Published online 18 March 2009
Postdoc journal
As simple as possible
Sam Walcott
Sam Walcott is a postdoc in theoretical biophysics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Is my marketability more important than my curiosity?
Sitting in an empty lab, surrounded by a dark campus, I think to myself: "Why do I want to be a scientist?" I recall a story my father told me. Unclear about the practical application of a difficult measurement, someone asked physiologist A. V. Hill: why did you do the experiment? Hill paused, then said: "Because it amused me." I want to be a scientist to satisfy my curiosity about the world.
Staring at my first assistant-professor application, I think of what amuses me and satisfies my curiosity. I started my current project with a complex conceptual model for muscle activation. Recalling Henry David Thoreau's advice to "simplify, simplify", I stripped away the complexity with careful assumptions. Then I found an analytical expression whose taut curve hugged the numerically generated points of the complex model. This process of making a problem, in Einstein's words, "as simple as possible, but not simpler" is what amuses me.
I send my application into cyberspace and wonder about my prospects. Late last year, theoretical and applied mechanics at Cornell, the department where I received my PhD, ceased to exist. The dean merged it into the more experiment-driven (and more fundable) mechanical engineering department. Is there a place for someone whose passion lies more on the theoretical side? Must I ignore what amuses me in favour of what makes me marketable?
Postdoc Journal Keepers 2009
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Julia BoughnerJulia Boughner is a postdoc in evolutionary developmental biology at the University of Calgary, Canada.
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Bryan VentersBryan Venters is a postdoc in biochemistry and molecular biology at Pennsylvania State University.
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Joanne IsaacJoanne Isaac was a postdoc studying the effect of climate change on biodiversity at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. She is now in the United States so that her husband can complete a postdoc.
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Sam WalcottSam Walcott is a postdoc in theoretical biophysics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
