Hello From My Comfy Pink Chair

Holy cow.  It's been a hectic couple of weeks.  I officially started working at Mizzou late last week.  I am now a staff researcher for the International Center for Nano/Micro Systems and Nanotechnology in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  My official title is Research Scientist.  Over the last week I've been getting somewhat conflicting descriptions of my responsibilities, but I'm relying on my PI and my own ideas of how the project should proceed to hammer out a research plan.  Sticking to that plan will be another story.  But I suppose that's the nature of research.

In the meantime, I'm still working part-time at Lincoln University.  In fact, my start date at Mizzou pulled me away from setting up our new Raman spectroscopy system in our lab at LU.  I'm looking forward to getting back down there tomorrow and getting that instrument running.  We're still waiting to get a new refrigerator and some optomechanics supplies, and also have a big floor centrifuge moved downstairs.  But the lab is really coming together.  It's kind of a shame that, with my colleague and I dropping to part-time, the shiny new lab will be pretty badly underutilized.  Hopefully having the new lab running smoothly will help kick-start the sensors research program at LU and my supervisor can bring in some new lab rats to use the lab at something more closely resembling full capacity.  It's not as easy as it sounds, though, as the LU Department of Life and Physical Sciences does not have a graduate program, so he's unable to bring in graduate student researchers.  He mostly depends on post-docs like myself and undergrads to staff the lab.

One last thing:  I'm squatting in a nice roomy corner office for right now while the MU Bioengineering Department does some rearranging.  However, there is a possibility that I will be staying in this office permanently.  The office has a 3-sided desk and a receptionist counter, both of which are pink.  I also have a matching pink chair.  It is truly awesome and I really do hope that I get to stay in this office:

I mean, seriously, how can you not dig that color scheme?