We had a wonderful 2013 PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) 10th Anniversary Celebration. Thank you, all of you, for coming, speaking, participating, sharing, and connecting! Classes will begin soon, but our campuses have plans for you … there is a reception at College Park, a lunch at UMB, and a dinner at UMBC, all coming up within the next two weeks!

At College Park: Annual Networking Reception:

Thursday, August 29, 2013 ● 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Stamp Student Union

Atrium Room 1107

http://www.gradschool.umd.edu/images/uploads/Welcome_Reception_2013flyer.pdf

At UMB: Welcome Back Lunch!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013 ● 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m

SMC Center, Room 203.

(This is the same location as the SSI. Room 203 is down the hall from the ballroom.)

At UMBC: PROMISE Fall Opening Meeting.

Friday, September 6, 2013 ● 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m

Game Room, 2nd Floor of the Commons.

RSVP here: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/18969.

Students from other campuses within the University System of Maryland, e.g., Bowie, Coppin, UMES, and others are invited to attend this event at UMBC. You may also attend the Funding Seminar which will be held the next day: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/18755 (PROMISE Alums, Dr. Patti Ordóñez and Dr. Frances Carter-Johnson, will lead this session. In total, they have been responsible for millions of dollars of funding that have come to participants in their seminar.)

Other things to consider:

1) Dr. James Green wanted to be a speaker for SSI, but he couldn’t come, so he has invited you to attend sessions on entrepreneurship education at College Park! See details here:

http://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/promise-ssi-registrants-throughout-the-usm-are-invited-to-entrepreneur-office-hours-august-september-2013/

2) Remember our tips for the Fall semester: http://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/prepare-for-a-successful-fall-semester-communicate-with-your-faculty-a-message-for-new-and-continuing-grad-students/

3) Please give a hearty thank-you to Miguel Nino, our PROMISE GA who is now at VA Tech: http://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/congratulations-to-promise-ga-miguel-nino/

We had a wonderful 2013 PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) 10th Anniversary Celebration. Thank you, all of you, for coming, speaking, participating, sharing, and connecting! Classes will begin soon, but our campuses have plans for you … there is a reception at College Park, a lunch at UMB, and a dinner at UMBC, all coming up within the next two weeks!

At College Park: Annual Networking Reception:

Thursday, August 29, 2013 ● 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Stamp Student Union

Atrium Room 1107

http://www.gradschool.umd.edu/images/uploads/Welcome_Reception_2013flyer.pdf

At UMB: Welcome Back Lunch!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013 ● 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m

SMC Center, Room 203.

(This is the same location as the SSI. Room 203 is down the hall from the ballroom.)

At UMBC: PROMISE Fall Opening Meeting.

Friday, September 6, 2013 ● 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m

Game Room, 2nd Floor of the Commons.

RSVP here: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/18969.

Students from other campuses within the University System of Maryland, e.g., Bowie, Coppin, UMES, and others are invited to attend this event at UMBC. You may also attend the Funding Seminar which will be held the next day: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/18755 (PROMISE Alums, Dr. Patti Ordóñez and Dr. Frances Carter-Johnson, will lead this session. In total, they have been responsible for millions of dollars of funding that have come to participants in their seminar.)

Other things to consider:

1) Dr. James Green wanted to be a speaker for SSI, but he couldn’t come, so he has invited you to attend sessions on entrepreneurship education at College Park! See details here:

http://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/promise-ssi-registrants-throughout-the-usm-are-invited-to-entrepreneur-office-hours-august-september-2013/

2) Remember our tips for the Fall semester: http://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/prepare-for-a-successful-fall-semester-communicate-with-your-faculty-a-message-for-new-and-continuing-grad-students/

3) Please give a hearty thank-you to Miguel Nino, our PROMISE GA who is now at VA Tech: http://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/congratulations-to-promise-ga-miguel-nino/

Congratulations to Dr. Susan Hoban, Catherine Kruchten, and Alexis O'Malley for their presentation at the National Charter Schools Conference held at the DC Convention Center on July 3, 2013.  Out of hundreds of presenters, their presentation ranked #2 out of the top 10!

