Science 2.0

Instructor:

Dan Gezelter
phone: 631-7595
office: 258 Stepan Chemistry
e-mail: gezelter@nd.edu

Lecture:

Thursdays 2:00-2:50
117 DeBartolo Hall

Grade:

Quality of Presentation:   50%
Contribution to other discussions:   50%

Overview:

This seminar will deal with some “big picture” topics in modern science. There are 12 topics that we’ll discuss (one per week). Each of you will be responsible for a moderately short (25-30 minute) presentation to the rest of the class on one of these topics. The order of assigned presentations was chosen at random. You may swap topics with one of your classmates, but please keep me informed of any swaps. The day before your assigned presentation, you’ll be expected to email a brief (1 page) abstract to the rest of the class.

Following each of the presentations, we’ll discuss how that topic bears on the work and interests of various “stakeholders” in the scientific enterprise. These roles include (but are not limited to): principal investigators (PIs), reviewers, funding agencies, members of the public, journal editors, graduate students, undergraduates, amateur scientists, and corporate researchers.

Your grades for this course will be based on the quality of your presentation (50%) as well as your contributions to the discussions of other topics (50%).

The course syllabus is posted here and on Sakai. The course page includes a set of URLs that link to a set of interesting essays, papers, blog posts, and online resources to get you started.  These links should not be the only reading you do on these topics; they are just there to get you started on your research.