The Whole Story

Making the decision where to go for the rest of my education has been quite the roller coaster. Many people have already asked why we're staying at Rochester when it seemed so certain only a few days ago that we would be attending the University of Arizona. Actually, a week or so ago Rochester had been wholly eliminated from contention! Well here goes the story:

As most everyone knows, I was accepted to 3 graduate programs which are detailed in this earlier post. I found out my admission to the two optics-related programs (Rochester and Arizona) on February 12, and about Duke February 21. At this point the decision of where to go was essentially trivial. Although I knew about some great research on ovarian cancer that was being done at Arizona, I had been working (very minimally) for Ed Brown in order to get my foot into the door of research of interest to me. I knew that he liked me and I knew that his research was directly in line with what I wanted to do. However, towards the end of February/beginning of March I had a short and frank conversation with him that changed everything and started us on a whirlwind tour of uncertainty.

I started working with him with the understanding that if he liked me and if I liked the research and if I got admitted to the PhD program and he had room in his group then I'd be in a good position to work for him for my PhD thesis. Although there are a lot of "ifs" in that statement, the majority of time everything works out pretty smoothly. For me it did not. Ed Brown is a sincerely nice guy and would be great with which to work. He is still pretty young, however, and I think is still figuring out his personal limitations as a professor. He told me that although he likes me and wants to take me into his group, has the funding, and has plenty of projects that need to be worked on, he simply does not have the time necessary to advise another grad student. He doesn't feel that he has enough time to adequately advise all of his current students as it is.

I knew of two professors doing the kind of research that I wanted to be doing at Rochester - Ed Brown and Tom Foster. Before I focused on Ed Brown's work, I had previously put some effort into showing Tom my interest in his group. Unfortunately, by the time Ed informed me that he didn't have time for me, all the positions for new grad students in Tom's group had been filled.

So in the course of that day we went from being about 90% certain of staying at Rochester to about 70% sure we were going to Arizona to pursue the ovarian cancer imaging. Over the next few weeks I intensified my communications with professors at Arizona and was getting positive feedback from them. Meanwhile, no more opportunities were presenting themselves at Rochester and Duke was still just a MS program which wasn't going to afford me the research experience that I really desire. I'd say we were about 90% - 95% absolutely sure we were going to Arizona by the end of March, especially after the University of Arizona Optical Sciences open house. I confirmed my good contacts there and subsequently secured myself at least a summer position in my first choice lab.

Meanwhile I learned from a professor here (Rochester) that there was a Optics alum currently in Duke's biomedical engineering (BME) program and that I should contact her for any questions. She enlightened me that there are some MS students in the program there at Duke that are able to secure research positions and therefore have their MS degrees paid for and then have their foot in the door for the PhD program. Intriguing.

I eventually got in contact with Adam Wax in the BME department at Duke. He informed me of his affinity towards Rochester Optics graduates and offered me a paid research position in his lab (not a research assistantship, but an hourly wage). Keep in mind that had I been offered admission to the Duke PhD program in Medical Physics, there is a very good chance I would have taken it. Also keep in mind that Duke has the number 2 BME program in the country. Also keep in mind that Adam Wax is doing exactly the kind of research that interests me.

All of a sudden Duke was becoming very appealing again. But again, there were many "ifs" in the Duke scenario and I had already gone through that process once not-so-successfully. I also perceived that there is a higher risk of not getting admitted to the PhD program from the MS program there as there was for me here. Maybe if I didn't have a family or other extrinsic responsibilities I would have been more likely to go all in and take this option. Then again if I didn't have a family (especially Lisa) there is no way I'd be as good of a student as I currently am and wouldn't be in this position to begin with. This option posed too much risk and ultimately became the first to truly be eliminated.

As more people found out at Rochester that I was most likely leaving for Arizona, administration started getting involved. I eventually was asked to speak with the director (essentially the dean) of the Institute of Optics and explain my research interests to him. I walked away with a list of names of people to contact, once of which was the dean of the BME department here, who gave me another list of names to contact.