The NASA’s BEST (Beginning Engineering, Science and Technology) project provides professional development for educators and curriculum support resources with a space exploration theme and introduces the Engineering Design Process in STEM for elementary and middle school classrooms. 

The following information was shared by Dr. LaTese Briggs (PROMISE Alum, UMBC Chemistry & Biochemistry, Current Program Analyst at Faster Cures.) Dr. Briggs captivated the audience of the 2013 PROMISE SSI on Saturday, August 17, with her call to the audience to have their G.I. Jane/G.I. Joe moments. She called for people to be academically, mentally, and emotionally prepared to step into their moments. Dr. Briggs finished her undergraduate degree at Hood College, her PhD at UMBC, and her Postdoc at the Broad Institute, a collaborative between Harvard and MIT. Dr. Briggs said that she is now in her dream job at an “ACTION” tank.  During the 2013 PROMISE SSI, Dr. Briggs participated in the During her time at UMBC, Dr. Briggs was a Meyerhoff Biomedical Fellow, A Gates Fellow, and a Peer Mentor for PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP. Dr. Briggs voluntarily provided the information below, after receiving inquires following her segment for the 2013 SSI Alumni PROMISE Talks. We thank her for being so giving of her time and expertise. 

• SSI 2013, August 17. 9:00 AM: The PROMISE Talks: PROMISE Alumni Discuss Their Research on Healthcare

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Dr. Briggs:

Thank you again for inviting me to participate in the 10^th anniversary of SSI. It is always an honor to be invited to speak at SSI, but it was truly special to participate in such a milestone event.

I have a had  few student reach out to me to inquire about the Broad Institute and I thought that it might be helpful to share my response to them with the larger PROMISE audience. I have pasted some tips and useful links on the subject below.

1.      Well before you are ready to apply (<1 year prior if possible), please be sure to study the website thoroughly to really get a sense of what is happening at the Broad. Start NOW, well before you are ready to move on to your postdoc. Do this by:

a.      Familiarizing yourself with the website

b.      Review the online  Brochures and Annual reports

c.      Review the Program areas at the Broad

2.      Identify  Faculty at the Broad whose research align with your interests and skill sets. When you select these 2-3 people, make certain that you are very familiar with the work (read their papers, understand the larger initiatives that they might be a part of i.e. chemical biology platform, RNAi platform, etc).

a.      Also try to figure out which conferences these faculty members frequent and get yourself there to meet him/her, and of course when you do, position yourself so that you can strike up a conversation. It can be as simple as “I read about your research in X, and I found Y to be very interesting, can you tell me more about this?”

3.      Develop a research proposal that outlines a project that you would like to pursue in that lab and really make sure that it is comprehensive, well thought out, and is both in alignment  and can enrich the work that is already going on in that lab (Note: this is good to do for any postdoc position that you consider, I guarantee you that it will put you a few steps ahead of most candidates).

4.      Read about the Diversity Initiative which houses the Diversity Postdoctoral fellowship program. Be sure to read this page carefully before submitting the required documents to diversity@broadinstitute.org

5.      Keep in mind that you can also reach out to a faculty member directly if you prefer, or if there are no remaining diversity fellowship slots available.

Here are some other links that will help you familiarize with the organization:

Broad Mindset/Approach

Broad Blog

Broad video library

BE THOROUGH! The key to accessing a training opportunity at the Broad is congruency. You need to be both a scientific and cultural fit – meaning that you are motivated and enthusiastic about being creative and highly collaborative.  This is truly a unique organization, so take your time with learning what the Broad is about and really put your best foot forward in the application. The website is dense and there is a lot of “hidden” information, so go through it more than once. If you are selected for an interview, be prepared to give a talk and to  meet at least 10 people during your interview. The process is intense and competitive, but keep in mind that if you believe that you are exceptional, then you are exceptional, and it will reflect as such at all times. Don’t sell yourself short; however, be prepared to perform exceptionally when they tell you YES, you can join us as a Broadie!

