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| Title: Professor, College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences |
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Department: Chemistry
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Courses you teach: Bioinformatics Applications, Physical Biochemistry, Biochemistry I, and Advanced Biochemistry.
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What’s in your CD player right now: An Eric Clapton CD that my daughter gave me.
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A book that changed your life: My college freshman chemistry book by Linus Pauling. Besides being a great chemist, Pauling was a visionary about the applications of chemistry to biology and that vision inspired my career.
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| What you miss about being an undergraduate: It's been a while, but I guess the opportunity to take courses across the spectrum of human learning. I missed economics and still wish I had time to take the introductory courses. |
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On being a Faculty-in-Residence
"I find that living among students is stimulating and sustains my impulse to always think young! I live in Shelton Hall—a great place.
"I socialize with the students, hold 'open hours' for them to stop by my apartment to chat (or get a bit of tutoring), meet regularly with the Residence Hall Association, and organize programs that happen several times per year. Past programs have included: a panel presentation on ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology); a debate on human cloning; and trips to the Science Museum, the John F. Kennedy Library, and the Museum of Fine Arts (to see the 'Pharaohs of the Sun' exhibit—after a special talk by an archaeology faculty member who is the editor of an encyclopedia of Egyptian archaeology).
"Since Shelton Hall (in its previous incarnation as the Hotel Shelton) was the place where Eugene O'Neill died, I have also had activities surrounding O'Neill and his work. (My apartment, by the way, is on the floor where he died—which the University has designated the 'Writers' Corridor.') We had Scott Edmiston (of CFA and the Huntington Theater) come to give a talk about O'Neill and a group of students did a reading of Long Day's Journey into Night. I have also hosted study breaks and other parties in my apartment.
"I find the undergraduates quite pleasant neighbors. Contrary to my apprehensions when I signed up for the job, they are mostly exceptionally polite and friendly, and only rarely rowdy. Maybe it's just Shelton, but I sense a level of maturity in most of them that goes beyond what I remember from college days."
On Science
"I work in bioinformatics: the application of computer science to interpret the vast amount of molecular data now available on the make-up of living things (e.g., the human genome and the genomes of about 300 other organisms, the database of protein structures—now containing more than 25,000 structures, typically with thousands of atoms in each, and many other huge collections of biological data).
"I guess my discipline is biochemistry, though nowadays there are so many overlapping fields (molecular biology, cell biology, molecular genetics, chemical biology, etc.) that it's difficult to know where one starts and the other stops. At any rate, I'm a chemist who wants to understand how life operates at the molecular level and how it got that way.
"I read fairly broadly about other scientific areas, and I can say confidently that nothing else comes close to biochemistry in terms of the exciting discoveries that have been made in the past 50 years and those that are pouring forth every day. Not only does this mean that what we biochemists do is contributing more and more to human health and well-being, but it also means that some of the greatest mysteries (e.g., heredity, growth, development, even consciousness!) that humans have wondered about since before the dawn of history are in the process of being unveiled. It is breathtaking, and I literally can't wait to get up in the morning to get to my latest copies of Science and Nature or other journals."
On Teaching
"I try to maximize what my students learn. Above all, knowledge and learning are not static. My own field is particularly dynamic, so I would be utterly obsolete if I didn't continue learning the results of recent research, but I think that's probably true of all subjects. My teaching style tends to emphasize the visual (it's a fact that the vast majority of the information we humans acquire comes in visually). I like good graphics, and I'm fortunate that there are some wonderful ways to depict biomolecular structures to make it plain how they perform their functions. I like to interrogate the class, and I have even gone to the point of bringing candy into class so that I can toss pieces to the students who give good answers to my questions in lecture. I occasionally tell jokes (though the term 'chemical humor' is pretty much an oxymoron!) and sometimes do other outrageous things in order to break the monotony and keep the students' attention. I encourage participation and usually tell my classes my favorite Chinese proverb: I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.
"There's also another side to my teaching. Biochemistry (any subject, for that matter) isn't just a mass of technical arcana (though if you like that sort of thing it has a lot to offer); it's a human enterprise. I try to emphasize this by bringing in examples to illustrate my topics that involve current graduate students or my faculty colleagues. I also include a few historical anecdotes from time to time, hoping to encourage the notion that great scientists are also mere mortals. And finally, I try to convey the notion that everyone belongs in and can play the game. Students need to develop confidence in their ability to reason clearly about science and to make discoveries on their own." |
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