Professor Paparazzi

About three weeks ago I emailed seven professors whose research related to energy. As I had just started work, it seemed to be the most logical thing to do. Most of my time for the beginning of the semester will be taken up by pulling together articles for the Fall 2013 alumni magazine energy feature; and if you remember from last year, those deadlines come up fast. Luckily, I managed to write three articles related to energy research before the end of last year so I would already have a head start. And that's turning out to have been a wonderful idea.

Because for three weeks, including persistent emails reminding them that I would like to interview them and that this is for a magazine that has an impending deadline, only two of those professors have responded to me. The email conversations in my gmail account are four, five emails long, all from me. Hello, my name is Meredith Staub...Hello, If you were busy last week, my schedule for this week is...Hello, I would still very much like to sit down with you and talk about your research...Hello, I would appreciate a timely response as this article has a deadline...

But! I also wrote three articles on our three new faculty members! That was pretty fun. I emailed all three of them at once, and ALL THREE responded the same day. How satisfying! Then I interviewed them all within a week, and have gotten the articles back to them for editing less than a week after their interviews. Easiest faculty articles I have ever had to do.

Not only that, but they were all young and excited to talk to me. Many professors tend to be embittered about talking about their research to laymen--we always misrepresent it, we always ask stupid questions, we are always so pushy and misquote them and portray them in a bad light and make up facts...this is seriously the kind of reception I get from some faculty members! (I should say that it's a pretty small percentage, but a fair percentage of them have this bias to at least some degree.) So I guess it's no wonder they won't respond to my emails sometimes. Bill offered to email them next week if there were a few I really wanted to talk to who wouldn't respond. Hopefully they would respond to the MechSE Director of Communications.

The new professors were all excited about their research, and excited to be professors! Two of them, anyway--one was already an associate professor, having been an assistant professor at University of Michigan. But the most exciting part: TWO of them have research that directly relates to alternative energy, which I can put in my feature! And they respond to my emails!! Perrrfect. *rubs hands together*

So with the addition of those two, there's only two other professors that I really need a response from, one of whom has already arranged for a meeting with Bill (that I will be sitting in on, that will be relevant for the article). So despite stubborn and busy professors thwarting the projected timeline for my project, it looks like I can manage to get all my articles in a reasonable amount of time! I was seriously starting to get worried that I would have to corner them in the faculty lounge while they're getting their coffee. Like professor paparazzi.