Volume III Issue 5
May 2007 |
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 Cornerstone
Launches Career Podcasts
 The
Sloan Career Cornerstone Center has launched a weekly series of career
Podcasts, each about 10-15 minutes in length. Each Podcast covers a
different career path, such as dentistry, environmental engineering, or
actuarial science, and also responds to questions posted by listeners.
Listeners have posted questions about a variety of topics including
internships, summer programs, course selection, and salary expectations.
Listeners may download individual career
path topics or may subscribe via
iTunes.
The response has been
extremely positive already, with subscribers such as Jim Fellows who is
sharing the content weekly with his high school students in Michigan.
"This speaks to students," he explains. "It's a quick peek, and then
there's always more info on the internet." Cornerstone Podcasts are in
MP3 format, and while most listen to the free service on IPods or other
MP3 players, they can also be played on any computer, or shared with a
group in a classroom, conference, or career center setting.
Find out more...
Improving
Emergency Care
 Recognizing
that access to emergency and trauma care system in this country is
approaching a crisis point, the American Medical Association has issued
recommendations to meet this problem head on. The ideas involve multiple
strategies to advance emergency and trauma care and include advocating
for the creation and funding of additional residency training positions
in specialties that provide emergency and trauma care to increase the
physician workforce; working to ensure payment to physicians from
insurers for providing emergency care; securing bonus payments for
physicians providing emergency services in physician shortage areas,
advocating for federal and state liability protection for emergency
physicians; and improving the efficiency of emergency care by
identifying best practices for the staffing, delivery and financing of
emergency services.
Find out more about many different
career paths in the field of
medicine...
Math
and Science Partnerships Boost Student Proficiencies
 An
analysis of 123 schools participating in the National Science Foundation
(NSF) Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program shows improvements in
student proficiency in mathematics and science at the elementary,
middle- and high-school levels over a 3-year period.
The most recent data show
continued increases since the MSP program was established in 2002.
Students showed the most significant improvements in mathematics
proficiency, with a 13.7% increase for elementary, 6.2% increase for
middle-school, and 17.1% increase for high-school students. Science
proficiency at each level showed marked gains as well, with a 5.3%
increase for elementary, 4.5% increase for middle-school, and 1.4%
increase for high-school students. NSF's MSP program supports
partnerships among higher education, local K-12 school systems, and
supporting stakeholders, such as businesses or informal
science-education organizations. At a minimum, each partnership must
contain one institution of higher education and one K-12 school system.
Find out more at
www.nsf.gov/ehr/MSP.
Degree
Profile: Veterinary Science
 Veterinarians
play a major role in the healthcare of pets, livestock, and zoo,
sporting, and laboratory animals. Some veterinarians use their skills to
protect humans against diseases carried by animals and conduct clinical
research on human and animal health problems. Others work in basic
research, broadening the scope of fundamental theoretical knowledge, and
in applied research, developing new ways to use knowledge.
Most veterinarians perform
clinical work in private practices. More than 50 percent of these
veterinarians predominately or exclusively treat small animals.
Small-animal practitioners usually care for companion animals, such as
dogs and cats, but also treat birds, reptiles, rabbits, and other
animals that can be kept as pets.
 About
one-fourth of all veterinarians work in mixed animal practices, where
they see pigs, goats, sheep, and some nondomestic animals in addition to
companion animals. Veterinarians in clinical practice diagnose animal
health problems; vaccinate against diseases, such as distemper and
rabies; medicate animals suffering from infections or illnesses; treat
and dress wounds; set fractures; perform surgery; and advise owners
about animal feeding, behavior, and breeding.
Find out more about careers in
veterinary science.
Give
it a Little Hydrogen Gas!
