Coding opportunity: ContentMine

While on a trip to CERN I met a collaborator of a friend, and we discussed options after physics. She mentioned an interesting project called ContentMine, which aims to electronically mine data and information from academic articles. It's a concept which could change the way we respond to information and academic findings, and its website explicitly says:

"Although content mining can be done without breaking current laws, the borderline between legal and illegal is usually unclear. So we campaign for reform, and we work on the basis that anything that is legal for a human should also be legal for a machine."

As a scientist, a supporter of open access to academic discoveries, an acticist, a coder, and one who loves to push boundaries of technology, this is of great interest to me! At the moment I am at saturation when it comes to coding projects, but this is certainly a project I would like to be a part of in the future, and one to keep watching.

And now for something completely different

Earlier this year I took part in a stand up comedy event at CERN. I knew one of the people who arranged it last year and tentatively put my name forward. A few months later I had to confirm my interest in the act and somewhat nervously decided to go ahead with it. I like to paint myself into corners like this, it focuses the mind. I wrote a set and after some help slashing the worst jokes I was left with fifteen minutes of presentable material. On the evening I got on stage, performed the act, got many laughs and a few rounds of applause. It felt great and I am very glad I put my neck out to do what is often considered one of the most challenging acts to perform.

The amateaur lineup before the show.

The main reason I was glad was not because it was fun, or because of the great people I met, or because I helped the outreach efforts of CERN, or because of the support of my friends (although I am glad about all these things as well) but because it was something completely new that challenged me in ways I'd never thought about before. I was given a brief that went something like "Create a fifteen minute set related to physics or CERN for an audience of people who are mostly non-scientists, who do not speak English as a first language." That brief was simultaneously constraining and liberating. There was a huge scope for creativity in terms of content, style, behaviour, and delivery. At the same time having to craft each joke to fit in with the thematic and language constraints stretched my vocabulary. For example, I couldn't say "vial of poison" when discussing Schrödinger's cat, it had to be a "bottle of poison", and I couldn't use the word "mantlepiece" at all. None of my jokes could rely on speaking quickly or using British idioms. Even referring to simple scientific concepts reqired explanations. Perhaps the most difficult part was seeing the act from the point of view of the audience, and realising that their collective sense of humour was not the same as mine. They didn't know where the jokes were heading, and I did, so I would have to lead them very deliberately from one joke to another, including a few callbacks.

One of the organisers took this photo in rehearsal. It looks as though I'm talking about something dynamic and insightful instead of joking about cats.

All these challenges exercised skills I hadn't really used before and the experience was exhilerating. To realise you can take on something so alien and succeed is a huge achievement. Even better, it improved my general communication and public speaking skills, which is very marketable when looking for new jobs. It was an opportunity to step outside of the world academia and research, which values thoroughness, discourse and precision, to stand up comedy, which values storytelling, empathy, and a certain amount of ambiguity. In an act it's not acceptable to stumble or be corrected, whereas in an academic discussion if nobody questions what you say then you are either irrelevant or not communicating clearly enough. In addition to that the presentation of the message matters almost as much as the message itself, which is the complete antithesis of academic discourse. (One of my friends told me that with the correct timing and delivery the audience will laugh no matter what you say, which is true to an extent.)

My friends came out in force and after the event they started the after party.

Once the show was over I was of course very happy with what I had done, but I wasn't sure what would come of it. It turns out that I didn't merely perform a set, I met many new people who would encourage me to explore comedy further. In my next trip to the UK I made a point to visit the Edinburgh Festival with one of the event talents, Chella. Next week I intend to meet some more talent, Helen, for another project that could open up a few more exciting projects. In between I've met with all the organisers of the event and it's helped to change the way I think about how we communicate with the public, and the importance of getting the message right. Whatever the next decades bring this experience will help to shape the way I approach my work and add some new edge to my communication skills which should serve my career well. Being challenged is good, being creative is good, novelty is good, and getting outside one's comfort zone is great. If it's possible to entertain people along the way then all the better.

We all take to the stage for a final bow.

You can view the event in its entirety with the following link. My set starts around 30:00. Webcast archive of Comedy Collider 2014

(All photos © CERN: https://cds.cern.ch/record/1965972/, or @AlexBrovvn.)

A handful of perspectives

Over the past few months I've spoken to quite a few people about leaving the field. (One of the first questions many people often ask is "Have you found a new job yet? What are you going to do?" which is premature and I think is missing the point.) A few perspectives have stuck with me, and while I'm not sure I can make a full blog post about each, I can certainly combine them into a single post.

