Hello PhD

If you went to graduate school before the turn of the millennium, you probable expected to (eventually) land in a tenure-track position at a University. You may have known a few peers who got teaching gigs, or *gasp* went into ‘industry positions’, but the expectation was to follow in your mentor’s footsteps. Today, lots of students earn a PhD knowing full well they won’t set foot on the tenure-track. They want to be science writers, policy advisors, staff scientists, or entrepreneurs. And thankfully, graduate training programs are starting to adapt to this new reality. The first order of business when trying to help students achieve their myriad career goals is to start tracking key metrics. You Manage What You Measure Patrick Brandt is the Director of Career Development and Outreach in the Office of Graduate Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He recently penned an article for Inside Higher Ed titled Ph.D.s Benefit When Universities Track Metrics and Outcomes. He sat down with us this week to talk about his article, and how data is at the heart of the recent effort to improve graduate training. The Coalition for Next Generation Life Science is comprised of 39 institutions that have committed to tracking data on demographics and student outcomes. You can visit their data repository to find your school, or one you’d like to attend. Members of the coalition track all sorts of useful metrics, including application and enrollment rates by gender, race, and background. They also track how long it takes to graduate and how many students complete the training. Useful information if you’re trying to plan your next 4-6 years! Finally, they follow up with graduates of the program to determine where they’ve ended up. Are most students on the faculty track? Did they go to industry? Or did they end up in academia, but in an administrative or teaching role? Point of Comparison It’s fascinating to scroll through the data from different Universities. You’ll discover that a plurality of UPenn grads end up working in the for-profit sector while at UC SanDiego, more stay in Academia. The median time-to-degree at Johns Hopkins has held steady around 5.7 years since 2008, but careful students will note that a bioinformatics degree from the University of Michigan may take you just 4.7 years! Patrick also highlighted the National Institutes of Health Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group Report which reinforces the need for training programs to prepare students for a wide variety of careers: “Graduate programs must accommodate a greater rang...

It’s time to open the mailbag once again to answer YOUR questions. First, we read a couple of emails from listeners who have put Hello PhD advice to work in their training, and they’re already starting to see the benefits. Nadia writes: Thank you so much for your podcast. I discovered Hello PhD at the beginning of the pandemic and have listened to every single episode since. I have learned a lot and it has changed my perspective about my program and supervisor tremendously. Since listening to Hello PhD I feel less lonely and feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have joined multiple student groups and other organizations to work on my soft skills. Kudos to Nadia! We want everyone to realize: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Whatever you’re going through, there are others just like you, struggling on parallel paths. Reaching out and telling your story is the only way those fellow travelers can be encouraged by your experience. SciCom Opportunity We also received a note from previous guest Dr. Mónica Feliú-Mójer, who chatted with us way back in Episode 92. At the time, she talked about her work in science communication, and particularly her work with iBiology. Well, that work has produced an opportunity for other scientists to improve their communication skills: I wanted to share that iBiology has a new and improved courses platform and that you can now sign-up for “Share Your Research”, our free, self-paced course focused on effective communication to help you give a good research talk. I was one of the course directors for SYR. The course focuses on providing scientists with practical research communication advice and as you go through it, the course helps you build a plan to help you craft a good research talk. Feel free to share with trainees and colleagues. Thanks Mónica! Consider it shared! What is a Research Statement? A listener shared this question about their application: Could you do an episode on writing a research statement?  I just stumbled upon this as a requirement for one of my applications and I don’t know where to start. I am not THAT deep into the subject, but I already included in my cover letter a brief summary of my latest research, why I want to do research and where I want to go with my research in the future and how this project would fit into that (very briefly). I don’t want to repeat what I wrote in my cover letter but I feel it is the same information. Josh describes the expected elements of a research statement, and we attempt to untangle the types of information you’d want to include there, versus the more personal or motivational profile you might include in a cover letter. No need to repeat yourself, just carve up the information and put it in its proper place. How Do I Explain a Bad Semester? Finally, we answer this email from Frances: I am a first generation college student currently doing a Post Bac on a Diversity Supplement. I worry that my undergraduate grades will negatively impact my entire application. I know you both have mentioned how one bad grade in isolation won’t hold much weight, however what about a whole semester due to personal issues that could be explained? Would taking graduate level courses and doing well in...

