A Bluetorial on the history the Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association from an unusual vantage point 1/n - ThreadSky

jeremymberg.bsky.social • 97 days ago

A Bluetorial on the history the Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association from an unusual vantage point

1/n

Comments

I was a minor player in the creation of the Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Sssociation (PDA) in 1992. This was one of the first PDAs in the country. Let me start with some background about my rather bizarre (and certainly unexpected) career path.

2/n

jeremymberg.bsky.social•97 days ago

As I started college, I imagined I would become a chemistry professor. My father was a math professor, and I grew up on the Stanford campus. I loved chemistry and this affection only grew as I started taking college chemistry classes.

3/n

jeremymberg.bsky.social•97 days ago

I graduated with my BS and MS degrees from Stanford and went to chemistry graduate school at Harvard, interested in inorganic and physical chemistry as well as biochemistry (and organic chemistry but to a much lesser degree).

4/n

jeremymberg.bsky.social•97 days ago

I obtained my PhD working on bioinorganic chemistry, synthesizing and characterizing inorganic complexes that were designed to mimic the structural and reactivity properties of the active sites of molybdenum-containing enzymes. I never did any work with the actual enzymes in vivo or in vitro.

jeremymberg.bsky.social•97 days ago

As it became clear that my final project would be successfully completed, I started thinking about a postdoc. My interest in structures had been stimulated, in part, by reading Watson’s The Double Helix in high school. I wanted to learn structural biology.

6/n

jeremymberg.bsky.social•97 days ago

I applied for a position in Aaron Klug’s laboratory at the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge, UK. I was delighted and a bit surprised to be offered a position and I competed for a NATO fellowship to support my time there.

7/n

neilpbardhan.bsky.social•97 days ago

I read this thread with delight, for a pair of unusual reasons:
1) I was a JHu undergrad who had a friend Jeremy Berg '01 who occasionally received communications meant for you
2) I later became head of my own postdoc association and was curious about what history of such groups there is to share

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply