio channels allow members of the Duchaine lab to reach individuals in Northeast, the website allows subjects around the world to create an account, and test themselves for prosopagnosia at their computers.

“This past year, I translated the website into Chinese,” explains Hua. “While there is no substitute for testing people for face blindness in our lab at Dartmouth, the online test allow us to collect data from various world populations.”

In addition to the studies that she is conducting on prosopagnosia, Hua’s graduate research also examines other cognitive aspects of human vision, including object recognition and visual consciousness. In her studies, Hua utilizes a combination of scientific methods including the computation modeling of physiologic and psychophysical data.

“I guess you could say that I’m committed to breaking down communication barriers,” says Hua. “The programs I coordinate with the CSSA help students and scholars from China to communicate with individuals whose native language is English, and my graduate research on face blindness explores a disorder which prevents patients from communicating with others.”

by Wesley Whitaker

When Random House published Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax in 1971, Newsweek magazine called it “a hard-sell ecological allegory.” The book received a lukewarm reception from the public initially, as English Professor Donald E. Pease, the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities, explains in this video and in his Seuss biography, Theodor SEUSS Geisel (Oxford University Press, 2010).

“Some of Dr. Seuss’s most loyal fans expressed their disappointment at the way the tale’s message supplanted Dr. Seuss’s zaniness for its own sake,” Pease wrote. “The book did not get onto the best-seller lists until the environmental movement picked it up.”

Vist the Dartmouth Now to read the full story.

Born in San Diego, CA, Justin Richardson is a first-year graduate student in Dartmouth’s Earth Sciences department. Describing himself as “the soil man,” Justin’s research examines how toxic metals are transported in upland forest soils. As an undergraduate at University of California, Riverside, Justin worked as a Soil Science Adviser at his campus’s organic community garden, and for the nine months that he has been a member of the Dartmouth graduate community, he has used his knowledge of soils to assist instructors with the educational courses held at the Dartmouth Organic Farm. At the community farm in Southern California and Dartmouth’s Organic Farm, Justin applied his knowledge of sustainable farming methods to control the nutrient levels in each farm’s soil.

Justin’s graduate research builds upon his deep-seated interest in soil science and environmental sustainability. As a graduate student, Justin is researching the ability of soils from different regions of the northeastern United States to retain mercury—a toxic metal released into the atmosphere during coal combustion—and lead—a heavy metal released by automobiles before leaded gasoline was phased out in the 1970s. The organic matter and mineral content present within soils creates a buffer that slows the leeching of these metals into the region’s subterranean aquifers; once in the aquifers, these metals gradually move up the food chain. Though research suggests the lead that enters our waterways is not absorbed by humans, it has been proven that humans absorb mercury through the consumption of predatory fish that feed in contaminated waters.

“Though mercury isn’t good for you, I still enjoy eating locally caught fish,” says Justin. “You just have to watch which species you consume.”

Currently, Justin is examining the heavy-metal retention properties of both the organic matter and mineral content of various soils, which differ greatly from region to region. Comprised primarily of decomposing plant matter, the organic structures of a forest’s floor determines how well it is able to retain metals: in evergreen forests, the carbon structures of the fallen pine needles are relatively stable and are able to hold metals for longer than the carbon structures of the downed leaves in deciduous forests, which fall from the hardwoods of New England each autumn.

The mineral content of a soil is the final buffer that slows the leaching of lead and mercury into the waterways of the Northeast. After passing through the forest floor, different minerals hold toxic metals before they move into the subsoil. Recent studies suggest that the greater the clay content of a soil, the better it is at retaining toxic metals. Currently, Justin is examining the ability of New England’s soils, which vary in their clay content, to retain lead and mercury.

“Although there aren’t that many coal-burning plants in New England, there is a major mercury problem in this area,” says Justin. “The mercury released by coal plants in the midwestern United States travels through the atmosphere, and ends up in our soils.”

This summer, Justin helped teach laboratory sections held at the Dartmouth Organic Farm to the school’s ecological agriculture class. Located three miles up river from Dartmouth’s campus, the Organic farm is an educational facility that teaches students methods for sustainable food production. Unlike the organic community garden Justin worked at as an undergraduate—which is divided into small land plots that students and community members manage independently—Dartmouth’s Organic Farm is not partitioned, which allows for greater control over both the nutrient levels in the soil and the prevention of parasitical crop damage through organic farming methods. Justin explains that this structural feature of Dartmouth’s Organic Farm makes the facility well suited for teaching.

“One thing that’s unique about Dartmouth’s Organic Farm is that the farm is built upon the official ‘Dartmouth series soil,’” explains Justin. “The official soil taxonomic name for many of the low lying areas along the Connecticut River Valley is named after our school, and I think that’s something that Dartmouth students should know.”

