Sarah Burke

Very excited to share this first foray into watching chemistry molecule-by-molecule! Story below 👇 Small molecule binding to surface-supported single-site transition-metal reaction centres nature.com/articles/s4146…

@InnaVishik It’s a good list. Still requires some willingness of the institution to accept your “no’s”. I’ll add that local sabbaticals are great for bringing back thinking time and focus and yiu get to putter in your own lab. It’s the stay-cation of sabbaticals.

Here is are my hot takes on balancing academia and young children: 1. If you are nursing, do not trave abroad without baby during peak lactation (4-9 months). Trust me, don’t do it, and certainly not to conference sites far from urban areas. If you do travel abroad, make sure to bring a plug converter that converts voltage too (I am not alone among physics mamas who have blown out the AC adapter on their breast pump). 2. Learn from your kids. For example, my younger one taught me to say “no want to, go away” very cutely, so now my service obligations are only things I am passionate about or good at. My older one taught me that I am a dummy dumb dumb, so I understand where referee #2 is coming from. 3. If you are on the side of the baby making equation that grows the baby and feeds the baby from their body and then the baby thinks they are part of your body until age 5, you might have to pull back from your career in strategic ways. One of my personal heroes, Mildred Dresselhaus, had 4 kids before she was 35 and before universities gave a bunch of accommodations. When her kids were young, she deliberately worked on a topic that was not ‘hot’--physics of carbon–and she did serious, careful work there. Later, carbon became ‘hot’ (buckyballs, then graphene) with her work paving the way. Most of us are nowhere near as brilliant as Millie, but everyone can stay in the game without missing their kids' childhood in their own way. 4. Of course if you are an academic or have any other type of full time work someone else (daycare, school) is taking care of your kids. But if that is not enough, you can hire more part time people to help in the morning or evening. And hire (one or more) professionals only. Not a teenager, a grownup. Pay at/above prevailing wage, treat them like professionals (in the sense of valuing their expertise), and love them like family. Don’t get an au pair unless you want an additional child who is not related to you. While this might sound like ‘don’t be poor’ type of advice, my audience is academics on the tenure track (and comparable professions) who can afford this but don’t avail themselves. 5. Optimize conference attendance for ones that fit in with the kids one way or another, either you can bring them or the conference is local or the conference is close to family. Send your students and postdocs to conferences. You can also network by inviting people to your university. 6. Get enough sleep as often as possible to optimize your brain power for the few hours a day you have to grind. Halfass or postpone less important obligations to make this happen. 7. Networking is great, but have you tried playdate networking? Try it if your kids are more social than you are. 8. Your nature paper will never come home for thanksgiving. That is a guarantee. Love those who can love you back. 9. So many activities in academia are optional. Optional means you don't have to do it. Do not do optional things that you don't have time for. In the wise words of my toddler, "no want to, go away." 10. If your babies, toddlers, or gradeschoolers are sweet as pie, save your sabbatical credits for the teenage years. 11. You are very fortunate to be in this position where you have to figure out how to balance children with an academic career. Enjoy this brief period of your life.

U of T is thrilled to celebrate the Year of Quantum by advertising three new faculty positions! Please spread the word, encourage friends/mentees to apply, or consider applying yourself. (Links in rest of thread) #QuantumOptics #QuantumInformation #AMO @UofT @CQIQC_Toronto

Looking for highly motivated individuals who are keen to work on superconductivity in thin films of lanthanum nickelates. The project encompasses thin film growth by MBE, ARPES and STM. For the full advert, see vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/50….

🚨Heads up! Our beloved 2DSPM conference is back in a year from now!! Save the dates and share your latest research with the 2D materials community at a unique venue. Check out our invited speakers! See you in San Sebastián in 2026!! Organize @DIPCehu Sponsor @ifimacuam

@KirstyDuncanMP Thank you for your years of service to our country, to science, and to integrity in sport. You have done so much, and we appreciate it all. All the best to your future and good health! 🙏🏻🇨🇦

To the wonderful people of Etobicoke North and friends across the country, it is with a heavy heart that I step back from this coming election. Serving you has been the greatest honour of my life. To all of you, please accept my heartfelt and profound thanks, I am very grateful.

At @APSphysics Global Physics Summit? Check out Jörn Bannies' presentation on the electronically driven topological switching of LaSbTe Wed March 19 9:48-10am Anaheim convention centre 255A!

At @APSphysics Global Physics Summit? Check out Jiabin Yu’s presentation on emergent order in Pt-doped NbIrTe4 Thurs March 20 5:24-5:36 Anaheim convention center 252B!

At @APSphysics Global Physics Summit? Check out Rysa Greenwood’s presentation on exciton dynamics at C60-Au(111) interfaces Tues Mar 18 12:06-12:18 Anaheim convention center 254B!

@JasonKhoury1 This is the way.

Great opportunity for 2D quantum materials in Ottawa! 👇🏻

@LuicanMayer Does that mean we can say “you’re just here because you’re a guy, now calm down and get me a coffee”? 😏

@LuicanMayer Oh… oh no. 🤦🏻‍♀️

@NicolaSpaldin @sineatrix @UCB_MillerInst Enjoy! You know, Vancouver is just a short flight away and we have some very nice mountains! 😉

Fabulous view from my rental house in Berkeley! First day of the semester tomorrow and I’m excited to be joining the ⁦@UCB_MillerInst⁩ as a Visiting Professor.

@ClausWilke @J_my_sci @lucklepper I would argue the two are not mutually exclusive but definitely not correlated. Fully agree that what we mostly assess in undergrad does not predict, or even drive good development of researchers.

@soychotic More correlation with age + use of mobile/cloud computing IMO. Many 19yo students don’t know where their files are. Upper-level students still willing to crack a case and use command line when needed, and many use Mac b/c power and seamless operation, though instruments Windows.

@soychotic Apple IIc as a toddler and grew up with Macs and still use them today. The switch to a Unix base meant you could dive as deep as you needed/wanted to without having to navigate Linux driver hell. At work have used DOS through every windows but find it opaque. Am a physicist.

Can someone do a correlation study on kids who were started with mac computers versus windows pcs and tech illiteracy or even just general problem solving skills because I have a Hypothesis

@FalseCreekFerry Spectacular! I bet you don’t get to run whale-watching tours too often! Must have been quite an experience in person.

We had some special visitors in the creek today.

@neubadah “Wonder has value too” 💯

So obviously we’re not good at predicting what impacts research will have. I also don’t think it should be just about dollars and lives. Discovery feeds our curiosity as humans, inspires art & science, and reminds us why we explore in the first place. That wonder has value too.

Since we're talking about funding of absurd research by NIH and other federal agencies, the funded scientists: - watching flies fuck - giving rats massages - spending years digging into why jellyfish glow - tracking penguin poop from space - using horseshoe crab blood

@katherine_co_ This is awesome, but I am displeased to see it…

@wahl_group Oh that’s good… congrats to your team! (On the paper too 😉)

When Diracula gets rotten teeth 🎃 Van Hove singularities appear – read in our new paper, nature.com/articles/s4146…, how to engineer sharper teeth through higher order Van Hove singularities. Congratulations to the CDQM PhD students to winning the Halloween pumpkin competition!