浏览新的isc2
在ISC2的双元套件中
心理系主任康斯坦斯·皮尔金顿（Constance Pilkington）在二元互动室的观察室做笔记。 Dyads—pairs of people—can be studied either through the two-way mirror or by video. 观察室控制着四个遭遇室。 Stephen Salpukas摄。
共聚焦的空间
Dan Zabransky ’09 uses the confocal microscope in Matthew Wawersik’s lab. “Having this home for our own little confocal is just a phenomenal thing. The advantage is that it allows you to take thin sections of tissues—less than a micrometer—optically,” Wawersik said. Stephen Salpukas摄。
The lion’s share of the psychology department is on the first floor of ISC 2. 二楼由生物学家占据，他们的新部门总部设在毗邻的科学中心1。 ISC 1是去年夏天开放的新建筑。
4月下旬，还在进行一些拆包和设置工作，但大多数佳博体育都在进行真正的科学研究。 生物学家和大多数心理学家都从米林顿大厅搬走了。 The departments aren’t 100 percent consolidated, though; 一些心理学家留在了贝尔大楼，一些生物学家留在了米林顿。 在ISC 2中，两个部门的大部分讨论都是关于事情有多好。
“This is a nice, big open space,” psychologist Peter Vishton said, looking around his new facility. 维什顿把他的佳博体育从贝尔大楼地下室的狭小空间搬了过来，从事涉及视觉控制动作的研究，尤其是对婴儿的研究。 “The parents will be more comfortable; that will make the babies more comfortable—and that will give us better data.”
Joseph Galano, meeting with a graduate student (“For the first time, we have a window!”), said he usually works with seven or eight undergraduate students, researching prevention of child abuse and neglect, often in partnership with the group Prevent Child Abuse Virginia.
“I’m very fortunate here at William and Mary to have wonderful undergraduate students,” Galano said. “We used to work in a closet; now we have a wonderful research space.”
Constance Pilkington, psychology chair, paused outside the department conference room where a group was assembling to hear a senior’s honors project presentation.
“Our new seminar rooms provide us with a lot more space to host invited speakers and to have research meetings,” Pilkington said.
isc2的好处不仅仅是更好、更舒适、更方便的工作空间。 与毗邻的综合科学中心的第一阶段一样，ISC 2的建造考虑到了科学家的需求。 例如，心理学家现在有了一个专门的计算机驱动的研究佳博体育，不再需要用拼凑在一起的机器来凑合。
“Computers are our microscopes and our test tubes,” Pilkington said. “I know everyone uses computers, but we use computers to collect so much of our data. 使用电脑，我们可以得到反应时间，它告诉我们大脑中发生的各种事情。 We collect physiological data and that tells us about your emotional state.”
The psych department’s new computer infrastructure even extends to a pair of Faraday chambers, electrically shielded booths that allow researchers in the EEG lab to get better data when they monitor brain activity in human subjects.
“Right now these fluorescents are flickering at 60 hertz—that’s 60 times a second,” Assistant Professor Paul Kieffaber explained. “All the outlets in the walls, they are pulsating with alternating current. 所有这些都会产生电噪声。 我们用来记录大脑活动的传感器非常敏感，它们能捕捉到所有这些环境噪音； in fact that noise is much louder than the kind of activity that we’re able to record at the surface of the scalp.”
Kieffaber说，在安装法拉第室之前，研究人员使用软件过滤掉电子噪音。 “It’s easy. And,” he said, “it distorts your data.” 皮尔金顿说，在威廉玛丽学院这样规模的学校里，这种屏蔽的隔间几乎是从未见过的，但对很大一部分心理学教师来说是很有价值的。
“The cool thing about this is we’ve got cognitive psychologists, clinical psychologists, social psychologists, pretty much the whole spectrum of psychology can come in here and do brain recording,” she said.
Like the EEG lab, Pilkington said the department’s new dyadic interaction lab will see wide use. 一套四间互动室通过视频和双向镜子连接到一个观察室。
“Because we have these four rooms in the suite, we can have people interacting together, then break them out into separate rooms,” Pilkington said. “We can watch everything that’s going on from the central control room.”
在二楼的生物佳博体育里，一场类似的蜕变正在进行。
“It’s bright, it’s open. It’s a great place to be. This is really a great change,” said Matt Wawersik, a biologist who works with stem cells in fruit flies. “We have our own mi
croscope room. 之前，我们只有这个临时的外壳，实际上是一个我们进入的盒子。 We have the rooms across the way that are colloquium space that we can meet for teaching and for lunches or lab meetings.”综合科学中心二期的开放是威廉玛丽科学园区发展的最新里程碑。 综合服务中心的第一阶段已于2008年夏季投入使用。 综合起来，ISC 1和2为化学系、生物系和心理学系提供了总共70个教学和研究佳博体育（加上教员办公室和支持设施）。 目前正在为综合科学中心的第三阶段制定计划。