TWIMS - The business end of things...

TWIMS 1. Traveling Wave Ion Mobility Spectrometry 2. Texting With International Mass Spectrometrists

The conference last week was awesome on lots of fronts, and TWIMS of both sorts were definitely factors. :)

So you might recall me being pretty stressed over this conference, well more specifically my talk, the last time I actually blogged. At that point I had the slightest twinge of a sore throat. Just a slight scratchy feeling every now and then, no big deal. Well come Wednesday afternoon, I find myself with a splitting headache and raging sore throat. The timing could not have been worse - I stayed home Thursday (although I didn't exactly rest...I worked from home and got a new haircut) and went in for as few hours as possible Friday. Come Sunday morning when it was time to fly up to Salt Lake City I had next to no voice and felt like my head was being squeezed in a vice.

My talk was Monday, and go figure my voice/cough/runny nose were by far their worst that day. Murphy's Law right? At some point during the morning oral session I blew my nose, and my friend Chris who was sitting next to me leans over and whispers, "Man, that was HOT." Previously I had only worried about having a voice, but apparently I also had to worry about sniffling and/or coughing. I sounded like some terrible combination of Marge Simpson, a 20-year chain smoker, a phone-sex lady, and a frog. It was awesome.

The talk actually went ok - my voice sounded terrible, but apparently I was comprehensible. Several people came up to me after the session to talk about my data. It was really nice to meet several people whose papers I've read and research I've really admired. It was even nicer to have them talk to me like a peer, and a legitimate contributing research scientist who knows what she's talking about (well as much as anybody does anyways - it's called research for a reason). It was awesome. One really big name professor from Oxford - arguably the biggest name in my relatively narrow field - even came and introduced herself to me and told me I gave a very nice talk. :D

Apparently that's not all though. After my talk she asked my advisor, VW, if I were a grad student or a post-doc. As if that weren't an awesome enough compliment, she told VW again later in the week how impressed she was with my data and presentation!! VW emailed me a couple days later passing along Oxford Prof's comments, and saying she thought she'd welcome me as a post-doc if I were interested when I graduated (which admittedly is still a good 2+ years away). EEE!! Not only would I love to work for this prof, but I'd LOVE to go live in England for 2 years. (Think of all the places I can easily fly to from London!! And crazily enough, it's easier - although not cheaper - to fly home to Boston from London...)

This morning I sent Oxford Prof a brief email thanking her for her kind comments, and mentioned that while I have 2 years left, I'd be very interested in talking to her next year about the possibility of post doc-ing for her. I wasn't exactly expecting a response, but mostly just wanted to make sure I'm on her radar even if peripherally. Well she replied this afternoon saying it would be great to have me in the group!! And that I should contact her a year before I plan to graduate so I can apply for some Royal Society fellowship! (The Royal Society is the British equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences.)

SO excited. The idea of post doc-ing at Oxford is super exciting, but it's a very long way off and a very remote possibility. And I have a LOT of work to do here in the meantime. Especially if I want to be competitive for a post-doc fellowship. So for now I'm just going to be very excited that Oxford prof thinks I'm doing good work. :)