Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

Funny story at conference. I was attending a scientific conference recently which consisted of a series of short talks given by renowned scientists. The session was organized by a leading scientist in the field who invited the speakers and directed them to cover the key scientific subjects of the field to form a theme in [...]

Since the emotionally traumatic events of my thesis and thesis defense, requiring a re-write, it has become very clear to me that such things are extremely common. A thesis, journal articles and books all get proofread and are re-written routinely. My minor re-write and proving one assumption seemed to me at the time as a [...]

I called Ann and broke the bad news to her. I explained that it would not likely change my departure date for France, but the need to do the rewrite would make the next couple of weeks quite pressured and decrease our free time together. Fortunately a repeat of the oral thesis defense was not [...]

So goes the life of a scientist, because such succinct conclusions are not uncommon. I have since known several other Ph.D. thesis conclusions requiring years of work to arrive at a simple answer. One such student spent years studying the size of a part of a protein, called the catalytic cleft. The catalytic cleft is [...]

  Chapter 19. Leaving on a Jet Plane – This is the last Chapter people in 4 installments. I had three major fears concerning my postdoc in Paris. Fear number 1 was that a long-distance relationship between myself and Ann would not survive. Since she was planning to join me in 6 months or so, [...]

The physiology party committee (me, Dave, Vivian and Nancy), started to accumulate a list of possible gifts and awards. The awards would just be simple paper certificates with gilded borders and the faculty names and awards printed on them. Producing something funny, but appropriate, for about 20 people, took a lot of thought and work. [...]

On the day of the competition, Ann was not in the audience. She could not bear to watch. I understood completely, and promised to call as soon as I was finished. I tried to make it clear that the longer it took me to call the better, because it would mean I was still “alive” [...]

While skateboarding was good transportation and exercise, it was not a regular exercise regimen. So I decided that I needed more exercise. I had done some karate in high school and was impressed by some friends who were very good at it, so I took up karate again. There was a large selection of karate [...]

  Chapter 18. The Lighter Side of Being a Graduate Student In nice weather, as noted earlier, I would often skateboard to and from the university. Ann drove to work, so sometimes I would get a ride with her and carry my skateboard as a means of local transportation. It was good exercise, and since [...]

After several months, I had accumulated enough pig arteries to start the purification process. This was a big deal and an important milestone for my work. It is kind of like having enough ingredients to bake a cake or make a soufflé. A good cook will get all the ingredients together and work hard to [...]