Hello PhD

There are two conflicting truths for many early-career graduate students:

* The mentor you choose is vitally important, and can impact your ability to complete a PhD and your career trajectory years into the future.* Many students choose a mentor based on feelings, hunches, and hearsay.

Truth 1 should be self-evident by now. A mentor trains you, helps you develop a research program, and ultimately has a say in when and how you graduate.

Later, they will also write you letters of recommendation and speak with the search committee that may consider you for a faculty position.

Toxic mentor relationships have driven countless students away from science altogether, and healthy mentor relationships have acted as a springboard for fruitful research careers.

But what about Truth 2?

Given the importance of choosing a mentor, why do so many students ‘rely on their gut’ when making this life-altering decision?

This week, we talk with a scientist who has developed the tools and framework for making that choice more rigorous, and hopefully, more successful.

Dr. Andres De Los Reyes, PhD

Finding Your Fit

Dr. Andres De Los Reyes has benefited from great mentorship throughout his scientific career. And that experience helped him develop the tools to aid every emerging scientist in their own journey.

He writes about those tools in his book The Early Career Researcher’s Toolbox: Insights Into Mentors, Peer Review, and Landing a Faculty Job.

Dr. De Los Reyes argues that there is no single mentor on earth who is right for every scientist. A student’s goals, personality, and training trajectory are unique, which means that finding the ‘right’ mentor is also individual.

But sorting the mentor needle from the University haystack can be difficult.

Dr. De Los Reyes recommends spending some time understanding which scientific questions really light your fire. He calls it your “burning question,” and understanding what drives your inquiry will help you identify a mentor that can support you.

According to Dr. De Los Reyes, “You might find somebody who does work aligned with that [burning] question. The degree to which you can pursue ideas and studies linked to that question is partially dependent on you, and very heavily dependent on who trains you.”

“Because we only get as much leeway to pursue our questions insofar as those who train us allow us to do so. And mentors vary considerably on how much independence they give to students to pursue questions.”

Seeing STARs

One of the tools in The Early Career Researcher’s Toolbox is called The STAR Framework. It’s a model to help students identify both their own needs and preferences, as well as a way to identify a mentor who will match.

STAR stands for Size, Time, Area, and Resources. A trainee can assess each element to determine whether the mentor can fill their particular need.

For example, ‘Time’ refers to “The quantity and quality of time a mentor spends meeting with their trainees.”

Some trainees may be new students, or postdocs entering a new field. They’ll need MORE time from the mentor for hands-on training, experimental design, or paper editing.

As protesters march in the streets, you’ll hear calls to “Defund” or “Disband the Police.” These advocates argue that tweaks and training programs will never be enough to meaningfully alter the course of modern police departments, some of which can trace their origins to slave patrols in the South.

You simply can’t get there, from here, they say. We need to reimagine what we mean by ‘public safety’, and look for other ways to foster healthy communities.

That same revolutionary approach may sharpen our thinking on academic training at a University.

As we grapple with the way our society treats people of color, we can’t turn away from the advantages and obstacles enshrined by our educational system.

Indeed, access to education may be one of the many steps in our path to equality.

We caught up with Dr. Ashalla Freeman, Director of Diversity Affairs for UNC Chapel-Hill’s Biological & Biomedical Sciences Program and Co-Director of the NIH funded IMSD program.

Dr. Ashalla Freeman, PhD

Dr. Freeman works to promote the development and success of biomedical PhD students from groups historically underrepresented in the sciences and implements diversity awareness programming for the UNC School of Medicine Faculty Diversity efforts.

This week on the show, she shares her ideas for making science more diverse and inclusive. Some solutions, like regular training for students, faculty and staff, could be implemented tomorrow with tangible results.

But the real, and lasting, changes take more work, and more introspection. She talks about the need to explore the origins of academic training, and how its very designs have always privileged some groups over others.

When we ultimately understand how our academic institutions were born and evolved, we’ll be able to reimagine them from the ground up with diversity in mind.

And diversity – of experience, ideas, and people – can only strengthen and accelerate scientific progress.

Have you ever lamented the fact that there isn’t some kind of instruction book to help you navigate your scientific training?

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone explained how to choose a mentor, or what it means to give a ‘job talk?’ And is there any advice for how to deal with that negative peer-reviewer, or how to escape a sub-par PI?

Well, you’re in luck, because The Early Career Researcher’s Toolbox: Insights into Mentors, Peer Review, and Landing a Faculty Job by Andres De Los Reyes, PhD, is exactly the guide you’ve been looking for.

And this week, we get this clinical psychologist’s insight into why academic training is so stressful, and how you can overcome the major hurdles along the way.

Emerging Academics

Andres De Los Reyes, PhD

Dr. De Los Reyes shares his definition of an Emerging Academic, a word he uses to describe that intense training period between undergrad and a faculty position. It’s a little bit like ’emerging adulthood’, he says, when we leave home to become real ‘grownups’, with all the uncertainty and responsibility that entails.

