Reforming Doctoral Education through the Lens of Professional Socialization to Train the Next Generation of Chemists.

Several national organizations in the United States have questioned the effectiveness of doctoral education in chemistry in preparing and training doctoral students for their desired professional pathways outside of academia. This study investigates the knowledge and skills that chemists with a doctorate across academic and nonacademic job sectors perceive to be necessary for their careers and the ways that these chemists require and/or value certain skillsets over others depending on their job sector. Based on a prior qualitative study, a survey was distributed to gather knowledge and skills needed by chemists with a doctorate in different job sectors.

A Call for Data-Driven Networks to Address Equity in the Context of Undergraduate Biology.

National efforts to improve equitable teaching practices in biology education have led to an increase in research on the barriers to student participation and performance, as well as solutions for overcoming these barriers. Fewer studies have examined the extent to which the resulting data trends and effective strategies are generalizable across multiple contexts or are specific to individual classrooms, institutions, or geographic regions. To address gaps in our understanding, as well as to establish baseline information about students across contexts, a working group associated with a research coordination network (Equity and Diversity in Undergraduate STEM, EDU-STEM) convened in Las Vegas, Nevada, in November of 2019.

Large-Scale Models of Radiation Chemistry and the Principle of Detailed Balancing.

Large-scale kinetic models containing more than 50 homogeneous reaction steps have been developed to help understand the behavior of actinide solutions in various circumstances. One specific objective is to understand the behaviors in nitrate solutions as such solutions are used in actinide separations. A challenge arises in developing these large-scale models while ensuring compliance with the principle of detailed balancing because it can be very difficult to identify all embedded reaction loops.