The majority of people, as expected, said they didn't have anything directly in line with what I wanted to do. There were a couple, however, which responded very quickly and with high interest. Karl Kasischke spent an hour or so giving me a tour of his research and lab and convincing me of all the great tools and funding he has. Unfortunately his research is very specifically tuned to oxygen diffusion in the blood of the brain. To me that's interesting in a "I want to read about it in Scientific American" sort of way and not a "I want to devote 5 years of my life to this" sort of way.

Maiken Nedergaard was much more impressive. I spent over two hours touring her lab, looking at her current research, meeting the people in her group, and discussing her objectives and why she wants an Optics person. Without getting into all the gory details, I was floored. I had only gone to meet her because I felt that I should at least humor peoples' requests for me to see their labs. I've never seen a lab more well funded, a track record more productive, or a willingness to do seemingly anything before. I have since learned that she is practically a god in the neuroscience field (and is actually having her own building built next to the hospital to better facilitate research), but at the time she was just another lab to visit.

Her work is somewhat like Karl's, but much more far reaching. Her focus is the brain, but has researched strokes, epilepsy, diseases, defects, tumors, you name it. She also does spinal research. Although all this is really amazing, I am getting a PhD in Optics, not biology. What really resonated with me was the level of freedom and autonomy she offered me. I would essentially be THE optics person in the lab. This is no small lab- she has ~30 people working for her, only about 5 of which are grad students. The rest of them are paid staff and collaborators. I would be working to improve her imaging capabilities and meet her needs using virtually any imaging modality we deem to be best. Maybe it would be in improving her current imaging systems. Maybe it would be in using a different emerging system all together. Many ideas have been floated out.

Although the lack of structure gives great freedom, it also poses logistical problems with meeting the requirements for a PhD. I got an application acceptance deadline extension from both Arizona and Rochester and called together a meeting this past Tuesday with Maiken, two Optics faculty (Andrew Berger and Jim Zavislan), and me. Maiken proposed her ideas and gave her vision of what she wanted done and Berger and Zavislan served as the referees for reality. It was a surprisingly frank and productive meeting. I believe we all came away from the meeting feeling as though there is a genuine opportunity for an optics student to really learn and to really accomplish a lot.

Stalemate.

There is a move in billiards called a push. In the game of 9-ball, after the break if the person whose turn it is does not have a play on the lowest ball, he may call a push and just hit the cue ball anywhere on the table (not the pocket of course) and then the decision is passed to his opponent on whether he wants to play the ball or not. Given the seemingly equally excellent choices between Barton's group and Nedergaard's group I really wanted to just play a push and have someone else make the decision for me. I tried to get Lisa to do it multiple times, but she wouldn't.

Should I go to the person's lab with the bigger medical optics name (Barton) but with less freedom and funding and autonomy or the person's lab with freedom, funding, autonomy and a huge medical name, but a relative unknown in the optics community? Should I go where I can graduate in probably 3.5-4 years or the place that'll probably take 4-5? Do we really want to move? It would be really nice to live by Mike and Linda (Lisa's sister)...I really enjoyed hanging out with them when we were both in Utah and have missed that ever since (actually, I think I was pushing for this to be an issue in our decision more than Lisa was!).

Tuesday night was a long night. Lisa and I talked at length. I well outlasted everyone at the Temple. I sat in my car staring at the Sacred Grove. I sat in my car staring at the Hill Cumorah. It was a great night in that respect...I haven't gone on a spiritual binge like that in quite some time. It was good to simply be alone with my thoughts for a while.

I came to the conclusion both options would work out great and it ultimately came down to how ambitious I want to be. Arizona would be the more clear cut and in some respects secure and easier route. By easier I do not mean anything about the academic experience. I mean easier in that my path would be clearly outlined and I would do my part and that would be that. Rochester would be the more ambitious route where I would have to really figure out everything for myself. I want to be that ambitious person. I want to be that person who has a record of accomplishment and is known as a self-starter. And that is why I want to be at Rochester.