One of my former physicist friends told me about how she'd moved onto jobs more closely related to technology and finance. She's with the people she cares about and she seems happier and more driven than when I knew her as a PhD student, and I think she made the right choice. In spite of this, there's something you can get from science that can't really get elsewhere, and she said that the work was like looking at the face of nature. It's almost a spiritual experience when you find out a fact about the universe that nobody has known before. That's something that I'll miss. On the other hand there's also a great amount of satisfaction to be gained from creating something new, and that's what has really interested me to a greater and greater extent in recent years. Trading in one satisfying experience for another is no bad thing, even if nothing else can ever replace the feeling you get when you make a new measurement.

Another friend and colleague pointed out that I might miss life as an ex-patriate, and this hadn't occured to me at all. When you're an expat you tend to meet other expats, who are living abroad to follow their passions. You get used to being a tourist in your home town, finding out the most exciting and bizarre places you can. It's an exciting experience, and there's a rush you get when you have a decent converstaion in a foreign language. Knowing that you can set your roots down anywhere is quite liberating and expands the mind. Something I should be careful about is settling down into a rut, where I surround myself with people who have never even travelled abroad, let alone lived in a foreign country. My life has been much richer for being a serial expat and I should try to hold onto that.

Recently I was speaking with a friend who said half-jokingly that I was a poor role model because of the sacrifices he had to make to be a physicist. I pointed out that this was one of the main reasons for leaving. We have to make sacrifices for anything we choose to do, and making a different set of sacrifices can be a welcome change. While I see that having role models at any stage in your career is important, I don't think that a fallen role model is a reason to lose motivation, and in any case I should be a strong role model for those people who want to leave the field. The only difference between my own experience and other people's is that I'm publicly discussing my choice. It helps focus my own mind, and helps others who are going through similar thought processes to come to conclusions.

Finally I'll mention my own thoughts on the matter. At every stage in my life I've been more interested in becoming something rather being something. I'd rather study to get a degree than just have the degree, I'd rather search the dataset for a new discovery than have my name on the discovery paper. In the same way I'd rather do everything necessary to become a professor than actually be a professor, and I think that I would stand a rather good chance at getting a faculty position if I applied myself. However once I got a permanent position somewhere I'd stop becoming a professor and start being a professor. It's not that I wouldn't have things to aim for after that, but it just wouldn't be the same. I enjoy the struggle, I enjoy bettering myself, I enjoy working my way up to more prestigious positions, but I don't want that process to end yet.

Health scare

Recently my nana was taken into hospital with blood clots in her lungs. That's the kind of condition that can be suddenly fatal, or from which one can make a full recovery. I found out about her condition on Tuesday evening, after she'd been in hospital for a few days and her situation looked serious. At the time I was in Brussels, due to fly to Geneva on the Thursday to give a talk, and then to Belgrade on the Saturday to attend a week long conference. I tried to find a way to fit in a trip to the UK to see her while I still could. Leaving that a week or more could have meant it was too late.

Having lost my other grandmother while I was in the USA (having visited her in hospital a couple of weeks before) I didn't want the same thing to happen to my nana while I was away. She's a central part of my mother's side of the family, linking my rather large extended family together and for as long as I can remember hosting very successful parties on Hallowe'en (very close to her birthday.) When I think of my nana I usually have memories of when I was a teenager and still living in Crewe. She loved to make us bacon sandwiches, rice pudding, and cups of tea. (I still enjoy a good cup of tea when I visit her.) So when I found out she might not leave the hospital alive I found myself dealing with the potential of a double loss, first that I might lose my nana, and second that I might lose one of my strongest connections to my past and to the rest of my family.

My decision to move abroad for a few years was largely a response to my brother's suicide, and it was a good opportunity to get away and clear my mind of troubles while I got the rest of my life back together again. I saw staying in academia as the easy option in terms of my emotional state (it's obviously the more challenging option, intellectually, which also helped.) But now, nine years after Dylan's death it's fairly obvious that I've come to terms with that loss and moved with my life. In the meantime I'm still living abroad while my nana is rushed into hospital while a potentially life threatening condition, and all I can think of is that I don't want her to die before I return to the UK. The whole incident has reinforced all the reasons why I want to return. There are many sacrifices that have to be made to be a nomadic scientist (or nomadic in any profession) but close family members are not sacrifices I want to make. I've been away for eight years now, and people's lives have moved on, some people have had brushes with death. On the other hand I'm just eight years older and eight years more experienced and there's nothing really keeping me in Belgium (or anywhere else) long term.

