Hacking Academia

😩 Are you regularly stressed out, feel like you're in over your head, and wondering how you ended up working at 2 am on a Monday morning to meet a project deadline?

You're not alone: I, and much of academia and research, have regularly found ourselves in this position. It's usually not because of a lack of talent, capability or passion - but often because we don't practice good, effective and pragmatic project management.

The good news: there are lots of simple, straightforward things you can do about it (and some that take a bit more work). This is the topic of today's #HackingAcademia video:

🔥 𝐑𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧

I cover:

📌 Why effective project management is so critical in a career - especially when it becomes impractical (and undesirable) to just work yourself ragged to meet a deadline

🧮 How specifying sufficient resources (funding, salaries, equipment) and realistic stakeholder expectation management before the project gets going (or is even proposed) can save you so much stress later on

🗺️ That Plan Bs, Cs and Ds are important to consider - but not to excessively investigate them before you know they're even going to be in play

🎯 The "killing two birds with one stone" fallacy: don’t confound all the things you want to do and achieve with what *this specific project* requires. A constrained, stress-free project done well will help those other aims more than trying to cram everything into the project itself. 

🔧 Not realizing that the setbacks you've experienced on previous projects are NORMAL, not exceptions. Talent being leaving or becoming unavailable (for myriad reasons), equipment breaking, methods not working - this is normality, NOT the exception

🕒 Being realistic and accurate about timelines: initially you can cope by just being pessimistic - but you can't just pad everything out blindly: ultimately you want to be realistic: some things are quick, some things *always* blow out.

📈 A good project fulfills all its milestones: it does not (generally) overachieve in one area and completely fail to deliver in others

🧠 Identifying, recognizing and dealing with problems early is crucial. This is enabled by nurturing a team environment where:

🚨 potential issues are called out

🙅 no-one feels the need to get defensive

🤝 everyone moves to working together on a solution

👉 Easier said than done - but awesome when you get there.

Over 2 decades into my career, I’d say I’m reasonably competent at a number of things - but being an effective project manager is one where there is always so much to learn!

🎙 Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2191455/episodes/16998729

🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/VrTPkMcJ8-M

#projectmanagement #projects #leadership #management #deadlines #stress #worklifebalance #planning #gaantcharts #milestones #fulfillment #grants #fellowships #contracts #tenders #academia #research #university #industry #government

🥣 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐫, 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 🥄

OR

💼 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲!

I thought a little bit about sending the wrong messaging with this image thumbnail (referencing Oliver Twist) about power dynamics, any possible symbolism about lack of funding in academia and all that... but given just as often I'm the one begging for funding as deciding it, and that I love Dickens, I'm sticking with it. And I also learnt something new today about the quote -see my note* below!)

In today's Hacking Academia video, I talk about some of the ways in which you can make your requests for funding - whether for a conference trip, a piece of equipment - whatever - more concise, less likely to be misinterpreted, less of a cognitive and time demand on the decision maker you're approaching, and in all likelihood more effective in getting a result on average - whether immediately or later on. All good things for all involved!

I cover:

🧠 checking your assumptions about the decison maker's world view and perspective: going in with incorrect assumptions can make your request dead on arrival

📌 concise and up front with , , : with details, context and nuances later on. Decision makers are typically time-starved, often cognitively overloaded: make it easier on them.

🚫 do not drip feed incremental "surprise" funding requests 🚫. When making the specific request, give the decision maker a best guess idea of what they're likely to see from you over say the next 12 months

📎 provide context and explain, explicitly, what it will enable and why that is a "good thing" 📎 The decision-maker isn't immersed in it like you are.

🎌 flag the importance to you, especially relative to your other funding requests. There's usually not enough funding to do everything, fully: make the priorities clear

🎯 capture the likelihood of success or partial success 🎯: some activities are all or nothing, for others partial success is still valuable

🍰 is partial funding useful? Yes, if it gets you meaningfully started on a goal: no if it's an all or nothing affair like a specific trip (unless you can find the remaining money elsewhere)

Getting effective at asking for funding is a valuable skill that many careers will lean on heavily: it also has onflow benefits in research and academia in pitching for grants, projects or fellowships, making your "ask" as compelling as possible.

🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dU35M77e

#grants #funding #money #resources #requests #pitching #university #industry #government #fellowships #projects #support #travel #equipment #research #careeradvice

* the first Oliver movie I saw was the 1948 one starring Alec Guiness, and I, like most of the internet, had always thought the quote was:

"Please sir, can I have some more"

It is in fact:

"Please sir, I want some more" 🤔

The Goldilocks Zone is the just-right distance from a star 🌞 where a planet can sustain liquid water 💧 - not too hot, not too cold, but ideal conditions for the possibility of life to exist 🌱.

The Goldilocks zone is also one of three "confidence zones" that I use to describe confidence levels, which are ever so important for so many things in your personal and professional lives, including applying for jobs, promotions, prizes, and general promotion of your work. 

The three zones are:

🔵 The unconfident zone, where your levels of confidence are underselling your actual capabilities.

🟢 The "Goldilocks" zone, where confidence is roughly in step with actual ability - a zone where you should, IMHO, spend a significant chunk (but not all) of your time.

🟠 The over-confident zone, which splits further into two:

🟡 The slightly overconfident zone: you've just had a bumper run of successes in a row and are feeling invincible - a very natural breeding ground for a bit of over-confidence.

🔴 The Dunning-Kruger effect: where a high level of confidence in ability is totally out of touch with reality, but unrealized by the individual.

In this Hacking Academia video, I dive into the concept of confidence in a professional career with an academic research lens. I cover:

🧠 The need to deliberately think about and be aware of your levels of confidence.

🙋‍♂️ The very common scenario of people underselling themselves (usually not their fault, but a product of the system we come up in).

🚀 The need to be slightly over-confident on occasion (selectively).

🪞 That getting feedback that you're doing well but are perhaps slightly over-confident, while sometimes a little awkward, is also a signal that you're pitching at just about the right level - you don't want people to miss what you're proposing is your value proposition!

🔁 That confidence is one of those things where you're particularly reliant on the perspective and feedback of others - you can't fully assess whether you're at about the right level yourself.

⚠️ Not covered in the video, but there’s also the situation where someone (unknowingly) has completely misplaced confidence that’s likely to get them into serious trouble. 🤝 There are good, gentle ways to try and help them - supportive conversations, mentoring, or prompting reflection. 🚫 There are also toxic ways to go about it - attacks, shaming, ridicule, or exclusion - that should be avoided at all costs.

So, which zone do spend most of your time hanging out in? I try to spend most of my time in the Goldilocks zone, but occasionally foray into the "over-confident" zone (sometimes deliberately, sometimes unwittingly 😅), and despite my best intentions, occasionally lapse into the "unconfident" zone.

🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/xu18cIonyv4

#CareerAdvice #research #university #jobs #grants #promotions #funding #careersuccess #confidence #selfbelief

What would I tell my younger self at the point I was starting my leadership journey? 🤔👣

That's the topic of today's Hacking Academia video 🎥 – I like to do the more philosophical ones on a Friday afternoon! 🧘‍♂️🌤️

I, like most people, am a "leader in learning" 📚 – it never stops. That said, it's been a pretty packed 15 years of learnings, mistakes, insights and tips from others 💡, and this is a small fraction of what I think I would tell my younger self about what I've learnt about leadership... so far.

Things like:

🔥 that it's simultaneously one of the most fulfilling but also most challenging things you can do

📅 it's not just about enacting the "grand visions" – a lot of leadership is about turning up, even at those toughest times

🧭 that, perhaps moreso than most other things, it's a continuous learning journey: what you learnt as an individual contributor only has limited transferability to leading a group, and then as that group grows in scale, you need to learn lots more at each stage

🤝 interdependence – you will increasingly rely on those around you, as they will on you – anything where you're the critical cog for everything is not a recipe for successful leadership

🪟 transparency and consultation – both are important, but are constrained due to realities in many situations. I've grown to particularly be a fan of transparency – not everyone will agree, but everyone should understand the grounds under which decisions were made

💔 self-care and empathy "limits": you cannot afford to completely and utterly dedicate your emotional self to every challenge going on – you will break – and you serve no-one if you're a wreck yourself. This can be especially difficult transition for small group leaders who are used to completely pitching in to the utmost extent to look after their (very small) number of members

⚠️ beware the "always right" trope, but you do need to be mostly right, as often as possible. If you're continuously screwing up, it's possibly a sign that you're out of your depth and need to step back and pick up some more skills and experience

🛠️ authentic technical experience: no experience at all, or a deep tech expert in the area you're leading? I'm in the middle on this one: you want to have, or deliberately acquire, at least some deep technical knowledge in the area

⚖️ bad management negates good leadership – and often you don't have the luxury of separating the two

🌬️ the increasing role and importance of soft influence

👟 "take a step in their shoes": leading is a great way to generate understanding of and empathy for those who lead you

🌈 the tricky balancing act between optimism and reality

Hope you enjoy it – feel free to share what you would tell your younger self about leadership! 😊

💻 YouTube link: https://youtu.be/EVcck_ouEsQ

Thanks to Sean Di Lizio for the candid photo! 📸

#Leadership #HackingAcademia #management #softskills

🎲 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 🎲

I've been wanting to do this video for a while now, and thanks to Maceon Knopke's lovely 3D printed dice, here it is!

