Annual summary (2013)
Dear All,
I supposed to write this email last night, the New Year’s Eve. The first cup initiated my memory of the year and the second propagated a little further. But the third cup transferred my thought to something else and the four terminated the functionality of my brain. Once I got up this morning, it’s 9:30 already. It reminded me the Chinese woman poet Li Qingzhao of Song Dynasty “heaving sleeping could not absorb the residual alcohol”. As an argument, writing this email in the very first day of the new year as the very first thing to do is also meaningful. Some body said (I could not remember who – must be a philosopher): “An end is a new beginning and a beginning is another end”. It’s like polymerization anyway.
1, In Chinese pronunciation, 2013 sounds like “love (2) you (0) a whole (1) life (3)” and 2014 like “love (2) me (O) a whole (1) generation (4)”. I love you all. Students are like children. Like parents wishing their kids, I wish you a successful and happy 2014! Make sure we do well in 2014, because 2015 is the next. Five (5) in Chinese pronunciation could mean “no” or “endless” – your choice.
2, The year of 2004 is very special. Did I use the word “special” every year? I hope not. This year, we recruited 5 new students: Darko Ljubic, Sharon Li, Lei Lei, Yong Qian and Steven Gariepy. Except for Steven who is still in Master’s, all the others are in PhD program. Plus Chad Smithson, Ali Mohammad Rabea, Erlita Mastan, Hermes Zhu (PhD’s) and Yvanne Ren (Master’s) who started September 2011, we have a total of 8 PhD’s and 2 Master’s on going. We also have a postdoctoral fellow Dr. Qi Zhang who quit his job at GE/Sabic Shanghai and joined us Nov 2013. We also have Visiting Scholar Gordon Han who knows the UNIPOL reactor system better than his own body. Yes, we are booming, again. With this level of muscle (or mussel?), we should be able to overcome obstacles en route to success and beat the challenges in research badly. Oh yes, Rummana Syeda, another Master’s is still on the list. She started 2010 but left for job in 3M in 2012. Let’s hope Rummana be completed in 2014.
3, The new group is quite impressive. For the first time in many years, our labs are clean now. I shared my supervisor Dr. Archie Hamilec’s view “If your lab is dirty, how could you generate clean data in experiments?” In just a couple of weeks upon arrival, Darko made all our labs so clean that it looked like nobody ever worked there. They are basically emptied. While I greatly appreciated his effort, I wondered if he suffered mysophobia (“neat freak” – I do at a perfectly controlled level). I realized I was mistaken when I marked his 6B03 final exam. I have not seen such a terrible hand writing, which could be matched only by Dr. Robert Pelton (or the artist Shiping Zhu?) It reaffirmed the philosophy that the extremes are most compatible. Another impressive thing is Yong Qian from SCUT (visiting PhD from SCUT). He got a research project almost done in two months upon his arrival.
4, Did we have anybody graduated in the year of 2013? I could not remember any and I do not want to check my record in writing this email in keeping our tradition. Super star Lily So was the last graduated. She joined the famous Santiago Faucher at Hatch. We also had Xiaohui Li, a visiting PhD from ZJU and Prof Heyang Li, a visiting scholar from ZJUST, completed in 2013. I suddenly realized 2013 was actually a quiet year in out flow of the Zhu’s reactor, which reflected a low in flow in 2012, one of the few years that we did not recruit. Let’s congratulate these new members of Emeritus category in our family!
5, As a research group, we definitely need to report the research outcome. There were good news and not so good news. Let’s have the good news first. We had 8 papers appeared in 2013: Chad’s Chemical Communication, Hong Yu’s European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, Cam Derry’s Journal of Electronic Materials; Qi Zhang’s Macromolecules, Weifeng Liu’s JPSA and AIChE J, Dunming Wang’s AIChE J, and Jianmin Huang’s Macromol Chem Phys. We had 4 accepted: Lily So’s review in Progress in Polymer Science (a top journal with Impact Factor over 25) and an original work in Macromol Reaction Engn, Erlita Mastan’s JPSA, Pingwei Liu’s Green Materials. The most impressive was Lily’s So’s PPS paper. It’s not easy to get into PPS. The journal invited me three times to writing review papers, I have not got a single one done. The closest one was a modeling review paper Prof Tobita wrote with me as a coauthor. The reviewers criticized that the paper was not like a review but a summary of the author’s own work. The editors asked Prof Tobita to revise it that Prof Tobita refused. I must agree with Prof Tobita for he was the very best in modeling. Naturally I am not good at summary and reviews. I really appreciated Lily’s (and of course, Santi’s) superb abilities in writing reviews. We also had 7 submitted for review including Ali’s, Erlita’s, Heyang’s and Xiaohui’s. There are also a few on my hands.
