Hello PhD

It’s no secret that graduate school and postdoctoral training are some of the most intellectually and emotionally challenging periods you will face in your career. Experiments fail, grant deadlines loom, and PIs push you to work long hours to publish or perish. That’s why many trainees wait to start a family.  Time is precious, and the idea of staying up all night to record your experimental time-points is daunting enough.  Who has time to stay up all night calming a crying baby before rushing back to the lab? Many students know they want to have kids ‘some day,’ and the six to ten-year grad-school-postdoc training period looms large.  They just don’t want to wait that long to start a family. But is it possible to have kids WHILE you’re in grad school? We asked an expert! This week, we talk with Vivianne, who had her first child when she was a first-year graduate student! Vivianne shares some helpful tips for making family life work with lab life.  It’s not easy, but she argues that there’s really no better time to start a family; if you want kids, you can make it work. First, she says it’s important to identify and coordinate your support system for the lab.  Talk with colleagues, peers, and undergrads about who can maintain your cell cultures or mouse colony during your maternity or paternity leave. It’s possible to keep your research project moving forward, even if you’re not there holding the pipette. You’ll also want to arrange a support system for yourself at home.  Babies are a LOT of work (in case that wasn’t clear…) and many grad students and postdocs are living in a new city, away from friends and family who could help. Lean on your partner, neighbors, friends, and any family members you can convince to stay with you for a month or two after the baby arrives. When you DO make it back into the lab after some time away, you’ll need to adapt your work habits to a new schedule.  Vivianne notes that many scientists have the sense that “I need to do it all myself if I want it done correctly.”  That’s fine if you’re able to spend 14 hours a day in the lab, but new parents should learn to delegate aspects of their research project to colleagues. That means training an undergrad on how to run your gels or trading off with a peer to split cell cultures on alternate days.  And if your lab can afford it, utilize core facilities on campus for routine assays. And while you may have been able to ‘wing it’ when deciding on your next experiment before you had kids, you’ll need to plan each day in advance when you have to rush to daycare at 5PM.  Vivianne recommends planning a week ahead. If you know what’s coming up next Thursday, you can get to work right away.  That’s especially helpful if you didn’t get much sleep Wednesday night and your mind is still hazy. All of this advice applies equally to new moms OR dads (or really, any science trainee!), but pregnant women have other concerns if they’re working in biomedical or chemistry lab settings. First, identify which experiments, rooms, and chemicals you’ll need to avoid while pregnant.  Laboratories may expose you to toxins or infection that are relatively harmless to an adult, but damaging to a developing fetus.  When in doubt, ask for more information. It’s not going to be easy raising kids and having a full-time job in science, but it can be extremely rewarding.  Just make sure you ask for help, and define success in your own terms. For ethanol this week, we rip open the Bota Box 2016 Malbec.  Tasty Malbec flavor at grad-school prices (and volumes!)

Sure, scientific conferences are not a competitive sport, but the sheer volume of information, introductions, and events can leave you feeling like you just lost a round of rugby. This week, we share some sage advice for making your next conference the best one yet. Listener Matthew writes: I have a topic that I think would be interesting for graduate students of all years to hear more about: how to be effective at conferences. I usually make it to one or two conferences a year, and the first time I went I had no idea what to do, where to go, how to plan to see what I should be seeing let alone finding time to properly network. For students who have an absent PI this can be daunting particularly if you are presenting papers and posters as well. Matthew is exactly right – a scientific conference is often an overwhelming place.  There are myriad talks, hundreds of posters, and vendors packed wall to wall in a room the size of an airplane hanger. We took to Twitter to ask other scientists how they approach the opportunities and obstacles of a scientific conference. Hey #sciencetwitter – what tips do you have for making the most of a scientific conference? (Specifically, advice for students.) #PhDchat — Joshua Hall (@jdhallphd) July 21, 2018   Here’s what they said… Before You Go Set Some Goals Step one is to think about why you want to attend this conference, and that may change with your career stage and current projects. Some attendees will be looking to begin a collaboration.  Some will hope to find a postdoc position. And some may just want to learn more about the latest technologies in the vendor showroom.  Whatever your reason, jot down a few ideas about what you’d like to achieve. Set a conference goal! When I go in with a defined goal (i.e. Ask a question in a session, Give a good talk, Hand out 5 business cards, Meet with collaborator) I find that I feel more accomplished and do more work than if I have a vague idea like “Network.” — Alex Dainis (@AlexDainis) July 21, 2018 Make a Plan Since it’s literally impossible to see everything, your first order of business should be to make a plan. Take a few minutes to reach out to colleagues you’d like to meet while attending the conference.  Set up a time and place to meet for coffee or lunch before you arrive so you’re guaranteed to make the connection. At a large conference, you can’t expect to ‘run into’ your collaborators by accident. If you’re applying for grad school and are interested in a PI, see if they’ll be there to chat. Making those connections is key and they’re usually very enthusiastic! — Griffin (@octopaqueen) July 21, 2018 Ultimately, conference organizers will release a schedule with poster and presentation titles.  Fire up your trusty highlighter and mark the must-see events.  Prioritizing these events will help you ensure you get the most important content.  You can fill in the remaining time with meetings, posters, or quiet reflection. Many Twitter responses encouraged attendees to step outside of their comfort zones when choosing talks and posters. Do at least one session in a topic that you find sort of interesting but isn’t your current specialty. Fields evolve so fast today that if you stay in the game you will eventually need to change topic.

