{credit}Paul Young{/credit}
A recurring theme from the recent Naturejobs Career Expo 2017 was the importance of interpersonal relationships and how these can shape the course of our careers. Continue reading
In today’s cut-throat world of grants and publications, being an early career researcher (ECR) can feel more than a little daunting. As an ECR myself, I can’t guarantee that this will help you make it to the other side unscathed. But I’m still here, and if you’re reading this, you probably are too. Outlined below are the things I’ve learnt during the ups and downs of post-PhD life.
By Paul Smaglik
{credit}Noel Hendrickson/Getty{/credit}
By Virginia Gewin
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Rana Dajani, a molecular biologist based at Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan, developed the toolkit to inspire female researchers to build the networks they need to support, collaborate and advise one another as they move forward in their careers.
The number of female researchers in Middle Eastern countries varies wildly. A 2016 report found that women represent around 35.5% of total researchers in the 57 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries. Still, the numbers of employed women in some Middle Eastern countries are much lower. In Jordan and Algeria, just 12% of women work and in Saudi Arabia, 14% are employed.
Dajani built a mentoring network in Jordan in 2013, pairing 10 mentees with 10 mentors. From that experience, and with funding from the US National Academies of Science and the US National Science Foundation, she created ‘Three Circles of Alemat’, a three-year project to develop and test the mentoring toolkit. Working with female researchers from 17 universities across the Middle East, she and her team created a low-cost method to improve personal and professional success for both women and men. The final phase of her mentoring project, Three Circles of Alemat, brought together a cross-regional group of female Middle Eastern scientists this year in Boston, Massachusetts, at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.
The mentoring toolkit is available for free through the website of the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World. Another organization, 500 Women Scientists, a network of 19,000 women worldwide, has also adopted the toolkit. “We did not want to provide a centralized forum for mentors to find mentees because it is costly,” says Dajani, who is spending this year as a fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, writing a book about women redefining success. “Rather, we wanted people to take control and start their own creative forums.”
Virginia Gewin is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon.
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I write this as I wait outside my toddler’s summer preschool. It’s the same routine every day — I drop her, she wails, I leave. Later, the teacher reassures me that she’s completely fine as soon as I’m gone.
This is classic separation anxiety. I am overcome by guilt. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I took my first sick day for the year. I was mentally and physically exhausted: disheartened by delays and failures in the laboratory, and constantly bad-tempered from headaches and stress. I started staying up late. I stopped exercising and gave up my hobbies. I ignored my friends, partner and family, irritated by the distractions they presented. I prioritized work to the extent that I became miserable and unproductive, existing on bad coffee and fast food.
I was not alone. Continue reading
A recent cancer research symposium displayed a familiar asymmetry. 90% of the attendees were PhD students or postdocs sitting obsequiously in the rear and asking 10% of the questions. 10% of the attendees were front-sitting faculty providing 90% of the inquiries.
A simple case of youthful hesitancy and opaque presentations requiring years of experience to comprehend? But did individual Principal Investigators (PIs) meet with conference planners before advising their students to attend? Did conference planners consider the likely audience and ask speakers to modify their talks? And did faculty members attend the related trainee poster session?
Are junior scientists little more than human pipettes?{credit}Paper Boat Creative/Getty{/credit}
Sally Chappell was Nottingham’s official Maid Marian, a role she combined with lecturing in human molecular genetics at the city’s university (she arrived there in 1998 as a PhD student), mother to Scarlett, aged three, and, since 2015, married to Tim Pollard, Nottingham’s official Robin Hood.
{credit}Tim Pollard{/credit}
Last month a paper she co-authored was published in Nature Genetics. The InterPregGen study showed for the first time that some features in a baby’s DNA can increase the risk of its mother developing pre-eclampsia.
The paper appeared on 19 June, and was widely covered in the scientific press, including ScienceDaily, GenomeWeb, ScienceNews, and Bionews. Continue reading
Humility and success in science are closely linked, Alaina G Levine discovers at the 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.
Alaina G Levine with Dan Shechtman at at the 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting.{credit}Alaina G Levine{/credit}
Nerd Heaven, aka the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, provides an intellectual gymnasium for nerds of the world. The youngsters who attend can partake of 29 lectures by Nobel Laureates on topics as tantalising as the Joy of Discovery given by synthetic organic chemist Bernard Feringa, to the rousing Aromatic Ring Flips in Protein Dynamics presented by chemist/biophysicist Kurt Wuthrich, all of which contributes to a flipping good time. Continue reading