One reason academia makes that transition difficult is because our training programs are more focused on ‘book smarts’ than ‘street smarts,’ he says. We spend years learning the depth and nuance of our scientific field, but hardly anyone teaches us the actual skills that faculty use to succeed.

For example, you may get lucky enough to co-author a paper or two with your PI, but has anyone taught you how to successfully apply for grants?

Do you know how much budget to ask for when setting up a lab?

And what do you do if one of your competitors reviews your paper, and actively works against you with the editor?

The Early Career Researcher’s Toolbox answers those questions and more. It’s packed with step-by-step instructions, sample emails and cover letters, and personal stories from other Emerging Academics to help you realize you’re not alone on this journey.

It’s essential reading whether you’re an undergrad, a new faculty member, or anywhere in between.

Black Lives Matter

We also take some time in this episode to continue a conversation on many hearts and minds recently.

As the United States opens its eyes to the institutional racism that resulted in the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and many before them, we must also reflect on and mobilize against the racism endemic in academia and research institutions.

That starts by listening to the voices of black and minority students who have faced implicit and explicit bias at every stage of life, including the Ivory Tower.

Then, we must do some work to understand your own implicit biases,

COVID-19 is a wildfire burning its way around the planet.

Its impacts are devastating to nearly every aspect of our modern lives: loved ones lost, economies destroyed, and plans put on hold indefinitely.

But like a fire, it’s also shedding light, illuminating the hidden corners of our society and our routines that we may not have taken the time to examine before.

When this fire eventually burns itself out, should we go back to living in the dark, or are there lessons we should learn? Are there torches we can carry beyond this trial to more permanently transform our work, our values, and our lives?

This week on the show, we reflect on the lessons learned from the global experiment that COVID-19 has forced on our lives.

Though none of us chose to participate, we have all been enrolled in a massive clinical trial.

We have upended our work habits, leaving our labs and offices to quarantine at home. We’ve been forced to rethink the pace of our work, the value of ‘face time’, and the strategies we employ for doing everything from lab work to ordering takeout.

And while the devastation is real, not every change has been harmful. On the contrary, we’ve identified at least five transformations that we’d like to maintain even after the pandemic is over…

Slowing our pace may speed up science

Most researchers have been out of the lab for two months or more. What have they been doing with this extra time?

For many, it’s a chance to spend more time thinking about their research, rather than doing the next experiment just to keep busy. This planning time can pay outsized dividends, as we learned when we spoke with Dr. Jimena Giudice back in Episode 122.

Scientists often fill their days with busyness and experiments, without thinking strategically about how those results will advance their next paper or the question they hope to resolve.

Slowing down has allowed many scientists to plan a leaner, more targeted approach to those answers.

Technology can make science more accessible

Raise your hand if you’ve participated in a Zoom meeting that, three months ago, would’ve been done in person with half as many participants…

By pushing conversation online, we’ve opened up a whole new world of collaboration where your physical distance from the research is no barrier to your participation. As dissertation defenses, journal clubs, and research seminars move online, science becomes more accessible and more collaborative.

We need to ensure that this online access continues even after we can safely meet together in person.

Remote work has some advantages

Sure, you need to be physically present in the lab when splitting cells or running a PCR because your house or local coffee shop don’t have a laminar flow hood, Vortex mixer, and thermocycler.

But what about the times you need to read journals or write a manuscript? Many scientists can find the lab distracting when engaging in these solitary pursuits.

But ask the typical graduate student whether it’s okay to ‘work from home for a few days’ while writing, and they’ll reflexively default to lab attendance regardless of the activity, the holiday, or the weekend.

As we prove to ourselves and our colleagues that we C...

Four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei knelt before a group of Cardinals of the Catholic Church and was forced to recant his heretical belief that the Earth revolves around the sun.

“This must have been horrific for him,” says Dr. Mario Livio, author of a new biography titled Galileo and the Science Deniers. “To basically disavow everything he strongly believed in as a scientist.”

This week on the show, we talk with Dr. Livio about Galileo’s life and struggles, and what his experience can teach us about the science deniers living in our own time.

Finding the Center

Galileo was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and polymath who lived and studied in Italy around the turn of the seventeenth century.

He may be best known for an experiment that he probably didn’t actually do – the apocryphal tale of Galileo dropping different objects off the side of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to see how they would accelerate.

But Galileo’s astronomical observations, and the conflict they produced, take center stage in Dr. Livio’s new book. It’s a story that surprisingly few people have heard.

“Galileo is one of the most fascinating personalities in history. While everybody has heard about Galileo, I discovered that very few people actually know exactly what happened to him,” Livio recalls.