The best thing about the Hello PhD podcast is our amazing audience of grad students, postdocs, and career scientists. We get emails, tweets, and website comments full of thoughtful questions and insightful observations. And though we try to read and respond to each message, not every question makes it into the show. Sometimes, we can reply with just a few words of encouragement, or a link to a prior episode. But this week, we wanted to dig into the mailbag and offer a rapid-fire response to some of the burning questions you’ve sent over the last few months. Listener Letters Preparing the Next Generation Our first email comes from Megan at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  She’s running a summer workshop to help undergraduate students prepare for grad school.  This year, she’ll emphasize the subtle importance of choosing a good mentor, and how it can make, or break, your PhD training. Smaller Schools Our next email is from a listener who is worried that finishing a PhD at a smaller school with a lower ‘ranking’ will hold her back when seeking a job. We discuss the very real bias some people have in favor of Ivy League schools and prestigious, top-tier research universities, and how she can optimize her chances of getting a job.  It comes down to working hard and publishing in her field of study, as well as forming a strong network early in her training. This listener may not have a PhD from a school with a shiny reputation, but she will have a PhD, and she can develop her reputation as a leader in the field. Learning New Tricks Our next question comes from Christina, who is considering going back to graduate school after already spending years in another career. Do you have any advice to offer older PhD candidates or those thinking about pursuing a PhD as a career changer? We harken way back to Episode 010: Are you too old to go back to school? where we spoke with Dr. Robin Chamberland about her experience going back to grad school in her thirties.  Spoiler alert: she’s a faculty member now, and has wonderful insights to share about her journey. Extra-curricular Catherine inquired about joining clubs and taking up extra-curricular interests during grad school.  She notes that many students either feel too guilty to take time out of the lab, or they try to hide it from their advisor. We firmly believe in the value of mental health and taking care of your needs as a student.  That means making time for exercise, socializing, and career development. This does not make you a slacker, it makes you a better human being and may improve your science! Finding Community Bektur wrote to find out the best way to connect with other researchers when one is studying in a remote part of the world. Could you please recommend any possible ways to keep in touch with other researchers for PhD students living/studying in remote locations? For instance I am currently studying in a very remote town in Japan and there are only a handful of PhD students at my university. I know for a fact that you have to constantly interact with other professionals in your field (and other closely related fields too) in order to keep your memory and skills fresh, but I was wondering if there’s a public platform or a discussion board for that. We believe in the power of Twitter for the scientific community, and we did a full episode on just this topic! Check out Episode 069: Five Ways Scientists SHOULD Be Using Twitter for more on that subject. We also recently learned about a Slack channel devote...

A PhD takes years to complete, so it’s no surprise that your situation may change during that time.  Your PI may move to a different University, your spouse may take a job in another town, or you may need to move back home to care for ailing parents. In these situations, you’re forced to make a difficult choice: “Should I stay with my lab and finish my work, or find a way to finish this PhD remotely?” That’s exactly the question we got from “Walker” this week.  He and his wife desperately want to move to a new city, but he also wants to finish his degree. Walker wrote: I am currently in my third year of a PhD program in Computer Science and Engineering at a fairly prestigious university in the Midwest for graduate school. My wife and I are both quite unhappy here. The weather is awful 11 months of the year, neither of us really feels safe here, and my wife can’t find any jobs here where she can actually apply her degree. I’m done with courses, my research is going alright, and I’m hoping to propose my thesis before the end of this year. At this point, I have fulfilled my residence requirement, so I could possibly (with the ‘blessing’ of my adviser) complete my thesis as a non-resident meaning my wife and I could live wherever we want. I was hoping that you guys might be able to shed some light on the pros and cons to going non-res. Walker’s case seems pretty clear-cut: he needs to get out of there! But for others thinking about finishing a PhD remotely, we have some important considerations to process in making your decision. Is Remote Work Right for My Situation? While there are some lifestyle and mental health benefits from living in a new place you love, it will almost certainly make your PhD research harder in other ways.  Communicating with your advisor will be more cumbersome and less frequent.  You’ll lose the support network of fellow grad students and access to libraries, seminars, and hallway conversations with other researchers. That’s why it’s so important to plan ahead.  Here’s a checklist to work through as you decide “Is this right for me?” * Are your goals well defined? * Do your advisor and committee approve of your research plan? * Is your advisor or committee likely to change their minds? * How long will it take to finish? * Will you need local resources? (Lab equipment, core facilities, libraries, expertise, etc.) * Is your personality a good match for remote work? Question 6 is vitally important and perhaps difficult to answer if you haven’t ‘worked from home’ very often.  If you’re the type of person who relies on external motivation and deadlines to finish a project, working remotely will be a challenge.  Likewise, if you’re prone to feeling lonely or isolated, it may be tough. But even these barriers may be overcome if you have a plan… Remote Work, the Right Way Finishing any project the size and scale of a PhD is all about motivation, project management, and persistence.  Here are some things to consider when organizing the days, months, and years it will take to complete your PhD. Environment Figure out the best work environment to suit your needs. Some people are happy and productive with a laptop on the couch, while others need a space where they won’t be distracted by chores, kids, or the TV. Consider dedicating a space in your home where you eliminate distractions.  Or try working from a coffee shop, library, or c0-working space in your community. And of course, be sure to employ time-management techniques like the Pomodoro Timer and the