6, The total number was good. However, we could also see the problem. First, many were through the collaboration with ZJU group, thanks to Prof Wenjun Wang’s great effort . Pingwei, Weifeng and Xiaohui were very productive. Although each spent some time at McMaster and definitely honored as a member of the family, the major parts of their work were done at ZJU, if not exclusively. Second, we had some frustrating experiences in the recent year. Years ago, my peers and friends often complained that we published papers before they submitted. Now, it’s turned around. We complained peers published papers before us. Let’s face it. Researchers at the frontier have similar ideas. It really depends on how quick (or luck) people get things done. We were admittedly slower in the recent years for various reasons. I shared the major responsibility and determined to fix it. But a most recent incident worth record is just an unfortunate. Hermes submitted a paper “polydopamine modification of substrates for MOF film growth” to Meso and Microporous Materials in April. It was rejected 8 months later after several reminding to the editor of accelerating the review. What surprising was that a paper appeared in a December issue of JACS reporting the exactly same thing: polydopamine for MOF film, with a much sexy title. The paper was submitted in August, some 4 month later than Hermes. The MMM journal editor clarified that the JACS paper authors did not review Hermes submission and the JACS paper authors clarified that they did not know Hermes submission before my email and warned us MMM is not as good journal anyway. What a coincident and again it confirm the statement that smart people have similar brains. We must improve and have a step ahead of peers or nowhere!
7, By now, all residual CH3CH2OH gone and I am fully waked. As said, I shared the responsibility. The major reason was my time committed to the administrative duties as the department chair. I must admit such a level of time commitment inevitably hurt research activity and productivity. By the summer, I will complete my five-year term. Looking back, the department has got a lot of things done over the years. Among many things, upon completion of my service, we will have six to seven new faculty members recruited, which represent almost half of the faculty work force. I felt I have done my share in service. Thank to strongest support of all the colleagues, the department has been very successful in the recent years in all the categories of research, teaching, service, culture and recognition. Dear faculty colleagues and super Dean Puri made all the effort in convincing me to continue the service as dept chair. I thank their trust but indeed I am determined to come back to research where I belong.
8, You know what? My sabbatical is coming. Serving five years as dept chair (or six years as a regular professor), I have been granted a full year of research leave. It means, I do not teach during the academic year of 2014/2015. Do not misinterpret it. I, and most professors, love teaching. However we are excited with sabbatical because it gives us freedom in time and dedication to research. I can then concentrate on research activities. I suddenly realize that I desperately need time to write papers. I promised Ullmann’s Encyclopedia for two chapters of polymer reaction engineering due August 2014.
9, I used to summarize the human productivity of the emeritus members: who produced a bay with who’s assistance etc. We did have quite a few in 2013, but I could not remember who did and who assisted. To avoid embarrassment to myself, I do not name individuals but warmly and sincerely congratulate all who produced babies in 2013. Thank for the major contributions to the human kind’s sustainability. My impression of 2013 was the mass production. Some produced 3 or 4 (or 5?). Well done. Prof Shi of BUCT said the effort producing a baby is as much as generating 5 SCI papers (note: Prof Shi is a fine lady and speaks in a woman’s point of view).
10, The emeritus people continued to be successful. Again I could not remember all. I suggest we create a website to recording the accomplishments of our group people. You cannot always trust your former supervisor’s memory and he is 54 years old with an overused brain! The most recent ones that I had impression are: Sara Alibeik joined Wentworth Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor, Dapeng Zhou promoted to a full professor rank at Jiaxing University, Bing Yang promoted to Associate Professor at Anhui University, Santiago Faucher left XRCC and joined Hatch and promoted to Global Director of Technical Innovation, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
A final statement as usual is that this email is written in one breath and I refuse to go through a second time. It’s a spontaneous memory or impression about 2013 (love you a whole life) written in 2014 with some CH3Ch2OH residue leftover from 2013 in a 54 year-old brain. Congratulate on your accomplishments and thank you all for the great effort. Wish you happy 2014 (love me for a generation)!
Cheeeeeeeers!
