All posts by Kiri

Call for GradStarter Projects! Submit by June 15th

Do you have a great idea for a new graduate student or postdoc initiative? Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies wants to hear it!

Submit your ideas to GradStarter!

What is GradStarter?

GradStarter is designed to help fund pilot projects that are innovative, promote academic achievement, and intellectually engage Rice graduate students and postdocs in your program and beyond.

GradStarter has funded several student-driven projects, such as the BRC Innovation Symposium, the Vagantes Conference, and the Ethnography Salon, to name a few. These projects creatively brought together students, postdocs, and scholars from diverse backgrounds to forge new connections while promoting academic and professional development. Read more about these projects and others here.

Why should you submit a project?
GradStarter is a great opportunity for you to test your idea: gauge interest, obtain feedback, and connect with people and resources on campus to make your idea a reality.

Proposals are due June 15th.

Submit your proposal at gradstarter.rice.edu
Proposal Guidelines: http://gradstarter.rice.edu/proposal-guidelines/

GradStarter Flier.pdf

TMC Innovation Institute is Hiring!

The Texas Medical Center (TMC) Innovation Institute is seeking intelligent, collaborative, and ambitious individuals to join our growing team for an unmatched opportunity to work alongside the TMC leadership, budding entrepreneurs, mentors, and world class speakers participating in our programs.

The TMC Innovation Institute is located in the largest medical center in the country with over $2B in extramural funding and 8M patient visits per year across 21 renowned hospitals and the 10 associated academic institutions (http://www.texasmedicalcenter.org/). We are comprised of the TMCx accelerator program, TMCx+ incubator, TMC Biodesign fellowship program, and our resident corporate partner relationships with J&J, AT&T, and Apple. Designed to provide a comprehensive suite of services , the TMC Innovation Institute is equipped to meet the needs of disruptive digital health, medical device, diagnostic, and therapeutics startups at every stage, from ideation to commercialization.

TMC Innovation Institute: Healthcare Innovation Strategist

http://careers.texasmedicalcenter.org/careers/position/healthcare-innovation-strategist

TMC Innovation Institute: Program Manager

http://careers.texasmedicalcenter.org/careers/position/tmc-innovation-institute-program-manager

TMC Innovation Institute: Business Associate (6 month+ paid internship)

http://careers.texasmedicalcenter.org/careers/position/business-associate-internship

APPLY TODAY! SPREAD THE WORD!

PhD Career Finder and great recent threads

Versatile PhD Monthly Message

Greetings! I hope springtime is bringing you a sense of renewal.

Have you ever used the PhD Career Finder? Or has it been a while? This tool on the VPhD site helps you explore non-academic careers, narrow down your choices, and get a concrete start towards careers that actually interest you. Here’s a short tutorial to show you how to get the most from it.

There have also been some great threads in the forums lately:

· "How do you get people to want to help you?" – About networking and how to build the kind of constructive, helpful relationships that you really want.

· "Informational interviews: why?” – About understanding the purpose of informational interviews and whether they are really necessary.

· “Share your success stories”- In which people who are very happy in their non-academic careers explain why they are happy.

More details and links to each are here.

Finally, if you haven’t taken the national survey on graduate student and postdoc health and wellbeing, please do: http://vphd.info/1ROiuy6

Your Loving Founder,

Paula Chambers, Ph.D.

P&G FIRST Conference

FIRST (Focusing on Industrial Recruitment of Scientific Talent) is a Procter & Gamble sponsored conference targeted to PhD and Postdocs in STEM fields to gain a deeper understanding about industrial research careers.

P&G in collaboration with its minority scientists and the PhD recruiting office developed the conference 26 years ago (1990).

The Conference will be held September 18-21st, in Cincinnati, Ohio (all expenses paid)

To Apply Go to www.pgcareers.com click Apply / Search Job #RND00003000 or follow the link https://pg.taleo.net/careersection/10000/jobdetail.ftl?job=RND00003000

Learn more at: www.facebook.com/PGFIRST.

2016 FIRST brochure.pdf

NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MSPRF) – APPLY!

Program:

NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MSPRF)

Program Solicitation

NSF 16-558

Program Summary:

The purpose of the Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MSPRF) is to support future leaders in mathematics and statistics by facilitating their participation in postdoctoral research environments that will have maximal impact on their future scientific development. There are two options for awardees: Research Fellowship and Research Instructorship. Awards will support research in areas of mathematics and statistics, including applications to other disciplines.

