I recently received a question through http://www.benchfly.com from a graduate student who was desperate because he felt ignored by his PI (PI= principal investigator, another word for advisor). His advisor never spoke to him and acted like he was not there. As a senior student, he was upset because he needed his advisor’s support to […]
PI
Is Someone Stealing Your Project?
I would like to quote a great story from my Q&A column on Benchfly.com. Whenever there is a great opportunity in the lab to learn a novel instrument or discover something new, chances are more than one person will be interested, and it will be up to the PI to decide how to divide the […]
Working Efficiently with Coworkers
Have you ever had to work to collaborate with coworkers? If you have, then you know that solving the science is only half of the challenge. Getting the other person to do their part can sometimes be even frustrating than solving the problem itself. In college and graduate school I had to work together with […]
Are You Being Bullied by Your Supervisor?
A reader from Benchfly.com sent me a curious question: “Is it possible to get bullied by your advisor?” The answer is, unfortunately, yes. There are advisors who make the lives of their graduate students very difficult, through poor management or harsh words. Although your PI is your boss, it does not mean that you have […]
How Supportive is Your PI?
Many of us have heard that we need to find a PI (principal investigator or supervisor) we get along with, because that is the person we will be working with during the next 4-6 (or more) years. It turns out, that there is nearly a 100% correlation between one’s enjoyment of the graduate school experience […]