Ray Lang // associate professor and chair of computer sciences and engineering, Xavier University, Washington University, St. Louis
Lang finally returned to his house when utilities were restored—on New Year's Day. He started work at Xavier on January 12, where he'll continue the research he began in Sean Eddy's lab in St. Louis.

Although McKinney couldn't resume her research on staphylococci at the Alabama lab, she has nonetheless found the work there stimulating and has been productive. Since early October, she has been attempting to isolate and identify an enzyme from Bacillus circulans, which degrades the capsule around Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium that causes pneumonia. Her collaboration with Yother has also introduced McKinney to new and effective procedures. For instance, a graduate student is showing her how to use a phage display system, an easier and less expensive way to screen protein interactions than any she has used before. "I'm going back to Xavier a better teacher and researcher," she says.

In fact, McKinney never considered not returning. Since college, where she had few black science professors, she has wanted to be a role model for minority students. "At Xavier I can mentor and encourage science students, and also do my research there with funding and equipment. It's too valuable an asset to be lost or diminished. I want to help rebuild it."

Vladimir Kolesnichenko, an assistant professor of chemistry, and his wife, Galina Goloverda, an associate professor of chemistry, have similar feelings about Xavier. The couple left New Orleans the day before Katrina's arrival with their 15-year-old son, Igor, and with friends who didn't have a car, driving to Lafayette, Louisiana. A close friend in Iowa City, Iowa, Ronita Lebeau-Meyerdirk, who knew they were camping near Lafayette, called campground after campground until she found them, whereupon she invited the family to her home. Kolesnichenko and Goloverda were eager to return to Iowa City, where they had lived from 1996 to 1998. They knew professors at the University of Iowa—both of them had worked there—and their son had local friends and could easily slip into school.

McKinney never considered not returning.

"Lou Messerle [an associate professor of chemistry], whose interests are very close to ours, said we were welcome in his lab," says Goloverda, an organic chemist. "As soon as I learned about HHMI's program, I wrote to Dr. Jordan, explaining Messerle's offer. So she made it happen."

Darrell Eyman, an associate professor of chemistry at Iowa, convinced the university's administration to allow Kolesnichenko, a materials chemist, to develop and teach a new graduate-level class in nanochemistry. Jordan again intervened constructively, by ensuring that Kolesnichenko received the difference between the Iowa salary and the higher HHMI stipend.

Photo: Imke Lass

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