Currently Playing in Winamp:
Jars of Clay - I Need You
I just got back today from going to an intern’s hometown (Leah Thomas) to attend a barbecue hosted by one of her close friends. Good food, 4-square (!!!), volleyball, nice small backyard, and very sweet friends.
Yesterday, Friday, Professor Erik Sorenson came to speak to us in the morning. He’s worked at Scripps for a while, and is now at Princeton, working to invigorate their organic chemistry program (he foresees their program becoming a national leader). I enjoyed his talk, although I lost attention half way through as I always do (even with a cup of coffee…). But what I heard, I liked. He clearly loved the nuances of his work; the historical background, the students he works with, the challenge of the synthesis (he does natural product synthesis), and he doesn’t get tunnel-vision on the pure chemistry; he pursues the biology as well! I’ve been reading some of the papers he’s published, and he frequently looks for inspiration in Nature for the synthesis of his targets. One of his discussions of future directions for his labs involves searching for inherent, pre-prescribed reactivity in polyene structures that naturally lead to the formation of complex cyclic structures. I think that’s very cool; you need a strong foundation in the organic synthesis of the project to force and nuance transformations, and yet you remember the biological context of the work, finding inspiration in those pre-determined processes. I am definitely interested in working for him, although I still want to explore and see if there’s anyone else out there like him. He wrote the book, Classics in Total Synthesis, that I’m going to be using next semester in Chem261, the graduate organic chemistry course.
Oh, and he’s a super-nice guy. Very personable, humble, considerate, and maturely academic. I consider some of the other professors that have visited to be academic-jocks, and I could never work for them purely because of the way they treat people.
So, this is good news. I'm feeling inspired!
2 Comments:
Cool, Matt; I'm happy for you!
You mentioned that he doesn't get "tunnel-vision" and is able to branch out to biology: this is good. Contrary to what some say, I think there actually is a difference between the sciences. I.e., I don't think the following tortuous loop is (or can be) an accurate description:
biology -> chemistry -> physics -> math -> philosophy -> the mind -> neuroscience -> biology
inspired, perhaps, to update?? haha...hope all is well with you...haven't talked to you in awhile! =)
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