This chemist went from the lab to the rink

A chemist leads the team

What if I told you a researcher found a way to spend more time solving problems instead of going to meetings, writing grants, and performing administrative tasks? For Eric Tulsky, what made that possible was going to work for a hockey team.

And now, he says, “I’m probably the first person in the history of the [National Hockey League] to be interviewed by C&E News.” In June, he was named the general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team, responsible for overseeing hockey operations.

How does a chemist land that kind of job?

After completing his PhD and a postdoctoral fellowship, Tulsky worked on nanotechnology for multiple companies. As much as he enjoyed that work, his interest in another analytical pursuit grew: interpreting hockey data. After spending many years doing science by day and hockey projects on the side, Tulsky joined Carolina in 2014.

Inorganic chemistry and nanomaterials turned out to be good training for interpreting a fast-moving game where the available information is limited. When analyzing a reaction, Tulsky says, you’re often making inferences about what the side products might be or how conflicting pieces of evidence fit into a reasonable theory.

“Hockey research isn’t that different,” he says. “That comfort with uncertainty and incomplete information really did translate, even if the kind of data I’m working with is very different.”

Working in sports is intellectually demanding, Tulsky says. He now feels more deeply involved with data than he did working in science, as well as better able to use statistics “for teasing apart what really matters and how much it matters.”

That’s important given hockey’s unpredictability. In chemistry, if something looks different than it did yesterday, it’s often due to unintended variations in experimental procedure. In hockey, Tulsky says, it’s crucial to split the random from the real—to identify genuine growth in a player’s skills and not the products of a couple of good games or lucky bounces.

Tulsky says his science training taught him how to be a manager, put together a vision, and even run a meeting. “A lot of that kind of training turned out to be unusual in the hockey world.”

In chemistry, an excellent day might bring a big breakthrough, says Tulsky. “That was a really great feeling.” Sports offer fewer we-did-it moments, he says. “You don’t get that as often. It takes years to get to that ‘Oh my god!’ feeling.”

Thinking hurts

Do chemists enjoy hard work? Is the mental struggle of discovering something balanced by the joy that comes with solving a difficult problem? Even though the emotional rewards of an insight earned through effort do feel good, thinking hard still feels bad, according to new research from psychologist Erik Bijleveld at Radboud University.

This phenomenon rings true for professional efforts as well as for hobbies. The mental effort required to do things such as identify a move to save the queen in chess or come up with the right letters to solve today’s Wordle is associated with negative feelings, the researchers found. Still, finding the solution can be thrilling, and people enjoy seeing their skills improve. “We think these rewards can compensate for the mental effort,” Bijleveld tells Newscripts.

The research began as a way to explore a debate in psychology: Do people try to avoid mental effort, or do they seek rewards? The team pulled data from 170 studies conducted on three continents, all based on a measure called the NASA Task Load Index. What they found, Bijleveld says, was that even a thrilling reward “can’t make the mental effort less unpleasant.” Those findings are consistent for many types of mental effort and education levels.

If people truly enjoy effort, Bijleveld says, then more of it should be a good thing. But that doesn’t seem to be how people react to solving tough problems. It doesn’t matter if the subject is the mind or a molecule. Negative feelings such as irritation and frustration are common during mental exertion, Bijleveld says. “For me, it’s inevitable. I feel it too.”

Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.