Dr. Mario Livio, author of Galileo and the Science Deniers

The book begins as a straightforward biography, describing Galileo’s early years, studying and teaching at Universities around Italy. But as the chapters progress, the reader begins to pick up on the faint but steady drumbeat of Galileo’s impending battle.

Dr. Livio sets the stage: “Aristotle and Ptolemy had a geocentric model of the solar system, in which the Earth was at the center and everything else revolved around the Earth. And the Catholic Church, over the years, adopted this particular model as its orthodoxy.”

“Copernicus changed that by suggesting that the sun is actually at the center, and the Earth and all the other planets revolve around the sun. And that’s where Galileo enters the scene.”

The book describes Galileo’s astronomical observations that built a case for the heliocentric model of Copernicus. The reader gets to follow along on this path of discovery, observing Galileo as he observes the Phases of Venus, or spots circling the sun, and draws new conclusions about the position of our planet in the solar system.

The Road to Rome

But inevitably, Galileo’s research and writings come to the attention of the Church, and his trajectory is locked on a path toward conflict with Pope Urban VIII.

Through a series of Papal threats, legal injunctions, and a three-phase trial that reads like the script of an episode of Law & Order, Galileo is found “vehemently suspect of heresy” for asserting that the Earth revolves around the sun.

He must choose between recanting these views or being labeled a heretic – a title that would lead to his torture and death.

Nearing seventy years of age,

First, the good news: you’re not alone! About 1/3 of adults under age 30 carry some level of student loan debt.

Unfortunately, if you’re earning a post-graduate degree, you may owe nearly twice as much as your friends who stopped with a Bachelor’s degree.

This week on the show, we take a 360º look at student debt, and help you make a plan for paying it off without breaking the bank.

This week, we’re joined by Dr. Emily Roberts of Personal Finance for PhDs! You’ll remember Emily from our previous finance-focused episodes covering topics like graduate school offer letters, investing for retirement, and saving for a rainy day.

We start the conversation by understanding some common terms you’re likely to see if you have a student loan. We learn the difference between federal vs. private loans, what it means to have a loan that is ‘subsidized’, and why your loan may be ‘deferred’ while you’re in graduate school.

With that overview of the student loan landscape under our belts, we get to dive into some of the questions you may be asking as a grad student:

* Should I make payments on my loan while in graduate school?* Can I benefit from an income-driven repayment plan?* What is Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and am I eligible?* What about refinancing? Is that a good idea now that interest rates are so low?* How should I balance paying my student loans with other goals I have like saving for a large purchase or investing for retirement?

Emily guides us through those questions, and more, and then tells you how to avoid a common trap that gradates fall into with the income-driven repayment plan.

If you have questions, you can reach out to Emily on her website PFforPhDs.com, or check out some of the calculators and websites she mentioned in the show:

Certified Student Loan Counselors

StudentLoanHero.com

Heather Jarvis

It’s finally here! The day you’ve been preparing for for the last five years!

Your experiments are finished, papers published, and your dissertation has been typed, referenced, printed, and distributed. Now, it’s time to stand proudly before your committee and a room full of peers to defend your work and be dubbed a Doctor of Philosophy!

At least, that’s how things used to be done before COVID-19 and social-distancing.

Now, you have to do all the experiments, writing, and publishing, and then convince your audience to MUTE THEIR !@#%@% MICROPHONES so you can hear the committee’s questions on your Zoom defense!

The Best Defense

So much has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but one thing has not changed: nearly-minted PhD students still want to finish and get the heck out of grad school!

And nothing will stand in their way.

But defending a dissertation takes on a new level of anxiety and drama when you can’t be in the same room as your audience. Students defending during the socially-distant Spring of 2020 have had to adapt to videoconferences and screen-sharing.

It’s tough enough to be prepare for a dissertation defense under normal circumstances. You need to know the literature. You need to prepare slides. You need to anticipate the questions of committee member #3 who always likes to bring up research papers from the 1960’s.

But now, you also need to manage your audio quality, deal with limited WiFi bandwidth, and avoid back-lighting that makes you look like you’re in the witness protection program.

Luckily, a handful of students have gone down this path before you, and at least one has drawn a map to help you out.

This week on the show, we talk with Ashton Merck, whose Google Doc-Manifesto Defending a Dissertation by Videoconference has already been referenced thousands of times.

Recently-minted Dr. Merck (has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) defended her dissertation in March 2020 remotely via Zoom. Better yet, she took notes on how to handle the remote defense with grace and style.

She has advice for PhD students ranging from how to solve audio/video errors, to how to avoid the recent spate of Zoom-bombing and trolling.

She also gives advice to committee members and observers that helps ensure a productive environment for everyone.

These are strange times, but we’re all in this together, and Dr. Merck’s guide is here to make the transition from student to graduate just a little bit easier.