I get the feeling that had my nana died while I was abroad and I suffered from amnesia about the past few years, the first question I'd ask myself would be "Why were you still in Belgium in the first place?" I don't think I could provide an answer to that question that wouldn't work equally well if I chose to live in the UK instead.

Branching out

For the past eight years I've been active in particle physics research, but that hasn't been my only interest. As time has gone on I've found myself taking on more and more elaborate projects in my spare time that build on my experiences as an international particle physicist, without directly contributing to my physics research. During my time at SLAC I spent most of my spare time travelling and exploring the local (and not so local) world around me. As time passed I found I spent more and more time developing programming skills for fun, but always with an eye for what would be useful and transferable in the future. (At one point I wrote a content management system from scratch. It was rapid development and looking back I shudder to think of the security holes it had. Still, that was all part of the learning process!) On top of the normal work there were of course all the other burdens that go with being a student, such as writing a thesis, taking a lecture course, and helping with the then brand new series of student seminars. Add to that the tedious paperwork of being an expat in the US, and taking the time to react to the funding cuts on both sides of the Atlantic I had a full schedule. It was a brilliant experience, and one that left me exhausted.

Then I moved to Geneva to work at CERN and things changed quite radically. My new boss was an old colleague and friend of mine and we had high expectations of each other. The three years we spent working together were probably the most rewarding of my career so far. As well as all the usual work: taking part in two analyses (one of which I started and lead for a year), service work, software development, giving talks at international conferences, and mentoring students, I also took part in many extra curricular activities. I was one of the most prolific outreach bloggers in the field, making liveblogs and videos, including a 10 minute April 1st video. On top of this my programming and photography skills saw a huge improvement. I directed and gathered footage for a horror series (still to be edited and published, alas) and started a whole new set of blogs exploring life as physicist, life following bereavement and musings about life in general. One of the long term projects where I'm still active is the LGBT group at CERN. When I arrived there was no such group, which I thought was a gross oversight, so I aimed to fixed this. After negotiations with CERN management we got recognition and paved the way for other similar groups to join us, modernising CERN's approach to equal opportunities by (in my opinion) a couple of decades. Towards the end of my contract at CERN I was spend more of my time evangelising particle physics, first by reaching out to particle physicists in the field to advertise my new analysis (and to try to change the focus of the work from a bump hunt to a signal strength measurement, which was largely unsuccessful) and later to advertise the work of the whole experiment to the US funding agencies. This had style and flair that went beyond what is normally expected of physicists. Most talks we give are clinical and drab. Mine were bright and energetic, conveying emotion and wonder as well as information. I also spent a great deal of time socialising with my students and colleagues, often at my own expense, not only because it's a pleasant way to spend time, but because it's vital that people in a foreign country feel welcome, supported, and willing to come back in the future. As all this happened I tried to tie the different activities in together. I explored CERN for fun, taking photos as I did and getting the idea for the horror series. The photos I took I posted on my outreach blogs, and I would go with some people from the LGBT group to film more footage. I socialised with the people I knew the best, finding common ground between the Brits, the outreach bloggers, the analysis team, and the LGBT group, drawing on the strengths of each and making new connections when useful, building stronger social networks for everyone. In all this my boss helped with the outreach, the horror series, the evangelising, and, of course, the work itself. All the time this was documented with a "photo of a day" project, and highlighted with the discovery of the Higgs and some truly amazing conferences.

The point to all this is that the physics itself was not enough to keep my mind occupied. I needed a lot of other outlets for my creativity and to keep boredom at bay. It also gave a welcome break from the physics, allowing my subconscious to take over those problems for a while and quite often in the middle of doing something else entirely I'd come acros the answer to a physics related problem I'd been thinking over for days. I had to have distractions to keep my mind active and reach those parts of my brain that physics research didn't exercise often. This has become more and more important to me as I've become more experienced and competent as a physicist. Since moving to Brussels I've found myself taking on additional projects that are moving even further away from physics. This blog is one example, where I take a deep and long look at where my life is heading. It's been an exercise in clarity that has taken a great deal of thought and attention, and many people have praised me for my writing on here. Finding the right words takes practice, and I've been developing the necessary skills in many different guises over many years. This has included being a student activist and support officer (including writing hundreds of pages of literature and policy), the technical writings associated with physics, some teaching and mentoring experience, documenting software effectively, blogging in many styles and contexts from the frivolous to the poignant to the serious, to the LGBT activism at CERN, writing for audiences of different levels of knowledge and competence of English. I find I have an ongoing need to explore new and different styles to challenge myself in novel ways. I currently have a few long term software projects taking place that go far beyond anything I've attempted before, and have definite audience demographics with their own challenges. One is an educational game for pupils in high school, another is a point and click tool for creating physics diagrams (an interface which is woefully underused in our field) and another is an online tile based exploration game that tests the limits of what a browser is capable of delivering, in terms of scope and resource use.

