(Based on a true story) Fast forward a few years. It is 6:30 in the morning, and time to go to work. You are excited as you get up and envision the challenges of your new job. After breakfast, you kiss your spouse, your 2-year old son and your infant daughter goodbye as you head […]
Snow Day: Blessing or Curse in Disguise?
If you are from the Northeast, you probably have your own repertoire of inside jokes about snow days already, even though it is only January. My favorite, “If it snows anymore, I’ll have to shovel it inside my house, because there is no more room to put it.” (It did snow another 8 inches.) Another […]
Thinking Like Scientists: Clarity is Power
I always smile when kids ask me what scientists do. My answer is usually something like “I do research to find answers to interesting questions.” One little girl asked “Do you look for clues to solves puzzles?” Indeed I do, and these simple conversations remind me of the basic scientific method that is taught in […]
Online Research Tools
Happy New Year and welcome back! Now that the most people are back to work, it is time to start thinking about making progress on that thesis. What better way, than to stay cutting edge with online research tools? When I was a first year graduate student, the primary way I did research was to […]
New Years Resolutions and Solutions
Did you ever make a New Years Resolutions, thinking that a year would be plenty of time to reach your goal, and then find yourself making the same resolution a year later? The three primary reasons that many new years resolutions do not become reality are 1) lack of clarity about your goals, 2) lack […]
The Dual-Career Problem in Academia
I recently received a question from a postdoc through Benchfly.com, which I think most dual-career couples face at some point in their lives. Lydia (not her real name) had been a postdoc for three years when her husband received a job offer in another city. At that point, Lydia had no first author papers although […]