The imPerfect Scientist

The imPerfect Scientist

By edurationalScience
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The imPerfect Scientist episodes

  • Why it is so damn hard to turn data into good figures (and ways to do it)

    In this episode, we talk about "visualization" in scientific terms. We discuss why visuals are so powerful and what are ways in which you can make your visuals stronger!


    We talk about:

    • Signal-to-noise ratio
    • Why you should consider how to tell a story also with your figures
    • How to produce a bulletproof figure
    • Our mistakes and learnings in the world of scientific visualization and illustrations

      • Let us know how YOU go about creating your scientific visualizations! We read you in the comments!



      59 min
    • Why - almost - everything you think about becoming a group leader is not true. Talking to Max Happel.

      In this week's episode, we have our first and very special guest: Dr. Max Happel is a group leader in Magdeburg. In this episode, we chat with him about expectations, realisations and disappointments in the path to becoming and being a group leader. 

      These are some of the topics we cover in this episode:

      • Word of the week: unpredictability. How you can embracy unpredictability, focus on the process and not so much on the result which will never be in place e.g. there is no perfect group leader, just a group leader who tries to improve
      • Max' books recommendations: 
      • Covey's 7 habits of highly effective people, Ferris' 4h work week, Kahnemann's thinking fast and slow
      • If was minister, Max would try to remove the "swiss army knife" image of a scientist and substitute it with one of a specialist, much like with medical doctors. After all, there are so many roles in a lab, the group leader is just one of the many important figures needed for a successful research group
      • If Max was giving his younger self advice, this is was he would say: "focus on your strengths, because there is no swiss army knife"
      • The biggest challenges as a group leader is likely going to be the thing that is your weakness. For Daniel it is the organisation, for Max it has to do with handling people and their emotions and being able to see but at the same time separate between the scientist as a worker and the scientist as a person/colleague/friend.
      • What is most important is people, integrating seeing people as scientists contributing to the project, but also as people having private problems, as a leader you need to integrate that
      • Why Max thinks that flattening the hierarchy is a process that will take time and effort from everyone involved
      • Why being transparent to everybody helps in taking decisions (even if they are tough ones). And how you can also delegate decisions to committees and democratic processes and then be the implementing leader

        • As you can see, we cover many interesting topics in this episode. Most importantly, we talk heart to heart with someone who you might want to become in the future. In fact, we have 2 of them in the podcast today ;-) 

        We hope you enjoy our open discussion and find some inspiration in it. Remember that you have any further questions for ur or for Max in this case, you can leave us a comment and we'll be happy to respond!


        1 hr 2 min
      • Make YOUR OWN recipe for success

        This episode of our podcast “The imPerfect Scientist” is about finding your career sweet spot. So you

        don’t have to adapt to the job. Rather you find or even create the job that suits you best, suits best

        your strengths and values. We might be intuitively aware of our strengths and of our values. Yet the

        more consciously and clearly we are aware of them, the more we are aware of how we are able to

        respond to opportunities. Funny enough, the word “responsibility” actually derives from “response-

        ability”, being able to respond. So don't feel weighed-down and restricted by responsibility. Being

        able to respond to options provides us with more freedom.


        One way to reach that sweet spot is just to watch yourself and identify the situations, jobs, people

        where things are easy and you are productive and get excellent feedback. Then you might have

        found your recipe for success.


        This is what we discuss in the most recent episode of our podcast “The imPerfect Scientist”.

        I must admit this is one of my favorite episodes so far.

        52 min
      • Science stories are (not) like campfire stories

        In this episode, we talk about why telling a story - yes, a story also for your scientific work - is so important. We talk about: 

        • How humans process information
        • Why the beginning and the end are crucial
        • Using the “elevator pitch” to define and refine your story
        • How to break with the mold and actually tell a story that people will remember
        • Why is telling a story important? --> emotionalisation
        • Word of the day: “storyteller”

          • Join us for today's episode and tell us how YOU build up your scientific stories 🙂


          51 min
        • How to present your science so that people actually remember it

          In this episode, we talk about a topic that is very close to our hearts: How to present your research in a way that it will be remembered. In our opinion, anything and any format in which you present should be all about getting information across. Sadly, that's often not the case. 

          In this episode, we talk about: 

          • Being memorable: this is our word of the day!
          • Why most times we present our research we fail to give the most important information
          • Simple fixes to make your science memorable (disclaimer: "simple" does not equal easy)
          • Our own learning experiences in becoming better at presenting our science
          • Why adapting to the audience is essential and things to consider - even if the audience is just 1 person.


            • 36 min
          • The soft skills that changed how we work as scientists

            In this episode, we share the "soft skills" that have changed us the most during our scientific careers. 


            We discuss how soft skills can be acquired and practiced and share some of our experiences dealing with challenging situations.


            Topics we discuss:


            - Why "soft skills" should probably not be called "soft skills"

            - Daniel's most changing soft skill and how it has changed how he works

            - How Daniel had to let someone go 

            - Eva's most changing soft skill and how it has changed her interaction with other scientists

            - How Eva went from having a neighbour that hated her to being good friends with them


            46 min
          • Pilot - Why "The imPerfect Scientist(s)"

            This is the pilot episode of "The imPerfect Scientist", a podcast from Scientists to Scientists where we share our experiences in scientific life and discuss tools to empower YOU.


            In this pilot episode, we talk about:

            - How the podcast was born
            - The "why" of the podcast. Why do we even do this?
            - Where the name comes from
            - Who we are
            - What kind of topics we are going to discuss in coming episodes

            Who are we?

            Daniel Mertens is a leukemia researcher with two labs at the University Hospital in Ulm and the Germany Cancer Research Center DKFZ in Heidelberg. The publications from his research labs have been cited by more than 4000 other scientific publications, but the number of mistakes he has made during his career is even higher.

            13 min

          About The imPerfect Scientist

          From the publisher's feed

          This is a podcast from Scientist to Scientist.