The Peer Review villain, alternatively known as ‘Reviewer 2’ or ‘Reviewer 3’, has gained meme status. This is the person who takes your submitted journal article, drenches it in red ink, shreds it, burns it, and feeds the ashes to feral pigs. And unfortunately, it has happened to all of us. There always seems to be one reviewer that doesn’t just ask for additional experiments, but finds a way to cut a little deeper. Maybe it comes in the form of an emotive shaming (“Disappointingly, the authors failed to cite Smith, 2015”) or a veiled accusation (“It seems possible that the outlier data has been scrubbed from this report.”), but however it happens, it can affect something more than your experiments. Some hostile comments might make you wonder whether you belong in science at all. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it shouldn’t be this way. This week, we talk with a linguist and a psychologist about carefully crafting your peer reviews. Peer Review Detox Dr. Rebekah Baglini and Dr. Christine Parsons realized there was a toxic undercurrent in some reviewers’ writing. “Rejection is always difficult, but reviews that use emotive or sarcastic language are often the hardest for recipients to deal with, particularly if they are early-career researchers,” the two wrote in their recent article “If you can’t be kind in peer review, be neutral” published in Nature, November 30, 2020. They argue that scientific reviews should look more like scientific writing: reviews should be neutral, fact-based, and not reflect the personality or emotions of the author. But the shift to negativity can be subtle, and their article gives many examples: The fact-based statement “The project proposal didn’t fulfill the stated requirements” can be modified to: “The project proposal didn’t bother to fulfill the stated requirements.” or “The ‘project proposal’ didn’t fulfill the stated requirements.” Both modifications drip with contempt, but neither adds value or new information. They just tell us how the reviewer was feeling in that moment. This week, we talk with Drs. Baglini and Parsons as they unpack the importance of neutral peer review, the words to watch for, and some simple things you can do to make your own writing more appropriate and helpful. And isn’t that the point? Dr. Parsons concludes, “You don’t go around punching players on your own team. One of the objectives of peer review is to improve scholarship. Not just your own scholarship, but to improve scholarship in your field.” For a full list of expressive words and phrases to avoid, see their article in Nature. To follow their work, find them on Twitter (@RebekahBaglini and @ce_parsons ), or at the

Nadia wanted to help patients. She had considered going to medical school, but found biomedical research to be an exciting opportunity to develop new knowledge and therapies. After graduate school, she continued her training as a postdoc. She was on the faculty-track, making plans for her project and her next career advancement. Then, COVID hit. She was living and working in New York City as the largest pandemic in a century unfolded around her. She realized she had developed some skills over her years of training – PCR, data management, lab operations – that might make a difference in patient outcomes. So she pressed pause on her postdoctoral work to start a clinical testing lab that now runs 60,000 COVID tests each week. Center of a Pandemic Dr. Nadia Khan is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr. Nadia Khan, PhD When the COVID-19 pandemic started, she realized that her experience preparing RNA samples and performing qPCR would be useful in performing COVID tests. She reached out to her University, and got started preparing samples at the Mount Sinai COVID lab three days a week. But space was limited, and it wasn’t safe for her to continue working as a volunteer. But the spark was already glowing: “I liked being able to use my scientific skills in a way that was useful tot he public in a time of need,” she recalls. Charting a New Course She teamed up with some contacts at a local biotech startup and forged a COVID testing lab to respond to the pandemic. She now manages nearly 30 employees and makes a sizable impact on COVID-19 in her community. “I think I’ve always wanted to be a PI and have my own lab and direct a lab group, but now I’m starting to realize that I can be a scientific leader in a different way, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the academia world for me to feel successful,” she says. Looking back at the path she took through her graduate training, Dr. Khan notes that “we only equate our successes with publications or getting awards, and we’re only really exposed to that. We only know one way to feel successful. Once you realize there are other ways to get that satisfaction, it opens doors for you. How else can I use my scientific skills in a way that makes me feel successful and makes me feel good about what I’m doing for the world?” Her advice for early-stage scientists? “Keep an open mind, and remember why you got into science.”

If you’re a graduate student thinking about a career that lies off the tenure track, you’re probably vaguely nervous that your skills at the bench won’t take you very far in the business world. Career experts always ask you to highlight your ‘transferable skills,’ but what does that actually mean? Is it true that you’re hiding a set of superpowers beyond just pipetting small amounts of liquid from tube to tube? This week on the show, we explain the mysterious world of transferable skills, and tell you how to build on those powers while you’re still a student. It’s All About Context Definitionally, a transferable skill is just one that you have developed in one setting, but that could be applied in another. If you’re the lab’s PCR Ace, you can transfer that skill to any other molecular biology lab, clinical diagnostic lab, or even forensics lab. But you’re probably NOT going to use that skill as a bank teller. When people talk about transferable skills, they’re usually talking about an ability that can be widely applied in many industries. And to see those features of your training, you need to step back and look at your work with a bit of abstraction. Sure, you won’t be running PCRs in a lot of other careers, but you MAY be called on to do precise measurements, a skill you’ve developed by mixing those reactions. Moreover, being ‘great’ at PCR means you’re also probably great at the math it takes to determine the concentration of reagents, the ability to manage time so that your gel is poured when the reaction is done. You’re probably stellar at troubleshooting when things don’t turn out the way you expected, and you’re able to synthesize and interpret the data you just genrated. So while PCR isn’t exactly a transferable skill, you’re demonstrating plenty of broadly useful abilities that hiring managers are looking for. Your Superpowers This week, we walk through just a short list of the many skills you’re developing as a graduate student. You’re becoming an expert in information management – combing through journal articles, generating experimental data, and communicating your findings to a wider audience. You’re managing projects, and sticking to a budget and timeline. You’re also leading others, organizing with collaborators and mentoring new students. The fact is, you’re doing many of the things companies search for, but you need to learn how to translate your experiences into stories they’ll understand. For help with telling that story, check out this Nature Blogs article on the 3 parts to a compelling transferable skill story. And for a list of 20 skills you’re developing right now, visit this article from Jobs On Toast. HelloPhD has also talked about transferable skills before, including this interview with career counselor and author Melanie Sinche! What are your transferable skills? Leave us a comment below!

Happy New Year to all our Hello PhD listeners! 2021 has already been… a lot. But we’re here to help. This week, we open the mailbag to answer your questions about graduate training and life in the lab. You Asked for It! Our first note came from Vibhatha, who found that a Science Writing Checklist we mentioned way back in Episode 21 was missing from the website: I know this is years later, but I am trying to access the material from the podcast. The following link is not available: http://www.sciencewritingradio.com/hellophd/.Is it possible to get this information? I also tried to check the website, it is also not available. If you can provide an alternative source to grab this information, it would be really helpful for me. We reached out to our guest from that episode Dr. David Shifrin, and he was able to locate the file. It’s now available in our show notes at 021: The 4 simple tips that will make your writing stand out. Thanks to Vibhatha and David! Virtually Satisfied Our next email was from a listener who responded to our recent episode on virtual interviews: 146. Ace Your Virtual Graduate School Interview w/ Dr. Beth Bowman We asked for your experiences, and what it was like choosing a grad program without ever having set foot on campus. Lindsey was an early test-subject, virtually interviewing in Spring 2020. Here’s how that turned out: Hi Josh and Dan!I just started my Ph.D. this fall in mechanical engineering. I was going through the interview process right as the Covid lockdowns started in the US, so I only got to visit half of the schools that I was accepted to. In the end, I was deciding between a school that I got to visit in person and one that I was not able to visit. I ended up going to the school that I did not visit in person. It was definitely scary to commit to a school and a city that I hadn’t been to. Talking to students on Zoom really helped get a sense of the culture, even though it was a lot less information than I got from visiting in person. I’m very happy with my decision and love my research topic and the wonderful people that I get to work with!  That’s great news, and thanks to Lindsey for sharing! If you have experience with virtual interviews, feel free to leave a comment below, or email us at podcast@hellophd.com. Hello? Is Anyone There? Brian wrote to find out if there is a better way to contact potential PhD advisors. He’s been getting a lot of nothing when he emails his request. I have a question that I would love to get your take on: what is the optimal way, and time, to email prospective PIs?In my emails to PIs thus far, I have included a bit of my background, expressed my specific interest in their work, asked if they were taking on new students and if so, if they would be able to meet to further discuss their research. My response has been limited, and I would like to increase my impact going forward. As far as timing, do you think there’s an optimal time over the next few weeks to email PIs so that I can form connections in advance of admission decisions? This one is tricky, because Brian is trying to make contact during the Holida...

It’s no stretch to say that 2020 was a hard year for almost everyone. It was marked by a global pandemic, social upheaval, and loss. The word ‘unprecedented’ lost all meaning around March, and we navigated uncharted waters for the remainder of the year. 2020 was rough, but now that it’s over, it’s time to look back at what we learned. What do we want to carry forward, and what aspects are we happy to leave behind? Like the rest of the world, graduate students, postdocs and other academics couldn’t escape the 2020 maelstrom. In the early months of the pandemic, labs closed and years-long experiments were discarded. Then, just as suddenly, labs reopened, but under tight restrictions and the ever-looming threat of illness from COVID-19. Meanwhile, in the US, outrage over the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others forced a reckoning about how our society treats people of color – not just in policing, but in every aspect of our lives. These themes influenced our conversations here on Hello PhD. We interviewed students and faculty whose research was put on hold for the pandemic. And we spoke with thought-leaders who helped us envision a more inclusive academia. This week on the show, we look back on our favorite conversations of 2020, and think more about the lessons we want to carry into 2021. We hope you’ll join us! Here’s a breakdown of our favorite episodes by topic: * COVID-19* 130. Coronavirus, and Life Outside the Lab* 131. How to Host a Dissertation Defense On Zoom* 134. Lessons from the Quarantine* 139. Back to School During a Pandemic* 146. Ace Your Virtual Graduate School Interview w/ Dr. Beth Bowman* Diversity and Inclusion* 135. The Science Training Toolbox with Dr. Andres De Los Reyes. Plus, Antiracism for Academia* 136. Rebuilding an Inclusive Academia with Dr. Ashalla Freeman* 142. Advancing Racial Equity in Science w/ Dr. Kenneth Gibbs* Author Interviews* 133. Galileo and the Science Deniers – with Dr. Mario Livio* 135. The Science Training Toolbox with Dr. Andres De Los Reyes. Plus, Antiracism for Academia* 137. Tools for Finding a Research Mentor* 144. Finding a Career that Fits with Marlys Hanson* Mailbag* 126. Listener Mailbag – Ghost PIs, Dress Codes, and Mental Health with Susanna Harris*

Choosing a lab for your graduate or postdoc research is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. Most people read papers and abstracts to find the coolest science.  Or they favor the big labs with lots of people and solid funding. But those features can distract you from the real secret of scientific success. Your Mentor Matters Dr. Natasha Snider, PhD This week on the show, we kick off a new series where we interview the people with truly alternative careers – the tenure track faculty!  Josh sits down with Natasha Snider, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a recent faculty hire (just over 1 year), Dr. Snider remembers all the details of graduate school and postdoc life that contributed to her success, and shares them on the show. First and foremost, she recalls the importance of good mentors in her scientific training.  Rather than choosing high-profile labs or being drawn into the latest research craze, she assessed the character of the PI and the culture of the lab. “[I did one interview with] one of the brilliant scientists where you know you’re going to get these hot papers, but one of the first things he said was that he doesn’t yell at his people as much as he used to… After that, I sat through the interview but I knew that wasn’t [the lab for me]” Aside from obvious anger issues, Dr. Snider shares the warning signs of monster mentors (those are anagrams!), and what type of lab environment you should seek instead. Good mentors were a foundation for her training, but she also took every opportunity to explore other careers and to build a solid network.  She talks about the importance of meeting as many scientists as possible, and tells the story of how she decided to take a faculty position instead of an industry job. A foraging we will go And to celebrate the first cold-snap of the season, we enjoy the Fullsteam Brewery – First Frost 2015 Foraged Persimmon Ale.  If you haven’t gotten around to foraging your own persimmons this season, then you’re probably too late, and this high-gravity brew is your best bet for sampling the “Fruit of the Gods.”

The letters of recommendation have been submitted, and review committees have assembled. But while this graduate school application season may seem familiar, the next steps will be wildly different from past years. How will Universities conduct graduate school interviews during a pandemic? And what can applicants do to prepare for these unprecedented times? Virtual Interview Interviews are always nerve-wracking. And for graduate school they’re especially complex. You typically take a 3-day weekend, fly to a new city, sit through orientations, seminars, faculty interviews, campus tours, dinner meetings, and social events. Then a week later, you do it all again with a different University in a different city! But this year, as COVID-19 infections spike in fall and winter months, those anxiety-inducing interviews will get, well, weirder. This week, we talk with Dr. Beth Bowman, Assistant Director of Graduate Programs in Biomedical Sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. You may remember Dr. Bowman from our conversations about how to craft an application and how to ace your interview. Well, she’s back with more information on what to expect this year when you’re invited for a virtual interview. Most of the previous advice still applies: * You need to understand your science, and be able to talk about it.* You should take a quick look at the research websites or paper abstracts from your interviewers so you’re at least familiar with the field they’ll speak about.* You should ask lots of questions to get a feel for the University, the city, the research, and student life. What’s different will be wildly different. You won’t get a campus tour. You won’t have much opportunity for side conversations with current students or other applicants to trade gossip or interview experiences. And you’ll be spending a lot of time on Zoom. So… much… time… And that’s where Dr. Bowman advises you to prepare with some very practical tips Make Time There’s no sugar-coating this: you’re going to be on video conference calls for hours at a time, and you need to be ready for it. Some programs are looking for ways to break up the monotony by scheduling interviews over two afternoons. But whatever happens, you’ll need to combat Zoom Fatigue. First, do what you can to clear your schedule. Because you’re not actually traveling, you’ll be tempted to sneak in a little work in the lab. Fight that urge, and let your lab-mates know it’s an interview weekend and you’ll be unavailable. If you have other video-conferences, try to cancel them or sit them out. Missing a few journal clubs or research seminars is not the end of the world, and it might save your sanity. Make Space Remember that thing about not being in the lab? That applies here too! Some students don’t have great internet,

How many times have you said “I wish I had known!” or “Why didn’t they teach us this in school?” If you’re a graduate student, you’ve probably said it a lot. For some reason, from the moment you write your first application to the moment you get your hood and mortarboard, you’ll be re-learning what thousands of students have learned before you. You’ll be treading a well-worn path, but for some reason, you won’t get a map. Why don’t successful graduates take the time to help their successors along? Well, partly because they immediately get busy on the next stage of their career. And partly because they may feel they’ve barely escaped the gauntlet of graduate school intact. “What advice could I give?” they muse. “I almost didn’t make it myself!” Tales from the Beyond Luckily, a few successful graduates DO speak to us from the other side. Sure, they may not have had a storybook experience, but their scars were won honestly and they have advice for their peers-in-training. This week, we learn from Evelyne Deplazes, PhD, Chancellor’s Research Fellow and Adjunct Research Fellow at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Curtin University (Perth). Dr. Deplazes’ article “How to PhD: 10 Tips from Hindsight” shares her insights from earning a PhD in Computational Biophysics from the University of Western Australia. And while PhD programs in Australia have certain benefits, Dr. Deplazes’ experience will be valuable for any graduate student, particularly in the biomedical sciences. Her ten tips each contain useful links, worksheets, and articles that help expand the topics. A few notable examples: * A worksheet to help you set expectations with your research mentor* An article about why work-life balance may have an impact on researcher’s mental health* A toolkit to plan out your thesis, and monitor your progress* A list of transferrable skills you’ll learn as a PhD* and much more! Dr. Deplazes paints the outlines of a map that other graduates students can use on their own journeys! Just remember, you’re not traveling alone. Leave a comment below or send us an email to join the conversation.

Sarah had achieved her dream. With a PhD in Physics, she had accepted a new position as a Theoretical Physicist. But as the months wore on, she started to feel overwhelmed and depressed. She’d done well in school and enjoyed her classes – why couldn’t she focus on her work? Sean graduated with honors from his engineering program. But after six months on the job as a field representative for a machine company, he was fired. He had been an excellent student, and excelled in class with top grades and praise from his professors. In the field, he had none of that feedback, and his motivation plummeted. He blamed himself for the failure, but he couldn’t understand how all his success had collapsed so quickly. Passion and Purpose Sarah and Sean are just two examples of what happens every day in academia. Bright, well trained students graduate to find all of that training led to a career that didn’t live up to their expectations. Or even more commonly, they may like aspects of the job, but other factors weigh them down. The research is interesting, but they clash with the PI, or lose motivation when the experiments don’t work. This week, we talk with psychologist and career expert Marlys Hanson. Her book PASSION AND PURPOSE: How to identify and leverage the powerful patterns that shape your work/life describes an evidence-based approach for discovering your unique “Motivated Abilities.” With that data in hand, you’ll have the confidence to choose your next opportunity and maximize your happiness and productivity. System for Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA) You may have taken a Meyers-Briggs test, or some other psychometric analysis aimed at describing your personality traits or interests that could improve your career. But, Ms. Hanson points out, those are preference-based tests, and our biases can creep into our choices and we actually select answers that don’t describe us well. “Our preferences are not clean evidence,” she says. “They’re so impacted by our biases. Their reliability and validity are not very high, and they’re not very effective in making informed career decisions.” The System for Identifying Motivated Abilities, on the other hand, is an “Evidence Based Assessment.” The process starts when you list achievements from your childhood onward. You choose eight such examples – things that you enjoyed doing and thought you did well – and describe each event in as much detail as possible. How did you get involved? What did you actually do step-by-step? What were you proud of after you accomplished this task? Then, you or your SIMA analyst can go through those stories looking for patterns – evidence of your past successes and how you achieved your goals. Building a Profile Those bits of evidence get sorted into five categories that make up your Motivational Profile. * Motivated Abilities – which of your skills do you frequently use when you’re happily working?* Subject Matter – What topics inspire you? Do you work with numbers or animals or abstract concepts?* Circumstances – How do you get involved in a project? Do you like to be asked or come up with the idea yourself? Do you prefer a deadline or an open ended engagement?

This week, we dig into the mailbag to answer your questions! What’s in a Name? We start with an email from Tegner about what happens when your department changes its name before you even begin your trainining: I have recently been admitted and have accepted admission to a PhD program in “Immunology and Infectious Disease.” The only issue is that upon talking with the department about classes for my first semester it seems that they have just recently merged my program with the Microbiology PhD program and [the program I applied to] doesn’t really exist anymore. I was wondering: is this common? Have other people been admitted to programs that don’t exist anymore? We certainly HAVE seen this before, and usually it’s not a big deal. Departments and programs change names all the time, and it shouldn’t have much of an impact on your experience, nor on your long-term prospects. Most postdocs positions and hiring committees care about your research papers and recommendations, not so much about the words at the bottom of your diploma. Avoiding Comparisons Next up, Jessica asks: I joined a lab at the same time as another first-year student in my program. I would really appreciate advice on “How to not let your thoughts run rampant with comparison in your lab”. I feel like he has more experience than me in a lot of research areas related to the lab. I know no one wins in the comparison game so any insights you have about how avoid it would be great! Well, Jessica, you’re not the only one to experience this – we did too! And I’d wager most people do at some point in their careers. It’s a symptom of “Impostor Syndrome,” which we like to talk about a lot because talking about it is one of the few ways to make it better. To the specific question on how to avoid this comparative self talk, we turned to an article by Susan Biali Haas M.D. titled “How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others”. Dr. Haas’s article focuses on the comparisons we make when perusing social media and how that can affect our mood. But the advice is useful in this context as well. For example, Dr. Haas recommends becoming aware of the events and triggers that lead you down the comparison rabbit hole. The more you can be aware of those traps, the more you can avoid them. Josh recommends looking back on your own growth in order to appreciate just how far you’ve advanced compared to where you began. That self-comparison can help you acknowledge your own evolution over time. Clinical Experience for Bench Scientists And last, but not least, Francesc is noticing an internal drive to work with patients, not just samples at a lab bench. I am a 3rd year PhD student working in a project about cancer but I feel that research is not my vocation. Intsead, I think that my real passion would be to work directly with patients. What options do I have?? I have done quite a lot of research but I find it really difficult to come across anything directly related with patients having a PhD.

When Dr. Kenneth Gibbs talks about diversity and inclusion in the sciences, it’s not just a cause célèbre. It’s personal. “For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Black man. A descendent from enslaved Africans here in America, so my family has been here for hundreds of years. That’s part of my story.” And while his grandfathers had 4th and 8th grade educations, his parents were able to go college in the 1970s because of public investment in programs like Upward Bound. He and his sisters were able to go to graduate school. “I had a PhD from Stanford by the time I was 27,” Dr. Gibbs recalls. “You can see that arc, but you can also see that when I got that PhD, I was the only black man in my building for that five years that wasn’t a mailman, janitor, or technician.” He finishes, “There’s nothing wrong with any of those jobs, but I said, ‘There’s something kind of “off” here.'” Now, he’s working to fix the system, and to make science look more like society. Diversity is Not Enough Dr. Kenneth Gibbs This week, we talk with Dr. Kenneth Gibbs, Director of the Postdoctoral Research Associate Training Program at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. His recent article, Promoting diversity and advancing racial equity in the biomedical sciences, talks about the importance and impact of making academia a welcoming space for people from historically underrepresented minority groups. In our interview, Dr. Gibbs tells the story of how a few of his friends responded to their graduate school training: “Three of my friends who are all black women went to elite East Coast institutions and published first-author papers in single-word journals. Two of them had such terrible experiences in grad school they said ‘I’ll never do science again.‘ One said ‘I’ll do science, but I’ll never do academia.‘” “And I thought, ‘Well thats a damn shame!‘ “It’s a shame for them, because they have been brutalized and they have experienced this bias they should not experience. And it’s a shame for us, because they are publishing at the top of their fields and if we can not create a space for them to contribute and be excellent and be who they are, then we are all losing.” Dr. Gibbs debunks some misconceptions about diversity, and argues that we need to go beyond just admitting students from historically underrepresented minority backgrounds – we need to make laboratories and classrooms a place where “everyone can show up and contribute as their full selves.“ We hope you will join the conversation – leave a comment below with your experience or ideas, or send us an email or Tweet. Back to Basics Our ethanol this week is the Amber Ale from Bell’s Brewing in Comstock,...

What makes two PhDs who escaped from grad school years ago want to revisit all the highs and lows of their training?  Short answer: Beer! But the long answer: Grad school is no cakewalk – classes are challenging, experiments fail, and sometimes, PIs seem like they’re from another planet. We made it through one day at a time, relying on regular conversations and scheming over a beer at the end of a long week. Hello PhD is your chance to join those conversations and benefit from the experience of other scientists who have made their living in, and out of, the lab.  We want to help you take advantage of all of the great benefits of your science training experience, and avoid some of the mistakes and pitfalls. In this episode, we revisit the early days of Hello PhD, and look back on why we started the show in the first place. Some things haven’t changed – admissions are still mysterious, PIs are still a pain, and experiments still fail. But some things HAVE changed for the better, and we want to celebrate the demise of the GRE and the uptick in ‘alternative career’ training. After 5 years ‘on the air’, it felt important to look back at the ground we’ve covered, and ‘renew our vows’ to make graduate training more effective and less likely to ruin your life. There’s still so much to do, but we’re honored to walk that road with you, our audience. Here’s to the next 5 years of Hello PhD! We raise a glass of Surf Melon by Oxbow Brewing Co to celebrate 5 years. It’s a Farmhouse Ale with watermelon, sea salt, and lime coming all the way from Newcastle Maine.

You keep sending questions, we keep answering them! Take My Advice In our last mailbag episode, we noted that ‘comprehensive exams’ or ‘prelims’ varied not only by University but even department to department in one school. We asked you for your experience, and wanted to share just one of those repsonses: My department (Computer Science and Engineering) doesn’t even really have an “exam”. Instead, if you pass certain required classes with a 3.0 or higher then you have passed the comprehensive exam. I’m not sure what passing a few classes is supposed to evaluate. Thank you both for doing what you’re doing.-Josh So there you have it, there’s even a comprehensive exam that is NOT a comprehensive exam. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Next up, a listener took our advice to spend some time getting experience before going back to school. And that led him down a different, but no-less-satisfying path. …I started a job at a large engineering company right after graduating and got to spend the first 6 months of employment studying and learning technical subjects I wasn’t able to study during undergrad. Now I am doing work that I really enjoy and continue to learn every day. This summer I began the first class of my Master’s degree in Robotics Engineering! I will be taking one class a semester online (funded by my company) while continuing to work full time.I know it is not the traditional academic path, and it’s not even a PhD. But I am excited to be continuing my formal education, and I am grateful for the guidance and perspective you two provided to help my decision making. Keep up the great work!– Adam This vs. That Next up, Christy wonders what’s the big difference between a biology department and a biomedical department. They’re both just basic research, right? I was wondering if you have done any episodes that talk about the differences between biological and biomedical science PhD programs. I have come across numerous schools that have both. I know that the former tends to be more focused on basic science whereas the latter might be more translational, but I would be really interested in hearing more similarities and differences. If you have already done an episode on this, could you let me know where to find it? And if not, maybe you could consider doing one in the future. -Christy We highlight the different focuses, like ecology, plant biology, environmental science, human diseases, and where to find each. We also point out that the funding systems are different and it’s worth understanding where that money is coming from before you sign up. Last, we hear from an applicant who spent 3 years in one lab. Now he’s applying to graduate school and worries that he’ll only have one letter of recommendation: Dear Josh and Dan,I am currently working on my Fall 2021 PhD applications. One concern I have is that I have worked in a single lab as an undergraduate. I joined relatively early on in my undergraduate career (late in my first semester), so I have been working in it for nearly 3 years now. However, this means that I only really have one letter of recommendation from a PI that I have done research with. Do you think this will hold me back when it comes to PhD admissions?Thank you both very much in advance and for putting out so many hel...