Back from Iowa

I've just come back from another visit to Ames, Iowa. My department has an Advisory Council, made up of distinguished chemical engineers who work in industry, that meets twice a year. This council provides advice and feedback on issues within the department. They were having their spring meeting this past week, so I made a quick trip to meet them. It was also a good opportunity to work on setting up my lab and spend time with my fellow faculty members. The ISU College of Engineering has a great faculty mentoring program, where incoming junior faculty (like me), are paired with an established faculty member. I learned this week who my mentor will be and am very pleased with the assignment. The department is currently trying to hire two more new faculty. If they both decide to come, they would start this fall, like me. One of these potential hires was on campus for her second visit, so it was nice to meet her as well. As much as I have loved my postdoc work and living in Gainesville, I'm really looking forward to getting established at ISU. Knowing that I was only in Gainesville short-term has left me feeling a little unanchored and transient. Once I move to Ames, I can really buckle down and get settled.
Surprisingly, it was warmer in Ames on Wednesday than it was in Gainesville. But the cold rain on Thursday and Friday more than made up for Wednesday's sunshine.
One of my future colleagues at ISU, Professor Kenneth Jolls, is an extraordinarily well-rounded gentleman. He received his Chemical Engineering PhD in 1966, but his first degree is in music. I've heard about his musical skills on my many visits, but I was lucky enough to see him perform this past week. In addition to his musical and scientific skills, I was surprised to learn this week that he's had 18 "Letters to the Editor" published in the New York Times over the years. There is a selected list on his webpage here. He confessed to me that he's *submitted* about 150 letters total, so a greater than 10% acceptance rate is pretty good! He's an amazing guy and I'm looking forward to getting to know him better.
Enough about my future colleagues at ISU; several of my former colleagues from UCLA have exciting news. Or at least one of them does - congratulations to Eileen and Alex on their upcoming October baby! Read Eileen's announcement here. And this isn't new, but my former labmate Jeff Bernstein and his wife Dana have a photo site with pictures of their daughter Zoe. She's as cute as can be; check out her pictures here.
It's another full week in the lab for me. And then next weekend I'll be spending time with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew as they vacation in Orlando. It should be a lot of fun!