Group Coordinator: Jennifer Grant, (University of Wisconsin-Stout)

Coordinator contact

We are planning a workshop FOR undergraduate students in Vancouver.  The inaugural workshop will focus on TOF and Orbitraps as used in Metabolomics/Lipodomics, Imaging, and Top Down Proteomics.  If you are willing to share your expertise with a group of up and comers, please contact Christine Hughey by March 16:  hugheyca@jmu.edu  Please click to view details.

Notes from the URMS Second Annual Meeting (Denver, CO)
“Prime the Pump”
6/8/2011

The interest group <Undergraduate Research in Mass Spectrometry>, or URMS, held its second annual workshop, and explored how to promote undergraduate research. The format was an open-ended round-table discussion. Attendees were from large and small universities, and we had a member from NIH, as well as members with strong industry ties. Additionally, an undergraduate student attended and provided valuable input.  Overall, the discussion centered on how the URMS interest group will best serve both undergraduates and faculty that mentor undergraduates. 

We opened the meeting with a frank, creative discussion about the obstacles faculty encounter while promoting undergraduate research. Each attendee presented at least one thought. We noted that promoting mass spectrometry among undergraduates is key to a thriving profession. However, workload, funding, equipment access were all key issues for the faculty, as was the fact that it’s difficult to build institutional knowledge within a lab when undergraduates leave so relatively soon after being trained. We shared some of our thoughts on activities that the URMS group could sponsor that might help address these issues. Perhaps a future activity would be to invite five panelists in varying stages of career and with varying experience at NSF (i.e. senior reviewer, new reviewer, newly funded). Or, we could invite individuals who have been organizing mass spectrometry education into SoTL (scholarship of teaching and learning) rubrics.  

For ASMS2012, we agreed to focus on a student-centered tutorial workshop. Further discussion and planning for ASMS 2013 would continue in a more informal setting. As a group we thought the tutorial might provide the greatest benefit for all, including faculty who could be asked to present. The current thought is to ask ASMS to allow us to hold a free undergraduate-targeted workshop on a Monday, taking the place of our interest group meeting. We agreed that Monday is a day when most undergrads would probably be present, and is sufficiently early during the meeting. We feel that use of the interest group’s meeting would minimize the risk to ASMS. However, we would need to arrange a second meeting to discuss URMS business and future activities (this could occur informally).
Subsequent discussion focused on the content of the workshop.  Since it is impossible to cover how each mass spectrometer works in an hour and a half, we decided that the workshop should focus on an introduction of “hot topics” that will be presented throughout the week (e.g., imaging by TOF MS, top-down proteomics).  Some participants thought it might be good to hold mini-demonstration on how to “read” a scientific poster in order to extract the maximum information in a minimum amount of time.  The remaining workshop time could be more social, allowing students the opportunity to interact with both mass spectrometrists and each other.  The workshop could then be followed by a casual on-ones-own dinner to give the students time to get to know each other.  Dr. Christine Hughey will coordinate the organization of the tutorial with help from others.

If this workshop proves successful, then we propose to move it to Sunday afternoon as part of a Sunday undergraduate experience.  This undergraduate program might include the tutorial session, the UG poster competition and a social event. 

Additional questions that were raised throughout the discussion that perhaps we or ASMS can address:

1. Can ASMS provide a breakdown on how many registrants are undergraduates?
   At present we only know if a first author is an undergraduate.
2. Might ASMS wish to provide assistance with student internships similar BMSS programs? http://www.bmss.org.uk/education.htm
3. How do we reach out to industry and determine what industry would like undergraduates to know?
4. What is the best way to utilize the ASMS web forum? The listserv?
5. Is there are reduced conference registration fee for undergraduates? This was addressed by the Education committee but the UGMS group in uncertain of the final decision.
6. At some point does URMS want to promote/offer travel scholarships for undergrads? How to we raise funds? BMSS provides travel grants to their students.
7. How do we ensure that students at PUIs are as competitive for ASMS travel grants as UGs or grad students from R1 universities? We need to make it widely known that UGs are eligible for travel grants.
8. Should URMS or ASMS be providing a basic MS book to undergraduates during the tutorial?  The BMSS gives its student members a book.  Perhaps “measuring mass from positive rays to proteins” would be a good choice.
9. Can URMS develop a suggested reading list?
10. How to grow the URMS active membership, and assist individual members in taking a leadership role at ASMS?

Business Meeting:

A key part of the business portion of the meeting was to appoint a new coordinator. Dr. Christine Hughey will rotate in as a co-chair. Dr. Hughey founded the undergraduate research poster session that is currently on Sunday evening, and has organized it for the past 7 years. Drs. Dil Ramanathan and Darrin Smith will take the lead in supervising the undergraduate poster session, and others volunteered to help.  From this point forward, two co-chairs will tackle the undergraduate poster session, rotating every other year like the interest group supervisors. We also identified several individuals who would be interested in managing discrete projects, including the tutorial, and also members who might be able to assist by mentoring new faculty. Dr. Jennifer Grant, the URMS interest group founder, will serve one more year as a co-chair, and rotate out next year. Chairs operate on two-year terms as requested by ASMS. Thanks also all who for volunteered to help with next year’s event, don’t worry we will be in touch!

Parting Thoughts:
As an interest group, we strive to incorporate the enthusiasm of individuals new to ASMS, as well as to allow more regular attendees to explore their passions in new ways.
We are inspired to hear that, for one attendee, sending undergraduates to ASMS played a firm part in their decision to attend graduate school.
Thanks for time, effort and attention!

Prepared by Jen Grant, presiding.
    w/suggestions from Christine Hughey.