Not long ago, the Fighty Squirrel noticed that as her days wound down, she was struggling to read. Over the course of thirty minutes at the very end of the day, I’d go from not being able to read a computer screen, to not being able to read a book to having a massive headache. […]
Six months into being a Reviewing Editor for Journal of Neuroscience and my top favorite things, in no particular order, are: 1) Sending out “Your Manuscript has been Accepted” emails. This is So. Much. Fun. Serving on study section, you never know what’s funded and what’s not, so there’s a lot more immediate gratification here. Of course, my lab thinks I’m a […]
At Vanderbilt, we’ve been doing a lot with professional branding lately. What you wear, what you do, and how you speak, sit, and walk all say things about you and can all become part of the 3-5 keywords you want to have as your professional brand. Karen Kelsky of The Professor Is In is on our wavelength. A […]
Publication-based measures of scientific impact provide little of value to the research community. Despite assertions that bibliometrics can improve the evaluation of scientists and their establishments, we lack a qualitative or quantitative argument that substantive problems were solved following their introduction. I am unconvinced that hiring, tenure, or promotion decisions became more accurate after journal […]
Have you ever had a panicked colleague breathlessly share how hard they are working on grants, papers and mentoring only to find that you feel completely stressed out just having talked to them? It turns out there’s a biological basis for it. A subset of your brains neurons are activated not only when you feel bad or are […]
Your colleagues, current and potential trainees, collaborators and yes, study sections are doing internet searches on you with greater frequency. Knowing that people are looking, why not show them what you want them to see? Here’s a list, in no particular order, of things these folks want to see on your first lab website. A picture […]
I’d like to make a modest proposal. We should stop scheduling meetings with zero time to go from one meeting to the next. Does this describe your life? You have a meeting scheduled from 9:00am to 10:00am. And then another meeting from 10:00am to 10:30am. You have left yourself exactly zero minutes to get from […]
That GChat is definitely hurting your work.
Teaching this semester? Wondering about ways to connect to your students? It might be time to try meeting them somewhere unusual. Holding office hours in different places helped me reach certain students, drive home points I had made in class, and get students to campus facilities they should know about,” writes John Soares. “I was […]
Kirsten Bell, associate editor for Critical Public Health, spills the beans on what it takes to get published, including strategic submission dates, how to challenge an editorial decision, and doing your part as a reviewer. Here’s an excerpt: It’s my belief that when you submit your paper affects how long the review process takes—and, potentially, […]