Sabbatical mode

Dr. Ng (that's me, hi!) is on sabbatical this semester. What does that mean for the group? In some sense, things aren't that different. Projects are still rolling along, and one-on-one meetings and group meetings are still happening weekly (though now they're all on Zoom). In other ways, it's pretty different. I'm not teaching, which means less opportunity to interact with undergrads, and as a result I'm also not directly supervising any new undergraduate students for the semester (though we do have some "senior" undergraduate researchers who've worked with us multiple semesters who are continuing their projects).

For this month I'm still mostly in Pittsburgh, making sure things are on track to move along mostly without me during the spring semester. Starting in March, though, I'll be in Canada, working on collaborations with folks from the University of Toronto (thanks in part to an ACS sabbatical grant), plus working on the first draft of a Fate & Transport text for the Fall 2025 class to test out. At the same time, I am trying to reserve time and space for doing less. That is, I'm making space in my schedule for reading more deeply and thinking about research directions for the group. Are we asking the right questions? Are there ways to apply our approaches to new problems or in new ways? Have we sufficiently thought through the implications of the data we've collected?

As much as I love my job and feel privileged to have the freedom it brings, it's easy to fall into the "academic grind" of prepping the next lecture, submitting the next grant, and editing the next paper, all while feeling like you don't have time to step back and think. So I'm very much looking forward to this opportunity to practice a little "slow science." [No, that doesn't mean taking even longer to give you comments on those drafts, students... I hope...] I'm hoping to gain some perspective on where I'd like the group to go from here, and how to make sure we keep pulling the most important and interesting threads that emerge from our ongoing work. Stay tuned!

---