Estimated Number of Awards:

30 to 33

Award Amount and Award Duration:

Fellowship awards are for a total of $150,000, with a possible additional allowance of up to $20,000 for awards with international host institutions. The anticipated date of awards is April in the year following the application deadline. The duration of a Fellowship award is 48 months, during which stipend support is provided for 24 months (18 academic-year months plus 6 summer months).

Eligibility Requirements:

An individual is eligible to submit a proposal to this program if all the following criteria are met:

· Must, at the time of submission, be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or a legally admitted permanent resident alien of the United States;

· May not have held the doctoral degree more than 2 years as of January 1 of the year of the award;

· Must propose research in an area of mathematics or statistics;

· May not have previously been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator of an NSF award (other than a graduate research fellowship or an award in support of a conference or workshop);

· May not submit a research plan duplicated in another NSF proposal;

· Must not have previously been offered an award by the MSPRF program; and

· Must have a doctoral degree conferred before the postdoctoral appointment start date.

Proposal Deadline:

October 19, 2016

Link to Full Funding Opportunity Announcement:

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16558/nsf16558.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click

Beyond the Professoriate Virtual Conference – FREE when you register through GPS!

Beyond the Professoriate Virtual Conference

Learn about PhD jobs . . . and how to get them!

The 3rd Annual Beyond the Professoriate is a career conference for PhDs. It is hosted entirely online, and welcomes participants from around the globe on two days, Saturday, May 7, and Saturday, May 14. New this year is a 21-day replay so attendees who can’t make it to the live sessions can catch up what they missed later!

2016 at a glance: 2 days. 4 panels. 6 presentations. 11 hours of exclusive, live content. 20+ PhDs. 21-day replay.

See the full conference program at https://beyondprof.com/2016-conference/

And read all the speaker bios at https://beyondprof.com/2016-conference/speaker-bios/

NOTICE: Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies will sponsor graduate students and postdocs to attend the two-day conference. Sign up via this form and GPS will follow up with you with instructions on how to gain access to the conference for FREE! Deadline to sign up for your free registration from GPS is Friday, April 15th.

What: Beyond the Professoriate Virtual Conference

When: May 7th, 10am – 4pm CST and May 14th, 10am – 6pm CST

Where: Your couch, office, or the library… anywhere your computer has access to the internet!

Link to sign up for free registration from GPS: http://graduate.rice.edu/beyondprof

Questions: Contact Kiri Kilpatrick, kiri.kilpatrick

Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning

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GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN TEACHING & LEARNING
With registration for the fall semester quickly approaching, the Center for Teaching Excellence would like to remind the campus community of our signature program for PhD students: The Graduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning (GCTL).

This program, approved by the Faculty Senate in 2014, gives graduate students preparing for future careers in academia an opportunity to take dedicated, graduate-level courses on undergraduate pedagogy. And if they complete all four courses within the program (UNIV 500, 501, 502, and 599), their transcript will indicate that they have met the requirements for this fully-accredited certificate.

In the first two years of the program, 62 students from 21 different departmentshave taken at least one certificate course, and 15 students have completed the entire certificate. In the fall, students will be able to sign up for two of the four courses (UNIV 500 and 502), and we hope that you will consider registering and/or encouraging PhD students you know to register. Complete course descriptions, testimonials from participants, and a link for further information are below.

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UNIV 500: Principles of Effective College Teaching
Fall 2016; Friday, 9:00-11:30AMThis course provides an overview of essential, research-based methods used by college instructors to enhance the quality of student learning. Topics will include course and syllabus design, student engagement, classroom management, and more. the course will culminate with the development of a teaching philosophy and a sample syllabus.

Credit Hours: 3
Prerequisites: None

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UNIV 501: Research on Teaching and Learning
Spring 2017This course explores scholarship on teaching and learning in detail with special attention to the breadth of approaches and methodologies. The culminating project will be a literature review in an area of interest.

Credit Hours: 3
Prerequisites: None

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UNIV 502: Practicum in College Teaching
Fall 2016; Friday, 1:00-3:30PMThis practicum allows students to design and deliver teaching demonstrations and to receive feedback on their work. The course will also focus on the place of teaching in the broader landscapes of higher education and the academic job market.

Credit Hours: 3
Pre-requisites: UNIV 500 & UNIV 501

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UNIV 599: Teaching Portfolio
Fall 2016; Spring 2017; Summer 2017This course provides an overview of essential, research-based methods used by college instructors to enhance the quality of student learning. Topics will include course and syllabus design, student engagement, classroom management, and more. the course will culminate with the development of a teaching philosophy and a sample syllabus.