This is also my 50th 🎂 Hacking Academia video 🎉🎉🎉 !!!

A lot of academic research career coaching I do revolves around basic concepts of probability and variance in an academic career: for awareness, and for how your strategy can be shaped to mitigate these challenges.

One of the key examples of this is funding pipelines: an integral part of most researchers' lives whereby they regularly apply for funding to do the research they want to do.

Rolling dice* is such a lovely way to visually capture some of the key concepts and considerations, as shown in this video: rolling a "1" is considered a successful grant outcome, and any other number is considered a rejection.

The key concepts illustrated in this video include:

🎲 the variation in outcome possible when you're putting in a single application at a time, perhaps on a yearly basis

🎲 the effect of improving repeated applications (seen in switching from a 6-sided die to a 4-sided die, representing increased odds of 25% up from 16.7%) - but still the lack of any guarantee that even a vastly improved application will be successful in any specific time frame

🎲 that for low acceptance rate schemes - those tough single digit acceptance rate, or even notorious alleged zero percent acceptance rate schemes (😡), it's basically a lottery where many highly qualified applicants will strike out. It took 31 attempts to roll a successful grant in a simulated scheme with 8.3% acceptance rate (this was an unusual but not impossible outcome, and has actual odds of happening 6.7% of the time - so 1 in 15 people would apply 30 times and not be successful 🤯

🎲 that, of course, having multiple applications in consideration at any time drastically increases your chances, and that having some diversity in those applications: diversity in whether fundamental or applied, whether large or small, and whether low chance or high chance of success, can help

This information can be presented in graphical, or textual form, but sometimes visual (with satisfying dice clinking sounds as well) can be the best way to illustrate concepts like this!

💻 YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/d99vY8By

* I will never not need to mentally check, is it "dice" or "die" for plural / singular

#HackingAcademia #AcademicLife #AcademicCareers #PhDLife #PostdocLife #ResearchStrategy #TenureTrack #EarlyCareerResearcher #GrantWriting #ResearchFunding #FundingPipeline #GrantStrategy #AcademicGrants #FundingSuccess #GrantTips #Rejection #FundingRates #RollingTheDice #RiskAndReward #AcademicYouTube #Podcast #ExplainerVideo #VisualLearning #ResearchExplained

LiDaR versus Cameras

The recent "Can You Fool A Self Driving Car?" video by YouTuber Mark Rober has 17.5 million views [1], is generating a lot of buzz, and is already the subject of a number of counter- and critique videos [2].

I've been asked by quite a few people what I think of it or to even post a video - so here it is.

I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who:

📡 first added an (single plane) "LiDaR" sensor to their camera-based autonomy stack back in 2004, and was amazed by the benefits it gave, especially over sonar

🚙 as someone who has worked on a number of research and commercial projects in both on- and off-road autonomous vehicles, where we used both cameras and LiDaR extensively, and

🌿 as someone who is interested in nature-inspired AI examples (the whole "humans primarily drive using vision" thing).

Key points: 

👁️ Humans do indeed provide a proof-of-concept that reliable driving can be done using primarily vision - but one aspiration for AVs is to exceed human capabilities, and in the short term we should indeed "cheat" as outrageously as possible to improve safety and reliability. Cheating includes using every sensing modality possible, and training using prodigious quantities of data and simulation, where it helps. It's not exactly "the way people learn to drive" and that's fine.

📡 LiDaR and other range sensors are active sensors - they emit energy into the environment to measure range to objects. Standard cameras are passive, and infer ranges using AI. Camera-based range estimation has improved radically, but it's still a non-explicit process. There are pointy AV challenges - like high speed merging onto, or crossing of, highways, where you likely need long range vehicle detection, recognition, range estimation and velocity estimation (using for example Doppler LiDaR).