However the project that surprised me the most and what I enjoyed the most was taking part in stand up comedy at CERN. Writing a comedy set and performing it on stage for a given audience is something I had never done before. It tapped into a whole set of skills I had only skirted around before and never used fully. It forced me to think about the differences between being funny to friends and being funny to an audience, between telling a joke and setting up a joke. During the whole process I received all kinds of positive and negative feedback (all constructive), learned that the creative process is largely about deciding what not to include, received praise for my performance on the night, and ultimately made something of which I very proud. It also opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities for me. I met all kinds of creative and funny people who were equally as excited about the evening as I was, each with their own acts. Again, it fed into the social life I had developed at CERN, drawing on my experiences as a physicist, as someone who takes part in outreach, as an LGBT physicist, meeting familiar faces in a new context, and realising that a lot of the talent was already there at CERN. If only I had known this four years ago instead of being more mercenary! I look back on the experience as one of the most impressive and "cool" things I've ever done, and note that on the one hand it would not have been possible if I was not a physicist, and on the other that it used skills which are mostly non-overlapping with those of the typical physicist. It was outside my comfort zone by just the right amount, and that's what I'm looking for in the next chapter of my life. Something that builds on my creative and social skills, not necessarily a distraction from my technical skills, but something complementary that makes me a more well rounded person, and fulfils me in a different way. At that point I'll find my goalposts moving again and who knows where that will lead in terms of my personal life. I have a few ideas for short stories, so perhaps I'll take up writing for a few years.

CERN people - The Shrinking Field

A friend of mine posted the following video, which sums up the situation in particle physics rather well. At times it can feel like exploitation.

Time to get serious...

At the end of this month I will have been in my current job for one year. It's a big milestone because it means I will start to have my name on the papers that the experiment produces and that I'll be more free to pursue my own research goals within in the collaboration. In principle I will have between 12 and 24 months after that to continue working, and the end date is not yet fixed because it depends on many factors some of which will be (by definition) unknown until next year. The biggest factor is whether or not our team make a significant discovery, which is mostly likely to happen in the first few weeks or months of data taking. If we get lucky I'll probably be convinced to stick around for a while longer to help out with analysis and organisation. I've led a fledgeling analysis that grew unexpectedly popular before and simply keeping the meetings going and introducing new analysts is a full time job that needs excellent communication and management skills, both of which are highly transferable. It's an exhilarating experience, and character building, although quite exhausting, and it would be an excellent legacy to leave behind.

Since this is the halfway point it makes more sense to talk about what kinds of opportunities are available and what I'd like to consider. I've spent about half a year discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the career I've had so far, and how my needs have changed, but in terms of career development this has been quite nebulous. (For those who read this blog you may be interested to see how some of the themes overlap with one of my other blogs, the Good Grief Project.) While it has been very useful to discuss these personal factors I should now start to focus more on what I want from the next stage in my career. I definitely want an opportunity for skill development and growth, which I find is lacking in my current job. It's not that a job in high energy physics does not give opportunities to develop new skills, it's just that I've already explored so many of them so enthusiastically already that my CV is already overflowing with skills that go beyond the minimal requirements of such a job. One of the biggest motivators is finding a job that challenges me and gives me a chance to contribute something new. It would also be helpful to have a job which will encourage me to confront my weaknesses as an employee in order to make me more desirable. Staying in a job that allows you to define your own working hours and (to an extent) your own working environment tends to lead to work habits that need ot be adapted when looking elsewhere.

While looking at was available I found some recruitment agencies dedicated to people with scientific backgrounds, although these do tend to focus more on students than on people who are leaving the field. Without further ado, and to ensure I never lose these links, here are a few that come recommended from the Institute of Physics. First, an article from Institue itself titled Working in physics: Next steps for physics graduates. There they recommend their own Bright Recruits service, the ever present Milkround which I've known of since I was an undergraduate, and Prospects, which seems to be run by a charity rather than a business. In addition I also came across ecm who specialise in high tech recruitment and seem to promise higher quality rather than a brute force approach.

Tiime to get recruited!