- Choosing What to Do or Not to Do on the Job
Lives with daycare drop-offs, graduate students to monitor and department chairs to please can be hectic. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that we can actually do much more than we think we can - when our priorities are in-line. I am also amazed at how well things work ou...
- Build a Great Team: Help Your Staff Help You
Whether you have a few hours a week of a lab tech paid for by your startup funds or you've been running your own lab for years, a high functioning team can help you achieve your research goals. Senior research staff often have greater insight into the details of executing resea...
- What the F? Creating a Commons ID
Help! I’m submitting an NIH fellowship application and need a Commons ID. How do I get one?
Let’s start with what eRA Commons and a Commons ID are.
eRA Commons
The NIH describes eRA Commons as “an online interface where grant applicants, grantees and federal staff at NIH and...
- What the F?: Childcare Costs Allowed on Fellowships & Training Grants
The NIH has recognized how the high cost of childcare can create roadblocks for graduate students and postdocs on the way to completing their training. In order to help alleviate some of this burden, the agency announced that as of FY22 full time pre-doc and postdoc trainees supp...
- A Guide to Managing Research Teams
Research training programs rarely teach management of staff and trainees. Particularly for those of us who go on to careers in academic medicine, our ability to effectively manage a team is critical to the success of our career. Graduate school, fellowship, and postdoctoral tra...
- Changes to NIH Biosketch and Other Support
The NIH recently announced changes to its Biosketch and Other Support documents that took effect beginning with applications and RPPRs submitted with a due date of May 25, 2021. Don't panic: These changes are minor and an effort to eliminate duplicate information. Below we highl...
- Tune the When, How Much, and What in Your Days
You can have balance, productivity, and meaning when you know how to tune the when, how much, and what of your activities. Let me share what I've learned to achieve this over the past four years.
WHEN. Converging evidence from psychology, biology, and economics show the natura...
- Ten Tips When Interviewing for a Faculty Position
[caption id="attachment_10397" align="alignnone" width="1100"] Landing a Job[/caption]
I’m in the midst of coaching my 21st and 22nd advisees through the process of interviewing for faculty jobs. Every year, I think, I should write this stuff down in case it’s useful to others...
- One Minute Writing Tuneup: Readability
While helping a brilliant scientist revise her abstract to a 10th grade reading level for a foundation award application, I wrote down some tips for converting writing intended for audiences with a scientific background to readers with less formal education:
Smaller words. Hal...
- 10 Tips for Supervising Research Interns
I recently came across this post on Twitter that said, “I’m mentoring an undergrad researcher for the first time! What advice would you give for how to be a good mentor?”
Supervising students is one of my favourite parts of academic life. The post made me think about how I sup...