🌧️ It's not just cameras and LiDaR - both these sensors can degrade or fail in foggy, snowing, and raining conditions - enter other range sensors like Radar that work better in these adverse conditions.

💸 A decade ago, people seemed very fixated on the (then) very high cost price of LiDaR, and cameras as a cheaper option. Although I'm sure capital cost will remain a key consideration as companies like Waymo continue to scale, I don't see (or haven't heard) any cost-driven proposals to drop LiDaR in the near future. LiDaR costs have also dropped and their capabilities have improved as well.

🧠 Finally, it's important to remember it's not just the sensing hardware - human vision does not have the capability to detect every hazard at night, in the rain, whilst driving - so prior context, knowledge, and assumptions are key here - and hard to recreate in an autonomous system. Any sensor debate shouldn't occur in a vacuum but rather in the context of how AI driving systems ingest and make decisions using that data.

🖥️ YouTube video: https://youtu.be/AGFxczr2-Yk

[1] Original video: https://youtu.be/IQJL3htsDyQ

[2] Example critique (for balance): https://teslanorth.com/2025/03/16/busted-mark-robers-misleading-tesla-test-sparks-outrage/ 

#Tesla #AutonomousVehicles #LiDaR #camera #ArtificialIntelligence #transport #robotics #driving #mobility #perception #safety

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦: 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦

The Australian Research Ecosystem is the subject of at least two major reviews, that could result in the biggest change to how things like grants are assessed and enacted.

In my opinion, there are a handful of super important concepts that should shape this review. Some can't be said "officially". That's what this video is about, these key issues!

🔍 My sector health check indicator: the likelihood that a talented, driven and hard working early career individual will make it: not guaranteed, and not even super high, but high enough that people feel like they have a real chance. Also relevant to grant funding scheme acceptance rates.

😓 How tightly squeezed the sector is - very few if any "freeloaders". Almost everyone is working hard, hustling hard, and periodically or always stressed by their prospects. Any reform should not revolve around further squeezing!

🕰️ The impossibility of performing at a world class research level in academia whilst teaching, doing service, and all within a theoretical working week's formal hours. At least for the vast majority of people, and especially for those doing things like trying to raise a young family and be a present parent. And how this is both a problem and not a problem: many researchers love their job and happily do research outside of normal hours, but at the same time this is in tension with the much-needed moves to formalize workloads and protect workers...

🤔 Disagreement and confusion over the role and responsibilities of universities, and of research bodies. As represented by examples like the angst over Associate Professors getting DECRA fellowships - the appropriateness of which really depends on what you think these fellowships are for.

🎯 How implicit and explicit optimization (and some gaming) will result from any reform - so reform that is aware of how this will unfold, and minimizes vulnerability to egregious gaming, is important.

🎲 High risk fundamental research and "having your cake and eating it too". High risk research is essential, and whilst it will always generate some sort of output, in many cases it will largely be a bust. For the aggregate system, this isn't a problem. But how we treat, assess and support the individual, given volatility of outcome, is challenging and vital.

🌱 Decoupling being research-active with research KPIs and performance. Academics should at least dabble in a little (cheap) research for interest and to inform teaching, but their enthusiasm is often killed by unreachable KPIs. I think there's a viable system where most at least dabble and remain enthused about research.

🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dB3rpyef

DISCLAIMER: the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

#research #reform #academia #Australia #grants

🚖 200,000 paid robotaxi rides per week!
🤖 Humanoid robots starting to roll out in larger-scale customer trials!

The surge in excitement, interest, and investment in humanoid as well as general AI + robot plays is reaching fever pitch - very reminiscent of the peak days of autonomous vehicles (AVs) only a few years ago.

After a bunch of recent interesting and informative conversations with technical and commercial experts from around the world, I wanted to provide a (consolidated) update from those conversations on my perspective on the state of, and likely next few years, of humanoid robots - including lessons learned from AVs.

I provide a bit of a snapshot update - there are things that are unambiguously happening in these areas, including:

🚖 The AV ride stats
🤖 The rapidly growing interest, investment in (including surging valuations), and manufacture of humanoid robots, as well as some hardware cost drops
🧠 An increasing gravitation of talent towards humanoid and "robot + large model AI" startups, both from within the tech ecosystem but also from the uni research sector...

I particularly compare and contrast what has and hasn't happened in autonomous vehicles with humanoid robots - there's lots to learn from both the similarities and notable differences. For example, humanoid robots can likely be deployed in some application areas even if somewhat imperfect, with improvements coming over time.

