Predators and Prey in Publishing
DEAR LABBY: I’m a mid-career faculty member in a biology department at a large public university. Our department has been fortunate to recruit some really promising new assistant professors within the last few years. I try to check in on the new cell biologists on … Read more
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Is an Academic Career Just a Dream?
Dear Labby, I am a fifth-year cell biology graduate student doing basic research at a major research university. I am ambitious, worked hard during my rotations, and was rewarded by being accepted into the best-known lab in our department. It has been a lot of … Read more
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Tone deaf?
Dear Labby, As a first-year woman medical student, I have appreciated my medical school’s efforts to mitigate unconscious bias. However, today in my pathology lab I had an experience that made me feel belittled and uncomfortable. One of my lab’s preceptors, Dr. XY, an older … Read more
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Balancing demands as a new faculty member
Dear Labby, I am just completing my first semester as an assistant professor. After five years as an international postdoc I thought that this time would never happen. We now live in a relatively rural part of the United States, in contrast to our former … Read more
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How to join the conversation
Dear Labby, I am a second-year PhD student who joined a large lab full of confident and opinionated senior graduate students and postdocs. I find the environment stimulating and my lab-mates interesting and funny, and I love my research project. However, I was raised in … Read more
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What’s next after a PhD?
Dear Labby, I am about 18 months from filing my PhD thesis (finally) and I am considering my post-PhD options. I am thinking not only about a postdoc but also about whether to join a company directly. With a postdoc, I might be competitive for … Read more
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Great expectations
Dear Labby, I have just joined a top research lab for my postdoc. I was very successful in graduate school, where my advisor gave me complete freedom to come and go as I pleased and attend whatever functions I wanted. Now, in the first week, … Read more
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How to tell your department chair you’re leaving
Dear Labby, I was recently promoted to associate professor in an urban private medical school. After celebrating, I had to acknowledge that although I love my current scientific community, the prohibitive cost of city living as the parent of two school-aged kids has meant that … Read more
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The Collaborating Trailing Spouse
Dear Labby, I am the “trailing” spouse. When it was time for my wife and me to get “real” jobs we decided that if we did not get two positions at the same place, one of us would become a technician/research professor in the other’s … Read more
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Negotiating for the Long Term
Dear Labby, I am in the admittedly enviable position of negotiating the terms of my first academic faculty position. My postdoc advisor has suggested that I negotiate aggressively and forcefully to get as much as possible on all fronts—for salary, start-up funding, ideal teaching responsibilities, … Read more