Shiping Zhu, PhD, PEng, FCAE, FEIC, FCIC
I supposed to write this email last night, the New Year’s Eve. The first cup initiated my memory of the year and the second propagated a little further. But the third cup transferred my thought to something else and the four terminated the functionality of my brain. Once I got up this morning, it’s 9:30 already. It reminded me the Chinese woman poet Li Qingzhao of Song Dynasty “heaving sleeping could not absorb the residual alcohol”. As an argument, writing this email in the very first day of the new year as the very first thing to do is also meaningful. Some body said (I could not remember who – must be a philosopher): “An end is a new beginning and a beginning is another end”. It’s like polymerization anyway.
1, In Chinese pronunciation, 2013 sounds like “love (2) you (0) a whole (1) life (3)” and 2014 like “love (2) me (O) a whole (1) generation (4)”. I love you all. Students are like children. Like parents wishing their kids, I wish you a successful and happy 2014! Make sure we do well in 2014, because 2015 is the next. Five (5) in Chinese pronunciation could mean “no” or “endless” – your choice.
2, The year of 2004 is very special. Did I use the word “special” every year? I hope not. This year, we recruited 5 new students: Darko Ljubic, Sharon Li, Lei Lei, Yong Qian and Steven Gariepy. Except for Steven who is still in Master’s, all the others are in PhD program. Plus Chad Smithson, Ali Mohammad Rabea, Erlita Mastan, Hermes Zhu (PhD’s) and Yvanne Ren (Master’s) who started September 2011, we have a total of 8 PhD’s and 2 Master’s on going. We also have a postdoctoral fellow Dr. Qi Zhang who quit his job at GE/Sabic Shanghai and joined us Nov 2013. We also have Visiting Scholar Gordon Han who knows the UNIPOL reactor system better than his own body. Yes, we are booming, again. With this level of muscle (or mussel?), we should be able to overcome obstacles en route to success and beat the challenges in research badly. Oh yes, Rummana Syeda, another Master’s is still on the list. She started 2010 but left for job in 3M in 2012. Let’s hope Rummana be completed in 2014.
3, The new group is quite impressive. For the first time in many years, our labs are clean now. I shared my supervisor Dr. Archie Hamilec’s view “If your lab is dirty, how could you generate clean data in experiments?” In just a couple of weeks upon arrival, Darko made all our labs so clean that it looked like nobody ever worked there. They are basically emptied. While I greatly appreciated his effort, I wondered if he suffered mysophobia (“neat freak” – I do at a perfectly controlled level). I realized I was mistaken when I marked his 6B03 final exam. I have not seen such a terrible hand writing, which could be matched only by Dr. Robert Pelton (or the artist Shiping Zhu?) It reaffirmed the philosophy that the extremes are most compatible. Another impressive thing is Yong Qian from SCUT (visiting PhD from SCUT). He got a research project almost done in two months upon his arrival.
4, Did we have anybody graduated in the year of 2013? I could not remember any and I do not want to check my record in writing this email in keeping our tradition. Super star Lily So was the last graduated. She joined the famous Santiago Faucher at Hatch. We also had Xiaohui Li, a visiting PhD from ZJU and Prof Heyang Li, a visiting scholar from ZJUST, completed in 2013. I suddenly realized 2013 was actually a quiet year in out flow of the Zhu’s reactor, which reflected a low in flow in 2012, one of the few years that we did not recruit. Let’s congratulate these new members of Emeritus category in our family!
5, As a research group, we definitely need to report the research outcome. There were good news and not so good news. Let’s have the good news first. We had 8 papers appeared in 2013: Chad’s Chemical Communication, Hong Yu’s European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, Cam Derry’s Journal of Electronic Materials; Qi Zhang’s Macromolecules, Weifeng Liu’s JPSA and AIChE J, Dunming Wang’s AIChE J, and Jianmin Huang’s Macromol Chem Phys. We had 4 accepted: Lily So’s review in Progress in Polymer Science (a top journal with Impact Factor over 25) and an original work in Macromol Reaction Engn, Erlita Mastan’s JPSA, Pingwei Liu’s Green Materials. The most impressive was Lily’s So’s PPS paper. It’s not easy to get into PPS. The journal invited me three times to writing review papers, I have not got a single one done. The closest one was a modeling review paper Prof Tobita wrote with me as a coauthor. The reviewers criticized that the paper was not like a review but a summary of the author’s own work. The editors asked Prof Tobita to revise it that Prof Tobita refused. I must agree with Prof Tobita for he was the very best in modeling. Naturally I am not good at summary and reviews. I really appreciated Lily’s (and of course, Santi’s) superb abilities in writing reviews. We also had 7 submitted for review including Ali’s, Erlita’s, Heyang’s and Xiaohui’s. There are also a few on my hands.
