Here’s your Friday question: who are you collaborating with?
Take a moment, because it’s a big question that applies to everyone across the College of Science. We know it applies to you because Associate Dean Tara Duffy and Associate Director Marya Mahmood have been collating your responses to our third COS climate survey since 2020 and some of the top words to describe the College of Science are COLLABORATIVE and SUPPORTIVE. That is excellent, especially as we navigate tough times.
I learned about collaboration as a graduate student, working in a lab on the 15th floor. My thesis project asked how cells know to make necessary components only at certain times during their lives, like when a cell is going to divide to make two cells, a very pivotal moment. The components I was studying are called histones, and they are packaging material for the genetic material that is DNA. There was a new experimental procedure I wanted to use called ‘Gel Shift’. The lab two floors below ours had the procedure working, and I wanted to learn it for my histone project. My advisor told me to contact the lab head, and his assistant gave me an appointment in two months’ time. When I went downstairs for the long-awaited meeting, I noticed that the assistants’ desk had full view of the elevator, to control traffic. It was not so friendly. The meeting with the lab head was brief, and he directed me to set up another meeting with a senior investigator, which the assistant offered for several weeks away. Help. I just wanted to learn the technique. Then I realized there was a convenient back stairwell that could quietly take me right to the other lab. I walked down the floors, entered a lab and asked who was doing Gel Shift assays. In a few minutes, I was set up with a friendly and helpful collaborator, who gave me protocols, advice, and an invitation to come by anytime to discuss data or challenges. How great! When my paper was published, members of the other lab were co-authors, and everyone was happy. Sometimes, it’s good to take the back stairwell.
We introduced the tagline CONNECTS back in 2020, and collaboration is how our College of Science works – we have outstanding collaborations across Northeastern colleges, with many joint faculty appointments, Cross-College Centers, Institutes, Combined Majors and cross-college MS programs. Many of you have important research collaborations with industry, and with colleagues at universities and institutes across the world. Co-op is all about collaboration. Congratulations. To help us think through challenges in the presently uncertain funding climate, please join an Interactive Symposium: Meeting Challenges in Research and Education through the Good Power of Collaboration Wednesday April 30 11am – 2pm EST. Come along to discuss Building Interdisciplinary Collaborations; International Connections; Educational Collaborations; Industry-Academic Partnerships; Making your Startup. Sign up is coming to your calendar.
To all College of Science members, thank you for building our culture of collaboration. Thank you for working together through everything that is coming our way. Thank you for reading out the good power of collaboration in your unit, across departments, across Northeastern University colleges, across our Global University and across the world. Thank you.
