Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

My little insulin dependent kitty is named Clawdia, she is 17 years old and this teenager has taught me an important lesson.

I write and submit about eight grant applications per year to get the funding in need to keep the lab running. Ten years ago I could get two grants per year or about 25% of my grant applications would be funded. Now however, I am lucky to get one grant every two years. So my [...]

I fully believe that the science suggesting that humans are killing the earth’s environment is right on. Even if all humanity suddenly started behaving in ways to protect the environment it would be many generations before real benefits would be seen. Some things, however, are changing. The water purity of many of the US’s lakes [...]

Every family in the USA is one stroke short of bankruptcy.

being prepared for a disaster is a full time job

A student came to my office to enquire about becoming a graduate student in my lab. She was extremely bright, energetic and had done some homework about my work as evidenced by the insightful questions she was asking. I put a lot of weight on the questions and dialogue that occurs when I interview, and [...]

There are two types (maybe three) of difficult classes: Classes with a lot of material making the class difficulty due to the volume, Classes with difficult concepts and the third is when these two factors are combined. Anatomy is an example of a difficult class because of the sheer volume of material that needs to [...]

There is no better feeling in science than to see weeks of planning a new experiment come together in one day’s work to produce data. To be more correct, one datum. We’ve been working for weeks building a prototype, and developing the experimental conditions in which we could test the prototype. The test conditions were [...]

In an effort to facilitate development of technologies the Bayh-Dole act also mandates that preference for licensing and developing opportunities of federally funded discoveries be given to small US owned companies. This stimulation has been a boon to the technology sector.

There is an old saying that those who can do; those who can’t teach. While I’m not too sure about that, there is an interesting paradigm in higher education. That is the highest level scientists in the USA tend to be successful scientists and researchers by spending time doing research, writing grants and papers. The [...]