6, The total number was good. However, we could also see the problem. First, many were through the collaboration with ZJU group, thanks to Prof Wenjun Wang’s great effort . Pingwei, Weifeng and Xiaohui were very productive. Although each spent some time at McMaster and definitely honored as a member of the family, the major parts of their work were done at ZJU, if not exclusively. Second, we had some frustrating experiences in the recent year. Years ago, my peers and friends often complained that we published papers before they submitted. Now, it’s turned around. We complained peers published papers before us. Let’s face it. Researchers at the frontier have similar ideas. It really depends on how quick (or luck) people get things done. We were admittedly slower in the recent years for various reasons. I shared the major responsibility and determined to fix it. But a most recent incident worth record is just an unfortunate. Hermes submitted a paper “polydopamine modification of substrates for MOF film growth” to Meso and Microporous Materials in April. It was rejected 8 months later after several reminding to the editor of accelerating the review. What surprising was that a paper appeared in a December issue of JACS reporting the exactly same thing: polydopamine for MOF film, with a much sexy title. The paper was submitted in August, some 4 month later than Hermes. The MMM journal editor clarified that the JACS paper authors did not review Hermes submission and the JACS paper authors clarified that they did not know Hermes submission before my email and warned us MMM is not as good journal anyway. What a coincident and again it confirm the statement that smart people have similar brains. We must improve and have a step ahead of peers or nowhere!
7, By now, all residual CH3CH2OH gone and I am fully waked. As said, I shared the responsibility. The major reason was my time committed to the administrative duties as the department chair. I must admit such a level of time commitment inevitably hurt research activity and productivity. By the summer, I will complete my five-year term. Looking back, the department has got a lot of things done over the years. Among many things, upon completion of my service, we will have six to seven new faculty members recruited, which represent almost half of the faculty work force. I felt I have done my share in service. Thank to strongest support of all the colleagues, the department has been very successful in the recent years in all the categories of research, teaching, service, culture and recognition. Dear faculty colleagues and super Dean Puri made all the effort in convincing me to continue the service as dept chair. I thank their trust but indeed I am determined to come back to research where I belong.
8, You know what? My sabbatical is coming. Serving five years as dept chair (or six years as a regular professor), I have been granted a full year of research leave. It means, I do not teach during the academic year of 2014/2015. Do not misinterpret it. I, and most professors, love teaching. However we are excited with sabbatical because it gives us freedom in time and dedication to research. I can then concentrate on research activities. I suddenly realize that I desperately need time to write papers. I promised Ullmann’s Encyclopedia for two chapters of polymer reaction engineering due August 2014.
9, I used to summarize the human productivity of the emeritus members: who produced a bay with who’s assistance etc. We did have quite a few in 2013, but I could not remember who did and who assisted. To avoid embarrassment to myself, I do not name individuals but warmly and sincerely congratulate all who produced babies in 2013. Thank for the major contributions to the human kind’s sustainability. My impression of 2013 was the mass production. Some produced 3 or 4 (or 5?). Well done. Prof Shi of BUCT said the effort producing a baby is as much as generating 5 SCI papers (note: Prof Shi is a fine lady and speaks in a woman’s point of view).
10, The emeritus people continued to be successful. Again I could not remember all. I suggest we create a website to recording the accomplishments of our group people. You cannot always trust your former supervisor’s memory and he is 54 years old with an overused brain! The most recent ones that I had impression are: Sara Alibeik joined Wentworth Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor, Dapeng Zhou promoted to a full professor rank at Jiaxing University, Bing Yang promoted to Associate Professor at Anhui University, Santiago Faucher left XRCC and joined Hatch and promoted to Global Director of Technical Innovation, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
A final statement as usual is that this email is written in one breath and I refuse to go through a second time. It’s a spontaneous memory or impression about 2013 (love you a whole life) written in 2014 with some CH3Ch2OH residue leftover from 2013 in a 54 year-old brain. Congratulate on your accomplishments and thank you all for the great effort. Wish you happy 2014 (love me for a generation)!
Cheeeeeeeers!
Shiping Zhu, PhD, PEng, FCAE, FEIC, FCIC