- All About My Mentor
For the past three years, every time I heard someone talking about their path to success – understanding success as something utopic and unachievable – they always shared a magic recipe: hard work, perseverance, resilience, don’t be afraid of failure, a little bit of luck here ...
- Not that Kind of Page: Tales of Building a Better Lab Website
In this day and age, every company has a website. You are running a small business and you should too. There are even murmurs that searches for your name will peak right before study section, as study section members look up the people whose grants they will be reviewing. Here ar...
- Not that Kind of Spending: Tales of Investing in Your Career
As a trainee, I was a big believer in principal investigators (PIs) paying for all things related to the science, from poster printing to conference travel to lab outings. Luckily for me, my mentors shared my views on their responsibilities to trainees, and my science-based costs...
- Antidotes to Keeping Secrets When the Going Gets Rough
We recognize that things happen to everyone—a health crisis in the family, financial dilemmas, ongoing caregiving needs, or extraordinarily stressful life events. Recent data from a survey of early career faculty document that most face a significant caregiving challenge or stres...
- The Best of You
The other day, during a conversation, I was told that I was too cheerful to be a postdoc, and we all laughed about it. They said it was almost contradictory. I have a confession to make: It is true that I am a cheerful person. I am usually making fun of myself and lightening up t...
- Not that Kind of Network: Tales of Developing a National Reputation
I never really thought about networking and reputation as a graduate student or postdoctoral research fellow (postdoc), but rather was the beneficiary of respected mentors long established in the field and regular attendance at our society’s annual meeting. I always assumed the s...
- What to Wear to a Conference (to Look Like the Pro You Are)
The Ultimate Mix-and-Match Fashion Guide
Match your outer awesomeness to your inner awesomeness
Conference season equates to visibility. Who you are in person is a key part of your personal brand. We hear often that early career researchers find the transition from invi...
- Not that Kind of Advice: It Is Never Too Early to Be a Mentor
The further I get into running my own research program, the more I realize the significant impact good mentorship has had on my career. My mentors have trained me scientifically, provided career advice, and supported work-life balance. A large impetus for starting this blog has b...
- What I Wish I’d Known Before I Wrote My K
Three K awardees (K01, K08, K23) share the advice they wish they'd received before preparing career development awards. Writing your K? Listen up.
Training Plan and Mentors
Have an endgame, and goals to get there. In your training plan, you should be able to articulate your res...
- Which Study Section Should I Pick? Try the Assisted Referral Tool!
One important aspect of submitting grants to the NIH is selecting an appropriate study section. While the general descriptions on the CSR website can be helpful, they often require further investigation, which can (and should) include contacting SROs, talking to current or forme...