We got an email from a first-year student who seems to love everything about grad school… except the tests.  He’s wondering: Do grades matter? Dear Josh and Daniel, I am a first year chemical engineering PhD student and am currently working through a class-filled semester. For two of my classes, my midterm grades were much less than desirable for me. Now, I’m not the quickest when it comes to math, so a lower score in classes like transport compared to other students has been the norm, but these scores are even lower than what I usually expect. Nerves have been a typical part of my exam state of mind, but past experience has shown I can usually overcome them. I feel like I understand the concepts, and my homework and quiz grades for the class would seem to indicate that. However, the tests have gotten the best of me both times. I have to maintain a certain GPA and while I don’t know what the final grades will be yet, I feel like I should be doing better. I guess my real question is, are class grades indicative of whether or not a PhD is right for me? I have a master’s and have done research for more than 3 years, so I feel that the actual research portion of the program will not be the issue. And every time I get to talk research with my lab group and new advisor, I love it. For now, it just seems like my grades aren’t indicating that I’m a good enough student for the program, and I really don’t want that to be the case. I plan on talking to my advisor about it all soon as well as older grad students. Thanks for listening and thanks for your show, Sincerely, Zachary We unpack Zachary’s email and recognize that he seems to love everything that matters about a career in science – understanding the concepts, a passion for the research question, and an ability to collaborate with peers. Ultimately, we think Zachary is in the right place, and that test grades probably don’t predict whether he’ll be successful in science. That said, his issue seems to surround the tests themselves, and the nervous feelings he has to manage during exam time.  To improve his scores, he can speak with the professor about setting up an alternative testing strategy.  That sometimes means receiving more time, or being allowed to finish the exam in a less distracting location. His professors are probably more concerned about ensuring Zachary learns the content than they are about the room in which he takes the exam. A Drink A Day Science in the News is just a bit late this week.  We’re discussing a very expensive, 10-year study into the health benefits of light-to-moderate drinking funded by the NIH. As interesting as that sounds, the plot thickened when the New York Times reported that the money to fund this alcohol study was provided by some of the largest players in the alcohol industry! That raised questions of scientific bias, and resulted in the director of the NIH halting the study in March 2018 pending review.  It’s a story about the sometimes tangled interests of scientists, corporations, and society at large. And just because it’s relevant, we also sample a novel and somewhat unorthodox brew.  It’s the Wisconsin Brewing Company RE: FRESH Radler – a surprising mix of grapefruit soda and beer that tastes WAY better than it sounds. It’s doubly exciting because it was created in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Department of Food Science. And don’t worry,

