IU’s best-kept secret: Science

Hundreds of well-respected, Ivy League-educated researchers are gathering on campus today to exchange ideas and further scientific progress.

   They meet every year.

   They meet every day.

In fact, they work here.

When they aren’t busy developing and testing ideas, they take on the extracurricular activity of preserving a proud tradition that is unshaken by scandals of past presidents, pornography or alleged partying.

Since scientific research is a job that reaps few financial rewards and rarely grants fame, it may seem inconceivable why anyone would commit a lifetime to such seemingly thankless work. But according to professors and students, a passion for scientific discovery and the opportunity to transform their passions into an occupation is reason enough.

Jennifer Takach, a research technician, said she graduated in May, but has decided to stay for a year to work with Andrew Feig in his chemistry lab before going to graduate school.

“Here at IU we are blessed to have several professors who are among the top researchers in their fields,” Takach said.

Just a few weeks ago, she read an article in The New York Times about an IU biology professor, Loren Rieseberg, who was given a half-a-million-dollar “genius award” for his research using sunflowers concerning the evolution of new species.

“This guy must be doing some awesome work, and I had never even heard of him,” Takach said.

Questioning Einstein
From the appearance of his office, professor Alan Kostelecky’s life as a theoretical physicist seems much like the life of a monk.

Sitting in his office with a gray sweater draped over his shoulders, he wears light, non-descript colors – whites and tans. He almost blends into the off-white bricks of his mostly bare walls. On his nearly bare desk lays a notebook opened to a blank page, sitting next to a clean sharpened pencil.

Kostelecky started his stretch at IU 18 years ago after receiving his Ph.D. from Yale. As an undergraduate, he decided to become a full-time physicist, but not without a great deal of soul-searching.

“I realized it (physics) was hard enough,” Kostelecky said. “I could do it superficially and get a job, or I could really try to understand it.”

He spent nearly a month trying to decide.

Now, his life is consumed by physics. He wakes up at 5 a.m. every day to work.
“The kind of thought I need to do comes early in the morning.”

He said ideas even have a tendency of creeping into his dreams. It seems inescapable.

“I live, breath and eat physics,” he said.

Kostelecky could look at his life as a trap. He made a decision a long time ago and now he is doomed to the confines of his mind. The warden of his prison is none other than physics. But Kostelecky doesn’t see it that way.

“There is a steady intellectual growth,” he said. “I’m sure you feel it as an undergraduate – you probably feel much smarter now than you did two years ago.”

For Kostelecky, the feeling of intellectual growth never goes away.

His current work involves an “extension” to the Standard Model (adequately titled Standard Model Extension).

“The world is described by the Standard Model,” Kostelecky said. “It describes all forces, particles. . . it’s an annoyingly good theory.”

The model works in conjunction with numerous scientific theories, including Einstein’s idea of relativity.

“What I’m interested in doing is ... trying to sort out whether or not Einstein was right,” he said.

For Kostelecky, one of the most appealing aspects of the IU physics department was its positive outlook.

“Many people doing theoretical physics could make a lot more money doing something else,” he said. “Many people don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to make money. It doesn’t produce a positive outlook. It depends on how you define success. If it’s freedom to find your intellectual interests, then it’s hard to beat Indiana.”

Team Players
Inside Jordan Hall, there’s a wall with pictures of prominent biologists who have studied at IU. Watson, of DNA fame, as well as his mentor Luria, are there, among many other lesser known biologists. Despite his fame, Watson’s picture isn’t obvious.

Like Watson, Clay Fuqua is difficult to find.

Fuqua emerges from somewhere deep inside the lab, stopping several times to offer some brief assistance to students working in the lab.

He seems like a ship captain from days of old, coordinating so many different people at once while staying calm through the fiercest storms.

Bronwyn Ramey is a graduate research associate in Fuqua’s lab.

“One of the most gratifying aspects of research is the learning that never ends,” Ramey said. “Every day, every week is something new – a new question to ask, a new result that leads to exciting conclusions or presents a new problem to solve.”

Fuqua’s lab studies microbial communities. His crew collects ticks and grinds them up. Then they pick out the different microorganisms inside.

Originally interested in chemistry and marine biology, Fuqua said as an undergraduate he “got turned on to marine microbiology.”

Now he studies how bacteria and other microbes interact and communicate with each other.

“Most people aren’t used to thinking of bacteria as team players, but they work together and compete against each other, too,” Ramey said.

He studies individual microbes working together, and coincidentally also lives by a philosophy of interaction and teamwork in the lab.

“All the things I talk about are done by these people,” Ramey said, describing his team as “a lot of people who work really hard because they’re interested in science.”

“The environment of the Fuqua lab is very inclusive,” said Manika Bhateja, an undergraduate researcher. “Everyone in the lab is very helpful and approachable, including Professor Fuqua. I am very lucky to be a part of such an environment.”

The importance of interaction between researchers was an inescapable theme voiced by professors and students alike in many different departments.

Halfway across campus from Jordan Hall, Andrew Feig is studying RNA.

He started studying science to escape boredom.

“No one in physics, chem, bio is limited by anything other than their own creativity,” Feig said.

Peter Mikulecky, a graduate student in Feig’s lab, expressed a similar enthusiasm.
“In my view, most other occupations are concerned with satisfying either basic needs, or needs that we have created for ourselves,” Mikulecky said. “Scientific research also helps to satisfy these needs, but it goes beyond that. Research satisfies the innate and uniquely human desire to seek truth.”

Natural Behavior
For researchers, the appeal of IU stems from the university’s commitment to freedom. Researchers agreed they require lots of freedom to do their work and to discuss ideas with others. When bureaucratic obstacles and inhibitions get in the way, the results can be detrimental to the work.

“It makes a big difference to be in a place where research is appreciated for its own worth,” Kostelecky said.

Julie Gros-Louis, a postdoctoral research fellow in psychology, agreed.

“You have the freedom to structure your own research,” she said. “You are independent with no one dictating what project you must work on.”

Gros-Louis works with Meredith West and Andrew King, who study animal behavior, specifically in birds.

West and King conduct their studies in large aviaries, one close to the length of a football field. They emphasized the importance of mimicking the bird’s real environment in order to study them.

“Most people would study the birds in very arbitrary environments,” West said, “We were interested in what the birds would do naturally.”

“We need to learn from the birds,” King said, “So they can teach us about their behavior.”

West and King met at Cornell. From there, they both studied in North Carolina until IU offered them positions.

King said Bloomington’s abundance of natural environment reminded him of Cornell.
“The nice thing about Bloomington, there’s a lot of space,” King said. “We came to IU because the University made it easy to have this facility.”

West agreed. “IU is one of the most supportive learning environments I know of, compared to other good schools,” she said. “They carry through with their commitments.”

Like Feig, King said he was drawn to research in order to escape boredom. He said there is a very special quality about research.

“Every once in a while you make a genuine discovery,” King said, “Knowing that no one else in the world knew that, it’s intoxicating – that moment of discovery. It happens rarely, but just enough.”