Why the break in riding? I wear a suit daily, so it was the recent acquisition of a garment bag panier for my bike that has made riding again a possibility. That, and joining the gym at work so I can shower and shave on that end. The bag gets maybe an 8 on it's ability to keep my suit and shirt wrinkle free. I have yet to score it on the "keepin' it dry" scale. Hopefully nothing lower than a ten there. I can handle a few wrinkles; a wet suit won't do.
Beyond biking, what's new? Last week was rather busy. The Office of Science had all of the Education Directors from all 17 of DOE's National Labs in town for a two day conference about all of the programs they offer (there are programs for under grads and grads, pre service teachers, teachers [like what I did up at Lawrence Berkeley for two summers], faculty and student teams [usually from colleges that don't have the research facilities], etc. The directors reported about their programs, they heard presentations about changes in funding and requirements for the programs, etc. It was...informative for me. And I got the chance to connect with Ed Director for NREL. Again, the National Renewable Energy Lab is EERE's research lab based out in Golden CO. I ended up having a lovely two+ hour lunch with her on Thursday about all of the programs she's running and she adds to the list of invites I've received to go visit. I think it's going to happen in mid-December. Perhaps not the best time to visit the greater Denver area, but it's a scheduling thing. I am hoping for not only a killer behind the scenes tour of NREL and the neighboring National Wind Technology Center (I am hoping to be able to go UP inside a wind turbine for a looksee...stories I've heard sound great!) but I am looking forward to talking about a wealth of partnerships in which we (EERE & NREL) could/should be involved. I have now been in too many meetings where it seems like just the right tweaking of this program or that with a bit of participation from NREL could really leverage the lab's technical abilities and wealth of brilliant scientists to turn on some students to science and engineering. I'm hopeful, and encouraged by all of the enthusiasm with which I've been greeted flowing from NREL.
Also keeping me busy last week was a talk I gave at the SHPE conference on Friday. I was asked to do this by some folks in the Office of Science (are you sensing a strong connection between my position and the office of Science??). I was glad to oblige but all I was given was that I would be speaking to some high school students and would I talk about careers in science. Details were vague in coming so I centered my hour talk (ppt) on the DOE's national labs, specifically NREL and the cool engineering/science jobs they could have discovering the 'next best thing' or solving the climate change crisis or creating a new electric car, etc. All through the talk my message was 'this could be you'.
I closed with a survey I had seen recently that asked Americans if they could knew a living scientist or could name one. 65% said no. Another 18% said yes, but were wrong in their answer (Einstein, for instance, is no longer living). That's 83% who don't know a living scientist. I told them I wanted THEM to be that scientist their mothers, cousins, sons and brothers could point to when asked that question. And in the mean time, I re-introduced myself and said "you know a scientist". They clapped. It was cute. It was even cuter at the end when half a dozen or more came up to meet me and asked if they could have their picture taken with me. How cute!! The topper was a young man who waited outside the room to ask me in a quieter space if it would be okay, given that I was talking about becoming an engineer, if he just majored in physics in college. "Yeah, that should be alright".
Stay tuned for tales of Astronauts and the First Lady!!
ciao
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