#SoCaltech: Jeffrey DuBose
“When I was at the University of Notre Dame, I wanted to find videos that explained how to study excited state photochemistry using the time-correlated single photon counting technique, but it just didn’t really exist. While there are lots of chemistry resources available online to learn chemistry basics, for very high-level techniques—the things that [graduate students] are doing on the cutting edge of the field—explanations of how to do them properly can be very hard to find.
“Eventually, I was able to teach myself the fundamentals of the technique and present it to my research group. My PhD advisor suggested, ‘Why don't you just give that same presentation you gave to the group, hit record, and then just toss it on YouTube and see what happens?’ That was a few years ago but his suggestion was really prescient because it spun off into something that a lot of people wanted to access. The video has now been seen more than 32,000 times, and the feedback has been really positive. I still get people reaching out to me every other month asking me to look at their data or asking detailed questions. It was such a rewarding experience, I eventually recorded two more videos on similar photochemistry techniques and have made hours of educational content.
“Open educational resources like video tutorials are useful for lowering barriers and making techniques more accessible. It pulls things out of the realm of ‘I was in this one mentor's lab, and this one really great person taught me all these things,’ and allows us to take that one-on-one interaction and scale it to something that other people can easily access.
“I’d like to see more researchers say, ‘Hey, if I've already done the hard work to learn this, I'm going to put at least some of that knowledge online for other people to access as a way to help the broader scientific community.’ The tools for recording presentations and putting stuff online are so easy to do, so it's harder to make an argument to not do it. I hope PhD advisors can encourage their students to develop their pedagogy in grad school, as it can benefit so many folks.”
Jeffrey DuBose is a postdoctoral scholar fellowship trainee in chemical engineering. His research involves using electrode interfaces to coax microbes into making useful biochemicals.
#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.