To become involved in Dartmouth’s farming community, drop by the organic farm anytime to learn about its seasonal happenings. In the summer, students run a farmstand outside of the Collis Center where they sell fresh produce to the community. If you’re new to horticulture, Dartmouth’s Organic Farm holds “work days” designed to teach students the basics of sustainable farming; the farm also hosts pot-luck dinners on a regular basis for everyone who helps out at the farm.

If you’d like to learn more about Dartmouth’s Organic Farm, or are interested in soil science, it’s easy to spot Justin in Hanover: his NH license plate is “SOILSCI.”

by Wesley Whitaker

While graduate students learn many technical skills on the road to their PhD, one of the most important (and difficult) aspects of a becoming a professor is often not taught in the classroom: how to become a good mentor.

On January 25, 2012, the Graduate Studies Office hosted a workshop for graduate students interested in developing their own mentoring skills while learning about the trials and tribulations of ‘mentoring.’ The third workshop in the multiple-part series “Becoming a Faculty Member,” the panel discussion included Joe BelBruno from the Chemistry department, David Bucci and Ann Clark from PBS, Jim Gorham from Micro/Immunology (primary appointment in Pathology), and Ross Virginia from the Department of Earth Science and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Proficient at mentoring themselves, each of the five panelists has been selected by their students as outstanding mentors and has previously won the Faculty Mentoring Award.

During the lunch discussion, the faculty members explained how their own methods of mentoring have developed throughout the course of their careers. Several of the panelists described less than ideal graduate advisors and postdoc experiences in which feedback and explicit instruction were extremely limited, if given at all. Noting that many new professors tend to mentor in the way that they themselves were mentored, the panelists agreed that getting to know the motivations of each individual student in order to best help them achieve their own unique goals is key to a successful mentorship.

“I was allowed to follow my research interests,” recalls Joseph BelBruno of his own graduate school experience. As a result, BelBruno says that he strives to cultivate a laboratory atmosphere in which he remains present and accessible, yet still allows his students to work comfortably at their own pace.

“I don’t check in on people on the weekends,” says BelBruno. “I find it counterproductive. However, you definitely need to have a proactive style in the first few years.”

For Professor Jim Gorham, it’s accessibility and caring that make the difference between a good mentor and a mediocre one. Explaining how his graduate advisor had “a very laissez-faire attitude” towards lab management, Gorham described how he has adapted his own mentorship style to provide the right level of supervision and feedback for each student. As some students require a more involved style of mentorship while others prefer a hands-off method, all of the panelists stressed that it’s imperative to tailor mentoring approaches to each individual student.

PBS Professor David Bucci noted that he actively resists micro-managing his students, instead allowing them space to make their own mistakes. “I like to let my students fail a little bit,” Bucci said. “It’s important to disassociate how a student reflects on you, and allow them to have their own experiences.  I think it’s better than constantly stepping in and finishing [tasks in the lab] for them.”

“It’s not all up to one person—we all make mistakes,” says Ann Clark, a PBS professor. Stressing the importance of students taking an active role in their own professional development, Clark suggested that it is very helpful to get additional perspectives outside of your research group, department, and even your school. Similarly, Bucci noted that it’s “nearly impossible” to serve all of the mentoring needs of each student in his lab. “It took me a while to become comfortable with not having ALL of the answers to some of my students’ questions,” says Bucci.

For Ross Virginia, explaining his own obligations and responsibilities as a faculty member ultimately creates a more relaxed lab atmosphere—and learning environment—for his students. “We’re in this together,” he notes. “Faculty are people, too—we like to avoid conflict as much as anyone. It might not be comfortable, but you need to ask for feedback on how you are doing.”

For older graduate students who are looking to develop their own mentoring skills, taking on supervisory roles within the lab can help prepare those pursuing careers in academia. Pointing to the abundance of “great undergraduates who want to come into labs and help,” Virginia suggested becoming involved in programs such as WISP (Women in Science Project) that allow burgeoning graduate student mentors opportunities to interact with younger students.

“Having interns is a nice snapshot of what it’s like to be a faculty member,” explains Clark, noting that balancing mentoring duties while simultaneously keeping up with your own research is a requisite as a professor. This balance between maintaining a productive lab and teaching students to become independent scholars was a challenge voiced by all of the panelists, and one that they expressed they continually work hard at developing.

“Dartmouth is an educational institution as well as a research institute,” stresses Gorham.  “If you don’t focus on educating students, allowing them to learn from their mistakes, you might develop great lab technicians, but not scientists.”

 by Erin O’Flaherty