Credit Hours: 3
Prerequisites: UNIV 500 & UNIV 501
Corequisite (or prerequisite): UNIV 502

“As someone on the academic job market this year I found [the program] extremely helpful for talking about my teaching at interviews as well as for preparing my teaching statement. Many schools I interviewed at asked questions about how I would deal with diversity in the classroom, what style of teaching I find most effective, how I engage students in the learning process, etc. Having discussed these issues in [certificate courses] I was able to give thoughtful responses to these questions that were well received.”

Jennifer Bulcock, Former Rice Graduate Student
Assistant Professor, Cabrini College

“[The Certificate Program] was valuable for me in two primary ways: first, it provided a discussion platform for a number of issues about larger trends in higher education and second, we explored specific pedagogical goals and strategies and how that relates to syllabus construction and lesson planning. Doing that within a class consisting of graduate students and professors from multiple disciplines made salient how different presuppositions about educational values and approaches can be, which was especially valuable, both because it challenged me to defend what I presumed about the values of certain practices, but also because I hope someday to be a professor, and insight into colleagues who think very differently than I do about these matters will be important.”

Carissa Phillips-Garrett, Current Rice Graduate Student

LEARN MORE

Nanotechnology Postdoctoral Fellow-FDA

Nanotechnology Postdoctoral Fellow-FDA

Full details may be found here: https://www.zintellect.com/Posting/Details/1965

A research project opportunity is currently available at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), Arkansas Regional Laboratory. The postdoctoral fellow will collaborate with multi-disciplinary research efforts within the NCTR/ORA Nanotechnology Core Facility. Collaborative and research activities may include:

1. Development of hyphenated size-based separation techniques (e.g., asymmetric field flow fractionation, centrifugal field flow fractionation, capillary electrophoresis, liquid chromatography) using inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ICP/MS), MALS, DLS and optical absorbance detectors.

2. Development of methods to detect nanoparticles in complex matrix using single particle mode ICP/MS

The fellowship is within the Nanotechnology Core Facility where the following analytical techniques will be used to support these research activities: inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), asymmetric field flow fractionation (AFFF), centrifugal field flow fractionation(CFFF), x-ray diffraction (XRD), particle size analysis (multiple methods including dynamic light scattering, photon cross correlation spectroscopy, and particle tracking analysis), spectroscopy (FTIR, UV/VIS, fluorescence, XRF, Raman), atomic force microscopy (AFM), high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), and electron microscopy with elemental analysis capabilities.

For additional information and to apply: https://www.zintellect.com/Posting/Details/1965

Versatile PhD: Online panel happening NOW: Careers in Technical Writing

Humanities and Social Science Graduate Students and Postdocs:

Panel this week at Versatile PhD: Careers in Technical Writing. Panelists:

• A Chinese Religions ABD who managed translation and localization for a tech company doing business in China and is now Technical Communicator at business software company

• A Cultural Studies PhD who adjuncted for two years and then switched to technical writing, currently working as Technical Writer at a health care software company

• A Philosophy of Education PhD with a long history in different technical writing roles, currently working as Lead Technical Writer at a major Canadian online retailer

• A recent Comparative Literature PhD who jumped directly from graduation into her current position as Technical Writer at a business software company that serves law firms specifically

• A recent English PhD who freelanced as a technical and medical writer during grad school and is now Technical Writer at a well-known consumer goods retailer

Discussion continues through Friday, March 18. Read and participate directly on the site, or get email notifications. OK to invite friends; anyone may register on VPhD for free and enjoy this great web-based discussion. Threaded discussion board format; participate anytime during the week.

Get started at our VPhD access portal: http://vphd.info/RiceU_go Once you reach VPhD, sign in and find the discussion in the Humanities/Social Science forum.

People like you have said:

“VPhD is a great resource for those exploring non-academic jobs. With regular panels on non-academic careers, a very active forum discussing important matters in a very collegial manner and a website full of resources, VPhD makes me feel part of a community. I don’t feel lonely anymore.”

“The panels are terrific! I could spend the whole day reading them. It makes me feel not so alone in my non-academic job search.”

“The panel discussions bring in people I would never have found on my own. Hearing about different pathways to an alt-ac career narrated by smart, empathetic and compassionate individuals has been infinitely encouraging when making the difficult transition out of the academy.”