But you should still read that paper suggested by committee member #3…

It has quickly become a new way of life – working from home, avoiding restaurants and gyms, and ‘social distancing’ from coworkers, friends, and even family.

The upending of normal routines happened so quickly, and the days have become so blurred together, that it’s hard to keep track of just how long we’ve been confined to our apartments and homes.

We know that scientists and doctors at the NIH, CDC, virology labs, and hospitals around the world continue their front-lines fight to understand and treat the pandemic, and we are deeply grateful.

But what about all the other scientists? The research faculty, postdocs, grad students, and technicians whose research doesn’t cover RNA viruses or epidemiology?

Even though they are not working directly on understanding COVID-19, they still have important experiments to do. They have cell cultures, fruit fly lines, and mouse colonies to maintain. The have classes to teach or take, dissertations to write, and theses to defend.

What happens to them when the University closes, and experiments are forbidden?

This week, we catch up with those scientists, to understand how they are adapting to life and science in a pandemic.

 I feel a little disheartened because I’ve been rejected from many of the places I applied to and haven’t heard back from a number of others. Is it worth it to hold out hope for the ones that haven’t sent out updates?

 I have been rejected from 5 schools and am expecting 3 more rejections soon enough without any invitations for interview. I’ve had my time in regret and disappointment and I’m now thinking about what to do next. 

Should I just give up at the thought of me obtaining a PhD? I feel like a mess right now.

These excerpts are from just three of the many messages we received this year from grad school applicants who were moving through the stages of rejection grief.

Some understood it would be an uphill climb, and half-expected the bad news. For others, it was a surprise because they had followed all the advice on how to craft the perfect application.

For everyone, it was disappointing, demoralizing, and confusing – what can I do if I’ve been pushed off the only path I know to a career in science?

This week, we explore the arcane inner workings of an admissions committee, and detail not only WHY you received that rejection letter, but what you can do about it next year.

Why Not Me?

The first question many applicants have is, “Why did I get rejected?” In many cases, they have experience, grades, and strong letters of recommendation. So what gives?

The answer will be different for every person, of course, but there are some common threads that could lead to rejection. We take a look behind the scenes in an admission committee meeting to learn what makes some applications rise to the top, while others are cast aside.

Fierce Competition

If you only apply to schools your mom has heard of, like the Ivy League Yale, Stanford, or Harvard, then you’re much more likely to receive a rejection letter. The same may be true for schools on the coasts, or in heavily populated areas.

These programs receive thousands of applications from the most qualified students in the world, some of them with first-author papers. If you ONLY applied to extremely competitive programs, odds are, you got a lot of rejections.

Next year, treat grad school the way you did undergrad: with a mix of reach-schools, target-schools, and ‘safety-schools’. Having options is a good thing, and the research training at these other schools will be as good as, or better, than the Ivy League.

Early Birds

They say timing is everything, and that’s true in grad school applications as well.

Applications may arrive in the admissions office between the open date and the deadline, but the admissions committee will review those applications in batches. Their goal is to find the most qualified students to offer interviews, but the staggered nature of the review process presents a few challenges.

Early in the cycle, the committee may offer interviews to a few top-tier candidates and reject a few that don&#...

It’s 6 AM and you wake up as the crickets grow quiet and dawn illuminates your tent. After cooking breakfast over a campfire, you load a backpack and hike seven miles into a canyon.

That’s when the science begins…

Camp, Sample…

When people think of science, they often conjure images of lab coats, chalk boards, and beaker-lined shelves. But for field scientists, the lab looks less like a soapstone bench and more like a frosty taiga, steamy rainforest, or bubbling hot-spring.

This week, we talk with Vince Debes, a field-work researcher who studies extremophiles in Yellowstone National Park.

Vince Debes, pictured here ‘in the lab.’

He explains his research, including why sampling hot springs helps his lab understand which organisms will ‘come to the table’ given the chemicals and compounds available in the soup.

We also learn about what it takes to plan and execute a research program in the field, where weather, broken equipment, and wild animals can interrupt and alter your research protocol.

Finally, Vince describes the traits and skills unique to making a scientist who can succeed at field work. It’s an odd combination of planning and improvisation: knowing the precise steps you’ll need to take, and adjusting your experiment when the environment forces a change.

Here are some resources mentioned in the show:

Group Exploring Organic Processes in Geochemistry(GEOPIG) at Arizona State University

Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park

Science in the News on Amphibian Parenting Practices

…And Two Smoking Barrels

A fire in 1910 caused the Old Forester distillery halt plans for bottling, and instead move the whiskey to a second barrel. The distinctive flavor led to this week’s ethanol selection: the Old Forester 1910 Old Fine Whiskey.

Like in 1910, the whiskey (or is it bourbon?) is barreled a second time for a smoother, sweeter flavor.

We’re still waiting on the release of a quadruple-barreled option!