So yesterday I mentioned that I had several options in front of me for research questions. My work at the American Physiological society is, by and large, intern stuff. I file, scan, and shred documents. I sort a lot of files. Tedious as this may be, this gives me access to a lot of data that I can use. As such, my research project will be a bit more internally-oriented than most, probably focusing on some area of APS policy, rather than a general question in science. Still, given what I've got, and the small amount of time I've had to do it, it should serve.
To help me along this road, Dr. Matyas gave me five documents to peruse this week. They were reports from five of the APS's education committees, outlining their current programs and proposing changes. One program that interested me was a graduate Scientific Writing Workshop that the APS held in 2006. This workshop was, as the name says, designed to help new physiologists learn to write scientific papers effectively. The APS wants to know how the people who took the workshop have done since 2006. They want to compare publication numbers with a control group. I spent about 7 hours this week going through the list of the 312 attendees to the workshop and searching through PubMed to see what they'd published. On average, these people have published between 6 and 9 papers each. 33 people had not published anything (at least nothing available on PubMed). The next step would be to chase these people down and see if there have been name changes (in the case of marriage or otherwise) or publications not accessible in PubMed, so that the list can be more complete.
Another area I've looked at, though more cursorily than the last, is the Intel Science and Engineering Fair. The APS is the organization that awards prizes for the physiology and medicine category of this competition, and it'd be interesting to know what the winners have gone on to do.
Other possible areas include science policy, membership statistics, and women and minority inclusion in the sciences, but I have not yet had the chance to look into these very deeply.
On Tuesday, I meet with Dr. Matyas to discuss options. I'll blog then about what we've got. I think, though I'm not sure, that I can make a decision by next Thursday.
Until then, i'll be following the developing crisis in Ukraine. It's not looking pretty over there.
Thomas...I have enjoyed your first postings and am looking forward to the blog you post after your meeting with Dr. Matyas. She is amazing! I know you both will find a research project that will be interesting to you, and is beneficial to APS. Enjoy your time back east!
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