LaTese L. Briggs, Ph.D.

FasterCures |A Center of the Milken Institute

Program Analyst

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We thank Dr. Briggs for sharing this information!

The following information was shared by Dr. LaTese Briggs (PROMISE Alum, UMBC Chemistry & Biochemistry, Current Program Analyst at Faster Cures.) Dr. Briggs captivated the audience of the 2013 PROMISE SSI on Saturday, August 17, with her call to the audience to have their G.I. Jane/G.I. Joe moments. She called for people to be academically, mentally, and emotionally prepared to step into their moments. Dr. Briggs finished her undergraduate degree at Hood College, her PhD at UMBC, and her Postdoc at the Broad Institute, a collaborative between Harvard and MIT. Dr. Briggs said that she is now in her dream job at an “ACTION” tank.  During the 2013 PROMISE SSI, Dr. Briggs participated in the During her time at UMBC, Dr. Briggs was a Meyerhoff Biomedical Fellow, A Gates Fellow, and a Peer Mentor for PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP. Dr. Briggs voluntarily provided the information below, after receiving inquires following her segment for the 2013 SSI Alumni PROMISE Talks. We thank her for being so giving of her time and expertise. 

• SSI 2013, August 17. 9:00 AM: The PROMISE Talks: PROMISE Alumni Discuss Their Research on Healthcare

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Dr. Briggs:

Thank you again for inviting me to participate in the 10^th anniversary of SSI. It is always an honor to be invited to speak at SSI, but it was truly special to participate in such a milestone event.

I have a had  few student reach out to me to inquire about the Broad Institute and I thought that it might be helpful to share my response to them with the larger PROMISE audience. I have pasted some tips and useful links on the subject below.

1.      Well before you are ready to apply (<1 year prior if possible), please be sure to study the website thoroughly to really get a sense of what is happening at the Broad. Start NOW, well before you are ready to move on to your postdoc. Do this by:

a.      Familiarizing yourself with the website

b.      Review the online  Brochures and Annual reports

c.      Review the Program areas at the Broad

2.      Identify  Faculty at the Broad whose research align with your interests and skill sets. When you select these 2-3 people, make certain that you are very familiar with the work (read their papers, understand the larger initiatives that they might be a part of i.e. chemical biology platform, RNAi platform, etc).

a.      Also try to figure out which conferences these faculty members frequent and get yourself there to meet him/her, and of course when you do, position yourself so that you can strike up a conversation. It can be as simple as “I read about your research in X, and I found Y to be very interesting, can you tell me more about this?”

3.      Develop a research proposal that outlines a project that you would like to pursue in that lab and really make sure that it is comprehensive, well thought out, and is both in alignment  and can enrich the work that is already going on in that lab (Note: this is good to do for any postdoc position that you consider, I guarantee you that it will put you a few steps ahead of most candidates).

4.      Read about the Diversity Initiative which houses the Diversity Postdoctoral fellowship program. Be sure to read this page carefully before submitting the required documents to diversity@broadinstitute.org

5.      Keep in mind that you can also reach out to a faculty member directly if you prefer, or if there are no remaining diversity fellowship slots available.

Here are some other links that will help you familiarize with the organization:

Broad Mindset/Approach

Broad Blog

Broad video library

BE THOROUGH! The key to accessing a training opportunity at the Broad is congruency. You need to be both a scientific and cultural fit – meaning that you are motivated and enthusiastic about being creative and highly collaborative.  This is truly a unique organization, so take your time with learning what the Broad is about and really put your best foot forward in the application. The website is dense and there is a lot of “hidden” information, so go through it more than once. If you are selected for an interview, be prepared to give a talk and to  meet at least 10 people during your interview. The process is intense and competitive, but keep in mind that if you believe that you are exceptional, then you are exceptional, and it will reflect as such at all times. Don’t sell yourself short; however, be prepared to perform exceptionally when they tell you YES, you can join us as a Broadie!