Susanna was experiencing insomnia that began to interfere with her work and life.  She visited the campus health clinic, and they referred her to mental health resources on campus. There, the doctor recommended medication for depression and anxiety, and therapy to work through the issues that were interfering with her sleep. “We’re actually really worried that you’re severely depressed,” the doctor explained.   Susanna’s reply: “No, I’m just in grad school!” There’s no question that graduate training is stressful.  Rotations, qualifying exams, committee meetings, and the constant struggle to make experiments work can push every student toward the boiling point. But lurking under Susanna’s protest is a dangerous assumption many of us share.  We believe that anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and other symptoms of mental illness are a required and normal side effect of graduate training. And we’re not wrong.  A recent study published in Nature Biotechnology (summary here) found roughly 40% of graduate trainees measured in the ‘moderate to severe’ range for depression and anxiety.  The authors  surveyed over 2,200 trainees in 26 countries, in fields ranging from the humanities to the biological and physical sciences. In contrast, moderate-to-severe depression affects just 6% of the general population when measured with the same inventory. “Our results show that graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression and anxiety as compared to the general population,” the study says. These alarming numbers reveal a latent mental health crisis brewing in our classrooms, labs and libraries. But what can we do about it? Searching for Solutions The study’s authors highlight the fact that poor work-life balance was a contributor to student mental illness.  They also noted breakdowns in the mentor-trainee relationship that exacerbated the issue.  Finally, they highlight the uniquely challenging circumstances of transgender students, gender non-conforming students and women, who are “significantly more likely to experience anxiety and depression than their male graduate student counterparts.” They suggest a menu of changes to graduate training, including increasing access to mental health resources, training mentors, and modifying the culture of research to improve work-life balance. But those solutions will likely take years to understand and implement. What’s to be done for students who are suffering today? Susanna Harris had read the statistics, and she knew there must be other scientists around her that wrestled with the same feelings she had, but where were they?  “You can’t see mental illness on somebody – it’s not a stock photo of a girl wiping away tears,” she notes. So she decided she’d go first – to tell her story in a public way so that others who were also struggling could find comfort, acceptance, and inspiration for their own journeys. She launched a social media community on Instagram under the handle @Ph_D_epression.  Students and scientists post an image of themselves, along with a personal story describing their experience with mental health. “Our goal is that PhDs and students feel comfortable discussing and seeking help for mental and emotional health in the same way as they do for maintaining physical health. We want to disrupt the cycle of secrecy and shame through sharing and discussing personal struggles with mental health issues.” As contributors share their stories, they receive back a flood of comments offering suppor...

“Things are not progressing as they should. You’re having a hard time focusing on the research, and we know that you don’t want to be in academia anyway.  Do you want to quit?” The question landed like a punch, and Mónica’s committee meeting took a turn she hadn’t expected. She was in the fourth year of her PhD training at Harvard, and her committee had just asked her if she wanted to leave the program. “That was incredibly devastating to have these four people that you respect, and that their main role is supposed to be supporting you and helping you, and to have them ask you, “Do you want to leave?” It was devastating. But I somehow found the strength to say, ‘I don’t want to quit!'” Mónica Feliú-Mójer finished her PhD and went on to a dream job doing science outreach and communication, but that committee meeting was a turning point. Her story holds a valuable lesson for any graduate student considering a career outside of the academic tenure track. Many students begin graduate school expecting to land in a tenure-track faculty position.  But often, they see their own advisor slaving over grant applications and departmental politics, and decide that an ‘alternative career’ is a better option. Dr. Feliú-Mójer realized a passion for science communication BEFORE she even applied to graduate school, and once enrolled, she poured herself into the extra-curricular experiences that fed that passion.  She worked with organizations like Ciencia Puerto Rico, and worked long into the night honing her writing skills. “While I was enjoying that experimental part, what really brought me immense joy was all of this communication and outreach that I was doing,” she remembers. But graduation requires a dissertation, and she realized her research was taking second place. “There was a point in graduate school where things were not looking great.  I wasn’t happy, I didn’t feel like I was making progress, I didn’t feel like I had the support I needed to succeed in the lab. And so, I wasn’t motivated, and I decided to pour all of my energy into my outreach and my science communication.  And that really affected my productivity, to the level that I was a fourth-year grad student and my dissertation advisory committee asked me if I wanted to quit the PhD program.” Feliú-Mójer examined her motivations and had tough conversations with her mentors. She went back to her committee with the confidence to finish what she started. “I knew that I needed to make an adjustment and that I needed to focus, so I said ‘No, I’m not quitting. And yes, I do need a PhD to do what I want to do.  So I am committing right here and now to finish, and I hope you will work with me to accomplish that.'” The rest, as they say, is history. Today, Dr. Feliú-Mójer spends her time mentoring students and sharing science with a wide audience through her work with Ciencia Puerto Rico and iBiology. This week on the show, she shares her inspiring story about following your passion, pushing through the trials of graduate school, and leveraging your network to land your dream job. You may also like: 085: Scientists in the Newsroom – The AAAS Mass Media Fellowship with Rebekah Corlew 079: The Insider’s Guide to Industry with Randall Ribaudo, PhD 035: Making Time for Outreach

Think about your training as a grad student and postdoc – you spend countless hours at the bench, running experiments and reading papers to finish your personal research project. Now think about your PI or faculty advisor. Does she spend time at the bench?  Or are you more likely to find her in her office, writing grants, attending departmental meetings, and managing people, projects, and money? If you’re noticing a mismatch between academic training and the actual work of a faculty member, you’re not alone.  The skills and traits that make us successful students may not translate into making us successful professors and PIs. That’s where a unique postdoctoral fellowship steps in to bridge the gap: it’s the Academic Pathways program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Their goal is to prepare postdocs for entry-level faculty jobs, with a special focus on increasing diversity at the highest levels of academia. On The Path This week, we take Hello PhD ‘on the road’ to record in front of a live audience at Vanderbilt University.  We were joined by three postdocs in the very first cohort of Academic Pathways Fellows: Lillian Brady, Rashanique Quarels and Diego Mesa. These scholars tell us about the Academic Pathways program, and what makes it so different from traditional postdoctoral training. That difference starts with the interview process. Rather than submitting a research statement describing their plan for the next 2-3 years, fellows visit Vanderbilt and collaborate on a research plan with a faculty advisor.  The committee then selects fellows based on the result – proving that they not only have a plan, but also a productive relationship with a mentor. The program carves out protected time for advancing that research plan, but it’s not all bench work. Fellows receive tailored training and opportunities to advance their own skills in mentorship, teaching, and management.  They’re also introduced to the political aspects of faculty life, meeting with Deans and program directors to understand how an academic department handles appointments, funding, and personnel. An important aspect of Academic Pathways is its commitment to improving diversity in science. Statistically, it’s easy to identify the problem at many Universities where women, people of color, and other groups are underrepresented in professorships and research labs.  Our panelists share the personal side of those statistics and how they plan to encourage the next generation of students. They also share valuable advice on assembling a ‘panel of mentors’ to assist you in each stage of your career, the value of ‘just applying’ to programs and awards, and the importance of being kind to yourself after a hard day in lab. These Beverages May Be Habit Forming For our Science in the News segment, we’re discussing California’s decision to label cups of coffee with a cancer warning. The coffee roasting process produces acrylamide, which has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. A small amount of that acrylamide ends up in your morning mocha, so a judge has determined that retailers must warn bleary-eyed coffee consumers. We dissect the acrylamide research, and warn you about a few other foods that might be cause for concern. But no matter how dire the warning,

Josh and Daniel are on the road this week, so we decided to bring you some goodies from the archive.  An 8-ish step plan to save science!   Biomedical science is broken.  Funding is unpredictable, training programs drag on indefinitely, and some of our best scientists are drawn to careers outside of the university or drowned in paperwork if they stay.  Can anything be done to support research staff and boost lab productivity? Saving Science These topics are regularly debated in the literature, but a recent meta-analysis by Pickett et al. in PNAS works to find the consensus among a dizzying number of suggestions.  Their paper, Toward a sustainable biomedical research enterprise: Finding consensus and implementing recommendations, could be re-titled “8 Ways to Save Science.”  And while these 8 ideas may appear across the literature, they’re not without controversy. This week on the show, we unpack the 8 recommendations and debate their merits.  Should all graduate school programs be limited to 5 years?  Should the federal government increase overall funding?  Should postdocs receive higher pay? To summarize, the 8 recommendations are: * Make funding predictable from year-to-year * Increase the total amount of money the federal government hands out * Reduce regulations * Pay postdocs more * Shorten graduate school to 5 years * Train students and postdocs for “alternative” careers other than faculty PI * Change how trainees are funded * Increase opportunities for staff scientists Josh throws in a bonus recommendation that didn’t quite make the top 8: increase diversity in the biomedical enterprise. Did you applaud every item on this list, or did the authors miss the mark?  Leave your comments below and let us know what you’d add or remove to make biomedical science a more sustainable enterprise. Also in this episode, we pay tribute to all the Oregonians who don’t listen to our podcast by drinking Dead Guy Ale from Rogue.  It’s an Oregon beer and we’re pandering for listeners in that great state, so tell a friend! References: States in order by quality of their beer offerings. Newt Gingrich (NYT April 2015): “Double the NIH budget” PIs spend 42% of their time on administrivia Stanford recently bumped starting postdoc pay to $50K NIH recently started a funding mechanism called “Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST)”.

Have you ever submitted a grant, only to have it rejected?  You respond to the reviewers’ comments, addressing weaknesses and tweaking the protocol to honor their suggestions. Then, when you resubmit, the proposal is rejected again.  This new group of reviewers suggest changes to the protocol. And guess what, their suggestions sound a lot like your original idea that you removed to satisfy the last group of reviewers. Are you the butt of some cruel academic joke, or is the grant funding process really this subjective and unpredictable? Mad Money Grants are serious business to an academic lab.  The NIH alone awards over $30 billion to support 300,000 researchers at 2,500 universities. Applying for one of these grants requires the investigator to prepare a lengthy proposal, detailing the work they intend to do, preliminary results, and how they will address challenges. As anyone who has applied for a grant knows, it’s a grueling process. After submission, the grant is read and scored by 2-5 reviewers, and those grants receiving a sufficiently high score are sent to ‘study section,’ where they’re reviewed and ranked by a larger peer group of scientists. Review boards at the NIH then take these rankings and award money to the top-scoring proposals.  The others are returned with comments on how to improve the research program, and those labs can then re-submit a proposal in the next round of funding. All of this talk of scores and rankings might lead you to believe that the grant review process is objective, consistent, and repeatable. But notice that behind the numerical values are a group of humans applying their individual judgement to assign a score. A recent paper in PNAS by Pier et al. at Princeton University questions the fundamental validity of the grant peer review process. The study’s authors wanted to know: if you give a group of reviewers the same high-quality grant proposals, will they score them consistently?  In other words, do reviewers agree about what makes a quality research proposal? The paper’s title,: “Low agreement among reviewers evaluating the same NIH grant applications” , makes it clear that reviewers absolutely did NOT agree. In fact, the authors conclude: It appeared that the outcome of the grant review depended more on the reviewer to whom the grant was assigned than the research proposed in the grant. This week on the show, we dive deep into the grant review process, and explain the study showing the wide variation in scores given to the same grants. We also suggest some changes that might make the process more fair, even if human bias and judgement cannot be removed from the equation. Triple Threat The science making news this week brings you three papers exploring the role of doctors increasing patient mortality rates!  We describe two studies on the “July Phenomenon” – a period in July where new medical residents start their hospital rotations.  Do these new MDs actually kill more patients while they learn the ropes? We also mention a recent paper indicating that patients admitted to the hospital for heart attacks survive longer if their doctor is away at a conference! The old phrase about “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” takes on new meaning.  Maybe the nutrition in the apple is secondary – the primary health benefit is in keeping the doctor away! And to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, we down some 

On a graduate student’s stipend, it’s hard to imagine having enough money left over to afford a dinner out, let alone enough to invest for retirement. But if you can scrape together a few dollars each month, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow that investment. As a grad student, time is on your side. Compound Interest This week on the show, we welcome back our grad-school-finance-guru Emily Roberts, PhD. Not only is Emily a scientist, she’s also a coach, speaker, and the creator of Personal Finance for PhDs. If you are a grad student or postdoc, and you’ve managed to pay down your other debts, it’s time to start thinking about retirement.  That’s because the money you set aside today will have longer to grow, compounding year after year, until your retirement. But choosing an investment strategy may seem daunting.  In fact, many students never invest at all because they don’t know where to begin! Emily recommends finding out if you are eligible for one of several tax-sheltered savings accounts.  If you receive a W-2 form each year, or are married to someone who does, you’ve got a couple of options. * Traditional accounts (IRAs, 403Bs, etc.) give you a tax break in the year you invest.  So if you earn a $30,000 stipend and invest $1,000 in a traditional IRA, you’ll only pay taxes on $29,000 of your income.  That money will grow over time tax free, but when you take money out of the account at retirement, you’ll pay income tax at that time. * Roth accounts give you a tax break in the future.  In our example, you’ll pay the full tax amount on your $30,000 stipend, but when you withdraw the money in your retirement, you’ll pay no additional taxes.  This option tends to work well for grad students who are currently earning in the lowest tax brackets, but may be in a higher tax bracket at retirement. Whichever tax-structure you choose, you’ll probably want to choose an investment that works without a lot of baby-sitting.  Emily recommends index funds (investments that track the growth of the overall market) and those with low fees. For the simplest set-it-and-forget-it option, choose a target-date fund that automatically shifts the money from high-growth, high-risk options like the stock market while you’re young, to low-growth, low-risk options like cash and bonds when you’re nearing retirement age. Bottom line: investing for retirement can be easy, and it can be automated.  The best thing to do is start early, and make adjustments as you learn more. Emily has many great resources on her website, and a special page for Hello PhD listeners.  Just visit pfforphds.com/hellophd for information, an investing newsletter, and an upcoming webinar on tax preparation for grad students. You may also like: 033: It’s Tax Season – Here’s What You Need to Know 068: Use Targeted Savings Accounts for Irregular Expenses Science Silencer The recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida is just one more tragic line in the story of gun violence in America.  Guns rank as one of the top-five killers for people under the age of 65 in the U.S. It wasn’t so long ago that gun-related injuries were recognized as a public health threat.  In fact, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) studied the epidemiology of gun deaths until 1996 when the Dickey Amendment started a cascade of changes that

But I have no skills! At least no skills employers would be interested in! As a career counselor, Melanie Sinche heard grad students and postdocs voice this concern nearly every day.  She looked at these talented scholars and saw the ability to think critically, analyze data, and solve problems. To her eye, these were transferable skills very much in demand outside the research lab.  Why couldn’t the students see it? “I felt frustrated by that comment, and motivated to conduct a research study around skill development. I would argue that scientific training, by its very nature, lends itself to the development of LOTS of skills.” Data Wins Arguments Sinche developed a survey for early PhDs who had entered the workforce, to find out which skills they needed to do their current jobs, and how well their graduate training had prepared them.  Over 8,000 responded. “It’s important for PhDs to recognize and have the confidence to express the skills that they’ve developed through their training,” Sinche says. Here are the 15 skills, ranked by how well prepared the PhDs felt after their graduate training (Most Prepared to Least): * Discipline specific knowledge * Ability to gather and interpret information * Ability to analyze data * Written communication skills * Oral communication skills * Ability to make decisions and solve problems * Ability to learn quickly * Creativity/innovative thinking * Ability to manage a project * Ability to set a vision and goals * Time management * Ability to work on a team * Ability to work with people outside the organization * Ability to manage others * Career planning and awareness The last four items in that list exhibited a skill gap for the respondents – they didn’t feel the PhD program had adequately prepared them for their work.  It’s an opportunity for improvements in graduate training, and students should seek additional help. For the other eleven skills, graduate training was helpful, making PhDs especially competitive in roles where data analysis, learning quickly,  and communication are key. And one more piece of good news from the study – PhDs appear to be pretty happy with their work! When asked about job satisfaction, an impressive 80% of respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs.  This was true both for those in research intensive careers (e.g. faculty, industry) and those in non-research intensive careers (e.g. teaching, science writing) “I was so encouraged by what I found.  There is life after the PhD – life after the posdoc!” Sinche concluded. You can read the entire paper at this link: An evidence-based evaluation of transferrable skills and job satisfaction for science PhDs Or read her book: Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in Science Hazy Shade This week, we also share a story about an assault on the hallowed tradition of anonymous peer review.  After a legal fracas between Cross Fit Inc. and The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, a judge has ordered that the reviewers of a Cross Fit exercise study be unmasked. We discuss the history of anonymous peer review, and why the current legal action is so unusual. And we mellow out with the Purple Haze Lager from Abita Brewing Company in New Orleans.  Hey, it’s Mardi Gras, someone throw us some beads!

Some decisions in life are simple (“Yes, I want cheese on that burger!”) and some are difficult (“Do I want to spend the rest of my life with this person?”). On that spectrum, choosing a University graduate program sits closer to marriage than it does to your lunch options. First, grad school takes a long time – usually 4-6 years – and it sets you rather firmly in a career path that can be challenging to change afterward. It’s a life-decision. Second, once you choose, you’re committing to a series of events and impacts that will be out of your control. You don’t get a “do-over” when the lab you wanted to join moves away or a postdoc picks up the project you learned about during your interview. Take a cohort of students at any research university in the country, and you’ll find some that graduate with three first-author papers in just four years.  You’ll find others who never make it to the degree, either due to conflicts with their advisors, projects that don’t work out, or personal issues stemming from the stress of graduate studies. So we know the stakes are high, but how, exactly, are you supposed to choose a PhD program?  Make the Choice This week on the show, we answer listener emails.  Mikaela wants to know what factors to consider when choosing a University and degree program, and Katie shares her specific conundrum: going with an offer she has vs. waiting for something better. We lay out some general guidelines that will help any student-to-be. 1. Fascinating Research It goes without saying that you should find a program with interesting research topics, but many students make a critical mistake in their focus.  They find one faculty member – one research lab – that sounds absolutely amazing and choose the degree program in the hopes of working in that lab. Then, after moving, enrolling, and starting classes, they learn the PI has moved away or the lab is full and can’t accept new students.  Now they’re stuck in a program and forced to settle for something else. Imagine spending the next five years of your life doing research you don’t care about! Instead, look for programs with a variety of interesting topics.  This is obviously a deeply personal measure, but the goal is to find a variety of labs that satisfy your interests.  Make sure there are three to five research topics you could invest in, and you’ll be ready with Plan B, C, and D when Plan A falls through. 2. Love the Place We’ve already mentioned you’ll be living in a university town for a few years, and you’ll spend plenty of time outside the lab.  Make sure you like your new home town. This includes concerns like climate, but also the subtle character of that particular city. Is it bike-able? Is it near the beach? Does it have excellent restaurants? Can you stay close to family? You want to enjoy the location, but make sure you experience it before you pass judgement.  All too often, students miss a great opportunity to step out of their comfort zones because they’re convinced they “never want to live in the city” or “can’t imagine moving to the East coast.” Apply everywhere, and use the interview to explore new places.  You may just fall in love. 3. Professional Development Most universities offer quality classes and cutting edge research, but not all programs are created equal when it comes to professional development.  There are still departments that consider a faculty position the only viable outcome of PhD training.  Others are strapped for resources and don’t offer additional help on career exploration or skill training. Instead, look for a program that recognizes the diversity of PhD careers, and fosters your development in your chosen path...