In contrast, it has always been hard to widely deploy autonomous vehicles that are far from perfect on public streets because of the challenges in safeguards like reliable supervision and intervention at the (very justifiably) required 99.99…% safety level (which somewhat perversely can in some ways get harder to implement as the technology gets better due to well-researched challenges like long-term supervisor vigilance).

🖥️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dN8e-HBt

#HumanoidAI #HumanoidRobots #AIandAutomation #CommercialRobotics #RoboticsDeployment #RobotTesting #RealWorldAI #AITranslation #TechViability #ScalingAI #RobotTrials #FutureOfAutomation #AIinIndustry #NextGenRobots #HumanRobotInteraction #StartupScaling #AICommercialization #AutonomousSystems #AIAdoption #IndustrialAutomation

Friday afternoon story time 🎉🍷🤔

One of the most pivotal stages of my early professional (and for the financial and other benefits, personal) life was writing my first maths "textbook", Not a C Minus, at age 18, and establishing my first educational publishing business. It was an unplanned, somewhat chaotic, and wonderfully enjoyable learning experience.

In brief, the book became a runaway hit, sold around 6000 physical copies, and spawned my lifelong love of educational and entrepreneurial initiatives, that branched out into more books, online, edutainment, tech topics, for all age ranges from pre-school kids to older adults.

At the time it was an incredible, almost entirely on-the-fly learning and "flying by the seat of my pants" experience - including learning how to:

🖨️ Create print-ready complex technical manuscripts (in Microsoft Word, you LaTeX snobs 🤣)

📚 Work with and negotiate with commercial printers

🚢 Including eventually doing overseas print productions and learning things you'd never normally learn, like that you need to insure marine freight at 110%

📞 Cold calling and approaching vendors like bookstores, negotiating terms, and keeping them in stock

📝 Write press releases and later, copywrite for ads

💰 Budgeting, tax reporting, and later starting a Pty Ltd company

🌐 Early online sales and marketing: a website, sales fulfilment, optimising freight and parcel delivery

and so much more.

This whole experience profoundly shaped my life, and I thought I'd relate the story here and the key lessons I learned, trying very hard to not fall into the trap of only analysing it in hindsight, but remembering back to what was known, felt and thought *at the time* as an 18 year old!

I hope you find it interesting! And have a good weekend.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/Hha1_jYAKWk

#sidegigs #entrepreneur #business #income #education #stem #math #mathematics #students #school #company #entrepreneurial

I've long maintained a webpage [1] that details what a #PhD is really like on a day to day basis in #robotics or related fields and in the Australian PhD system, but a lot of potential students we interact with like to hear us talk it through verbally.

So today, taking advantage of both the #WFH mandate and the much-delayed landfall of #CycloneAlfred, I shot a #HackingAcademia video in my garden. Or at least starting in my garden, then transitioning undercover when it started raining!

This informal video (the first 15 minutes is in this post, for full video go to YouTube) lays out:

💠 the milestones and timeline
💠 forming your research question and subquestions
💠 submitting and publishing academic research conference or journal papers
💠 working with supervisors, meeting regularly, and having more than one for redundancy and extra support and perspectives
💠 getting involved in the culture and activities of the research group and larger institution you're within
💠 opportunities for conference and internship travel
💠 leveraging existing skillsets and experience where possible, given the relatively short nature of an Australian PhD
💠 the paradox that for many a PhD is simultaneously the largest project they've yet taken on, but also much narrower, and more focused, then they initially envisaged  
💠 dealing with setbacks and support for Plan Bs especially from your supervisory team
💠 the "bursty" nature of a PhD, especially around publication deadlines

...and many other key aspects of the PhD process - focusing mainly on the process after you've commenced (other videos cover the application stage: see https://michaelmilford.com/hacking-academia-tutorial-series/).

Again, this is specific to the Australian context - most notably the relatively short duration compared to the United States for example - and to topic areas like robotics and related fields. It will also of course still vary from lab to lab.

💻 YouTube: https://youtu.be/S3T7oqUCqiQ

[1] https://michaelmilford.com/what-a-phd-in-robotics-is-like/

#PhD #graduate #studentlife #university #research #robotics #computervision #machinelearning #artificialintelligence #degree #learning #career #careeradvice #careerdevelopment #perception #manipulation #grasping #navigation #localization #SLAM #mapping #positioning #reinforcementlearning #robot #robots #autonomousvehicles #selfdriving #agriculture #construction #mining #medicine #health #upskilling