New Blog: About me.

Most people who stumble across this will know about me, but maybe not why.  So this post will take care of the both of those questions.

Who? 

Why it's me.  2008 MSU Chemistry BS, 2013 Purdue Analytical Chemistry Ph.D.  I worked throughout my undergrad to assemble as marketable a set of skills an analytical chemist (Achemist) could.  High school Co-op, two undergrad labs, summer internship with Merck.  Focuses ranging from HPLC, prep-HPLC, 1H and 13C-NMR, synthesis (briefly, not my thing), UPLC, and MS.  Checked a lot of boxes there. 

Then, grad school.  I'm only a couple months out so I won't speak too much of it, but it was an interesting time.  I fell in love with the idea of a project which was still that...an idea.  It was a funded idea, and for the American system it was a WELL funded idea.  The problem was that it was following in the footsteps of an instrument assembled in Switzerland...and that one was WELL funded in the Swiss system.  The difference between well funded in the US and well funded in Switzerland for a fundamental Analytical/Physical chemistry instrument is an extra comma.  I was a whee-wittle-baby BS chemist walking proud onto a Big 10 campus, I had no clue what that comma meant.

I'm still convinced the project was cursed too.  I won't go into it in depth, but I'll just say that the project saw its fair share of students who left for various reasons.  Some medical, some academic, some mental and some...well...some just quit the project but not the program.  What was supposed to take 2 years on the outside took 4, which considering the obstacles (I'd say 75% of the difficulties could've been solved with that damned comma) I take as a huge victory.

Very long (150 pg) story short, I graduated, which brings me to the why.

Why this blog?

It's as simple as this.  There are two main types of successful graduate students:  Those who live for the research, these students adore the research they do with an almost unhealthy attachment, and those who live for the job, these are the students who want a Ph.D. in Chemistry and to go into industry.  The reasoning behind these second type range from wanting money to wanting responsibility to not wanting to get bored with a single project.  Me?  I fit into the "I love solving the chemical measurement and then passing it off to QC to run 500 replicates" part of the spectrum.  In graduate school we are subject to academia, which tends to be full of professors who fell into that first category.  As such, they know all sorts of ways to make those of us wanting to graduate and move on from academia feel inadequate.  Combine that with how the US government, State government, University, department, all treat us graduate students and things can get real dour real fast.

I escaped though!  I graduated, and found a job that A.) I love, B.) intellectually challenges me and C.) is a great example to those still fighting the glorious battle.

I now work for a spice extraction company, have been for almost 2 months now.  Going from a hardcore analytical/physical chemical instrumentation project to operating in a tiny lab for a tiny company has been an awesome experience.  But here is the other part of the Why?

Why this blog pt II?

I am a Ph.D. Analytical Chemist that has been thrust into a significant ingredient company in the food industry which has been ravaged by the upcoming implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  As such I have absorbed a lot of information regarding food safety, adulteration, labeling strategies that has shocked me somewhat, and I'm sure would shock the average consumer to a great deal.  The main shock is in the fact that 90% of what I know I can tell you, because it isn't protected by non-disclosure, or pay-wall journals.  It's out there, in the FDA, USDA, or food institute literature.  Why don't people know about it?  Ignorance, pure ignorance, on all levels.  A lot of people in the food industry and scientific community don't know how to portray the situations in modern language that doesn't violate FDA/USDA regs.  Yes, the second part of that sentence is right, there are limitations as to the explanatory language labels can include.  There is also a consumer responsibility.  When the ingredient companies replace "Ascorbic acid" with "Cherry powder," we aren't making the food safer.  We are making the food sound safer.  The cherry powder is a powder of a cherry where the flavor has already been extracted, and the remaining dried component is ~70% ascorbic acid by weight.  The rest is color, a touch of fiber and assorted waxes and crap that the food manufacturer has to cancel out.  The result?  We took the scary chemical "ascorbic acid" (aka vitamin C) off the label, replaced it with something natural and raised the wholesale price $0.05 (MSRP goes up 0.10-0.15).  That price increase isn't the food makers fault, or the ingredient makers fault, it is the consumers fault.  If you're going to bitch and moan about a "chemical" on the ingredient label, first learn about the ingredient.


FSMA is coming, and it is going to change everything food in this country.  Not always for the better, and in a lot of ways, for the worse.

-J