LaTese L. Briggs, Ph.D.

FasterCures |A Center of the Milken Institute

Program Analyst

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We thank Dr. Briggs for sharing this information!

Welcome BACK!

All intramural leagues and events for the upcoming fall semester have been posted to imleagues.com, be sure to check them out and sign up! More information about all the events will be posted later as well as any additional leagues, tournaments or changes will be posted later. I am looking forward to a great semester with lots of activities.

Developing with progressive enhancement is not only a best practice, it’s absolutely necessary given the complexity of today’s websites and applications. We should never be sacrificing accessibility for convenience, so minimizing dependency on CSS3 features is important, and as a last resort, we need some form of feature detection for providing fallbacks.

The most common CSS feature detection methods require JavaScript. Modernizr, for example, is a popular detection library that checks support for CSS3 features (among other things). Some developers also write their own custom JavaScript tests.

Feature detection is about to become more streamlined, as CSS has a powerful new conditional rule that’s recently gained browser support. This is exciting news because we’re able to test the support of any CSS feature and provide the necessary fallbacks directly in the CSS.

The @supports Rule

CSS has built-in graceful degradation; if a browser doesn’t support a property or value, it simply ignores it. And if we include a fallback property that’s supported, nothing breaks. @supports drives this concept further by setting conditions based on browser support.

@supports is like a media query––it’s actually a feature query. A browser tests whether it can use certain properties if supported or ignore them if not. This means that soon we won’t need to rely on JavaScript for feature detection, so it will be easier than ever to use the latest CSS features and set fallback solutions for unsupported browsers.

Syntax

The syntax is similar to a media query, but instead of a media feature, we set a CSS declaration as the condition. The browser executes the styles inside the rule based on that condition.

For instance, the following transition is applied to .box only if the browser supports CSS transitions.

@supports (transition: .5s) {
      .box { transition: .5s; }
    }

Operators

Like media queries, @supports has three operators that can test for support in different ways.

not

The not operator checks if the browser has no support for the CSS property. This is especially useful when using new layout features like flexbox, because our layout doesn’t have to be chained to flexbox support.

@supports not (display: flex) {
      .box { display: inline-block; width: 25%; }
    }

If flexbox is not supported, the browser will apply the inline-block and width values to .box instead.

and

With and, the condition is true only if every expression is true. This way we can test for multiple features at once.

@supports (display: flex) and (transition: .5s) {
      .box { display: flex; transition: .5s; }
    }

If flexbox and transitions are supported, the browser will apply the styles defined in the rule. If not, the browser simply ignores the entire rule.

or

With or, the expression is true if one or all the expressions defined are also true. This operator is useful for vendor-prefixed properties.

@supports (-webkit-transform: rotate(-25deg)) or
              (   -moz-transform: rotate(-25deg)) or
              (    -ms-transform: rotate(-25deg)) or
              (        transform: rotate(-25deg)) {
       .box {
         -webkit-transform: rotate(-25deg)
            -moz-transform: rotate(-25deg)
             -ms-transform: rotate(-25deg)
                 transform: rotate(-25deg)
       }
    }

Final Thoughts

The not operator might be @supports most useful feature, because it’s the closest method to using JavaScript for feature detection and fallbacks.

Writing those extra CSS declarations may seem redundant––like code bloat. But keep in mind that feature detection functionality that’s native to the browser will perform faster than JavaScript.

We can start using @supports today, as it works in Chrome 28, Firefox 22, and Opera 12.1. It’s still too soon to abandon Modernizr altogether, but it’s worth noting that they’ve added a new detect that defers to the @supports rule in our style sheet if the browser supports it.

The post Thinking Ahead: Native CSS Feature Detection appeared first on Treehouse Blog.