3 ms·

I wouldn't call myself a casualty, but I was definitely considering being a professor and definitely decided not to after seeing how ridiculously hard my advise

I wouldn't call myself a casualty, but I was definitely considering being a professor and definitely decided not to after seeing how ridiculously hard my adviser had to work despite her being famous and well funded. It just didn't seem like a job that one could do for decades without ruining their health. I'm amazed by the people who do manage to do it, but I'm confident that my decision was the right one. Instead, someone else will be the person to study how to use ML to develop new catalyst types, and I'm sad that all the thought and effort I've put into figuring it out will probably just never be of use to anyone. I'm not a good enough programmer for Google, so basically what other option would I have other than academia or a national lab? The problem isn't going to be solved in five years, but the rewards... maybe not mRNA vaccine level but reducing energy and resource waste with more efficient conversion technologies across the entirety of modern civilization seems worthwhile. I don't even mind writing grants that much and have gotten lots of them for industry research. And I absolutely love mentoring. But I just know from what I saw that I have no desire to try to handle that much entirely unnecessary extra stress, even though it means that I do mostly straightforward electrical engineering despite having invented entirely new catalyst design technologies being used in industrial facilities. Would I love to still be working in chemicals and energy more directly? Absolutely! Am I willing to do it for a third the salary with 80 hour work weeks having to scramble desperately to network in order to gain enough mindshare to get people to even listen to my proposals? I wish I had that kind of stamina. Which is to say, ultimately, that I have no interest in academic politics. I want to solve these problems, and no longer have the energy to pursue another startup. Maybe in another five years when there are more companies finally doing it I can just get a job there. Sadly I can guess that they will instead just get ML researchers and assume teaching them catalyst science will be easier than teaching me ML tools because ML didn't exist when I was in grad school as much of a thing yet so by sheer misfortune of timing I didn't learn it until my 30s. It's just sad to me that I see no realistic way to get involved even though it's my honest life passion to fix this problem and it's such a stupid struggle to get support. It would have been really nice to feel supported in doing such work inside of academia.

rsfern 6y ago
If you’re looking to get back into the materials research industry doing applied ML, now is a great time — no need to wait five years. In my experience there’s a lot of demand for people conversant in both fields, a lot of interest in adopting this kind of work, and a growing set of interesting opportunities. I work in this field at a national lab, but in my experience there are a lot of industry players trying to figure out how to grow in this area Edit: take a look at what the technical societies are doing. MRS and TMS have been rolling out educational programming targeted towards industry members. I’m not in the catalyst field really, but I’m sure ACS and AICHE have similar programming, and following that thread is probably a good way to figure out who’s interested
- neltnerb 6y ago
  Assuming you are working at PNNL I agree they have a great program. One of the few places I've collaborated with that understood the upsides involved. I do see more and more educational opportunities and attempts to be forward looking with this. They just always seem super undercooked like setting up an institute to encourage collaborating (but good luck working there at an early stage unless you're already a professor somewhere). Or more often only really open to current PhD students or postdocs if you're not already a professor. I'll figure it out eventually, I just wish it didn't feel like I have to bootstrap the whole thing to get anything to happen. I'm just sad that now that it might finally be possible for anyone to lead such an effort I don't have the stamina to do it.

rsfern 6y ago

If you’re looking to get back into the materials research industry doing applied ML, now is a great time — no need to wait five years. In my experience there’s a lot of demand for people conversant in both fields, a lot of interest in adopting this kind of work, and a growing set of interesting opportunities. I work in this field at a national lab, but in my experience there are a lot of industry players trying to figure out how to grow in this area Edit: take a look at what the technical societies are doing. MRS and TMS have been rolling out educational programming targeted towards industry members. I’m not in the catalyst field really, but I’m sure ACS and AICHE have similar programming, and following that thread is probably a good way to figure out who’s interested

neltnerb 6y ago
Assuming you are working at PNNL I agree they have a great program. One of the few places I've collaborated with that understood the upsides involved. I do see more and more educational opportunities and attempts to be forward looking with this. They just always seem super undercooked like setting up an institute to encourage collaborating (but good luck working there at an early stage unless you're already a professor somewhere). Or more often only really open to current PhD students or postdocs if you're not already a professor. I'll figure it out eventually, I just wish it didn't feel like I have to bootstrap the whole thing to get anything to happen. I'm just sad that now that it might finally be possible for anyone to lead such an effort I don't have the stamina to do it.