 When
Princeton University engineers want to increase the power output of
their new fuel cell, they just give it a little more gas -- hydrogen
gas! Though the simple control mechanism was previously thought
impossible, Jay Benziger, a professor of chemical engineering, and
Claire Woo, who graduated in 2006, showed it can work. Fuel cells, which
use hydrogen to make electricity with only water and heat as byproducts,
have attracted much attention as a clean alternative to fossil
fuel-burning energy sources. Benziger and Woo's work is a potentially
major development in fuel cell technology.The secret of their success is
a system in which the fuel input itself changes the size of the reaction
chamber, and therefore the amount of power produced. Previously,
electrical resistors were used to dissipate excess power, sacrificing
some of the fuel cell's efficiency. Benziger and Woo's breakthrough also
adds to the understanding of water management in fuel cells -- one of
the major obstacles to large-scale deployment of the technology in
automobiles.
The first applications of
their design are likely to be in small machines such as lawn mowers, the
researchers said. The machines would be easy to use, incorporating a
design similar to the familiar acceleration systems of cars that use a
pedal to increase the flow of fuel and the power output. The use of fuel
cells in lawn care equipment would cut down on a major source of
greenhouse gases, especially as emissions from these machines are
largely unregulated. The fact that Woo was able to contribute to such
groundbreaking work while still an undergraduate is a testimony to her
outstanding abilities and to the Princeton community and environment,
Benziger said. For her part, Woo said the project confirmed her interest
in going on to graduate school in chemical engineering. "It was a great
experience," she said, praising Benziger's willingness to help her with
hardcore research or difficult questions about her future. "He was
always willing to listen." The work was supported by the National
Science Foundation, including a Research Experiences for Undergraduates
grant that supported Woo during her summer work.
Find out more at
http://engineering.princeton.edu.
Professional
Women and Minorities in STEM
 Women
have made substantial progress in preparing for careers in science and
engineering (S&E), earning half (50%) of the bachelor's degrees, 44% of
the master's and 37% of the doctorates awarded in S&E fields in 2003-04,
according to the latest compendium of education, employment and
demographic data, Professional Women and Minorities, published by the
Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST).
The gains in science and engineering by underrepresented minorities
(African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) have been slower,
but overall, progress is being made. Underrepresented minorities earned
16% of the bachelor's degrees, 11% of the master's, and nearly 6% of the
doctorates awarded in S&E in 2003-04. According to the CPST:
• Over the past
forty years, women have more than doubled their share of the
bachelor's degrees awarded in science and engineering.
• In the last two decades, women are approaching parity in medicine,
earning 46% of the degrees, and in law, earning 49%.
•currently represent about 14% of the population. However, they
earned only 7.3% of the bachelor's degrees, 4.3% of the master's
degrees and 2.7% of the doctorates in S&E in 2003-04.
•Americans, who represent about 13% of the U.S. population, earned
8.4% of the bachelor's, 6.3% of the master's and 2.8% of the
doctorates in S&E.
• American Indians, who account for 1.0% of the U.S. population,
earned less than 1% of degrees awarded in S&E regardless of level.
• Women have outnumbered men in higher education since 1979, and
accounted for 57.2% of all college students enrolled in fall 2004.
Check out the special resources on the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center
for women and
underrepresented minorities...
NASA
Creates Microshutters
 NASA
engineers and scientists building the James Webb Space Telescope have
created a new telescope technology called "microshutters." "Microshutters"
are tiny doorways that bring stars and galaxies very far away into
better focus. This new technology will go aboard the James Webb Space
Telescope, to be launched into space in a decade. The microshutters will
enable scientists to block unwanted light from objects closer to the
camera in space, letting the light from faraway objects shine through.
To get an idea of how these tiny little "hairlike" shutters work, think
about how you try to make something look clearer – you squint. By
squinting, your eyelashes block out light closer to you. That's similar
to how the microshutters work. These microshutters will allow the
telescope to focus on the faint light of stars and galaxies so far away,
they formed early in the history of the universe. That's because light
travels at 186,000 miles per second, and light is still traveling
through space from the time the universe started. No other telescope has
this microshutter technology. The Webb Telescope will take over for the
Hubble Space Telescope. It is planned for launch in the next decade.
Find out more...
Career Cornerstone News is a publication of the
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