Turning over the last page of the calendar seems to naturally invite some reflection on the previous 365 days. When you look back at 2017, what went well? And what do you wish you could change in the coming year? This week, we take the opportunity to reflect back much farther – to our days in graduate and postdoctoral training!  With years of hindsight, we offer advice and perspective to the scientists we were, and devise some resolutions you can adopt in your scientific training. Grad School Resolutions  1.  Remember that training is temporary When you’re ‘on the inside,’ graduate training can seem like an endless tunnel – the light at the end just a distant pin-prick.  For many, the daily stress of lab life closes in and we begin to feel trapped and hopeless.  This year, pause to consider that your training is just a brief step in your scientific career, and that people do finish! We promise! 2. Be mindful of your unique skills and motivations Many students wait to think about a suitable career until they have a degree in their hands and a PI’s foot on their backside.  We recommend taking stock of your natural motivation and skill patterns early AND often. It can be as simple as reflecting at the end of the day or on a Friday afternoon.  What did you accomplish this week? Which activities left you feeling energized?  Which left you drained? When did you lose track of time because you were engrossed in the task? Jot each item in a notebook or on a post-it and save them. After a few months, you’ll have a detailed list of skills and activities you like to use and those you’d like to avoid.  These patterns can persist over a lifetime, so spend some time examining the notes and identifying the common themes.  That way, when you’re reading job postings, you’ll know exactly which positions fit your personality. 3. Push beyond your comfort zone Starting a graduate program often means moving to a new town, meeting hundreds of new people, and dropping the support networks you enjoyed in college. That makes many introverted science-types turn further inward as we try to avoid the stress of new situations. But remember that many of the people you meet feel exactly the same way.  Push yourself to engage, and you’ll be rewarded with new friends and colleagues that will last a lifetime.  Graduate training is full of never-to-be-repeated opportunities if you’re willing to step up and take them. 4. Make science fun again #MSFA Don’t forget that you chose a career in science because science is amazing.  Maybe it fascinated you as a child, but we quickly lose that child-like curiosity the moment Figure 4 of our paper is due. Every once in awhile, it’s okay to let loose and try an experiment because you think it’s fun, or you just can’t predict how it will turn out. This will not only stoke your love of science, it may lead to your next line of inquiry. 5. Find emotional support before you think you need it Graduate training may be one of the most stressful periods of your life.  That’s not unusual. But too many of us try to ‘power through’ on our own.  Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and worse are the rewards. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Your mental health is as vitally important as your physical health.  If eating right and going to the gym are admirable, then so are finding a counselor or mental health professional to help you on this journey.  As we look back over our own graduate training, we wish we had found this support sooner. So that’s it – five resolutions for a happier, healthier, sciencier you.  Leave a comment below to let us know YOUR New Year’s Resolutions, or the advice you wish you’d gotten as a grad student or postdoc. Shock Lobster

Pick up any newspaper and you’ll find an article summarizing the ‘latest research’ on the health benefits of chocolate, a new treatment for Alzheimers, or the long-term risks of screen time for your toddler. As a scientist, you probably groan before you reach the end of the title: the claims are extreme, the statistics are dubious, and often, the information a reader should know is buried below the fold. If you’d like to see science communication reach new levels of accuracy and relevance, it may be time to step away from your lab bench and pick up a pen. AAAS Mass Media Fellowship Scientists are trained to describe their work to other scientists in papers, posters, and presentations, but they may struggle to describe the importance of that work to a non-technical audience. Journalists are trained to uncover facts, and tell a compelling story quickly and accurately, but they may not be familiar with the subtle nuances of a scientific field or technique. For forty years, a fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has bridged that divide, placing scientists into the busiest newsrooms in the world. The AAAS Media Science & Engineering Fellowship is competitive summer program that allows students, postdocs, and recent grads to spend 10 weeks practicing journalism with media outlets like The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, WIRED, and Scientific American. This week, we talk with Project Director Rebekah Corlew, PhD, about this amazing opportunity for scientists to improve their communication skills and their networks.  She shares a few stories about past fellows (including one whose article made the cover of Time Magazine!) and tips for a successful application. The application deadline is January 15th, so click here to apply now! Need more information? Watch this pre-recorded webinar or read the Q&A. CDC Word Ban Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had issued a ‘word ban’ for their annual budget request.  The undesirable terms were: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” Many readers, lawmakers, and scientists responded with outrage about the supposed ban, while the department of Health and Human Services attempted to claim it was all a misunderstanding. We share our thoughts on the story, which is likely more nuanced and less villainous than the headlines would have you believe. We also sample another German favorite, the Allgäuer Büble Bier Edelbräu from Allgauer Brauhaus from Kempten, Germany.  It travelled a long way to reach our studio, but it was well worth the trip!