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I recently had a conversation on Twitter about suggesting reviewers when you submit a paper, and since I thought the comments were interesting, I turned the discussion into a Storify story: [ View the story "On suggesting reviewers " on Storify ]

A new week, a new poll for academics who blog: How often do you blog? — Dr Eva Lantsoght (@evalantsoght) April 18, 2017 Some time ago, I ran a poll on Twitter to see how often academics blog. By far, most of us seem to be blogging whenever we feel like. The Storify of this discussion is given below: [ View the story "How often do academics blog?" on Storify ]

My co-authors and myself recently published a paper in Structure and Infrastructure Engineering about the load test on viaduct Zijlweg. The paper is titled "Towards standardisation of proof load testing: pilot test on viaduct Zijlweg". You can access the paper through this link . The abstract is as follows: Proof load tests of bridges can be very useful for structures with a lack of information, or for structures of which the effect of material degradation is difficult to assess. Contrary to diagnostic load testing, proof load testing is not well-defined in current standards in terms of required load and analysis of measurements. The risk related to the high loads used in proof load testing requires standardisation for these tests. The paper highlights important considerations for proof load testing that may lead to the development of guidelines in the Netherlands, by illustrating a pilot study on the viaduct Zijlweg in the Netherlands. This reinforced concrete bridge rates t...

I recently presented a poster about our research on load testing in Delft at the ACI Spring Convention in Detroit, MI. Poster presentations are not something I'm quite used to. I've written about my experience presenting a poster for the first time (in 2012) , and since presenting that poster , I've only given lectern sessions. Besides that, I've made two posters for the research school of building and construction of the Netherlands, for their book of research projects, way back in 2009 and 2010. The poster sessions was well attended, and I enjoyed the direction interaction with the audience. As such, I'd vote in favor of adding more poster presentations to the conferences in my field (as long as we can consider them as equal to lectern sessions, instead of considering them as a little "less" valuable). You can find the poster here (you can scroll through it): Beam experiments to investigate loading protocol and stop criteria for load testing from Ev...

I recently ran a poll on Twitter asking academics how often per year they review a paper. The topic did not spark that much discussion, but quite a number of people dit vote in the poll. What I learned is that the majority of people review a few papers per year, whereas some receive a few papers per month. I found these results interesting, since I am receiving more and more invites to review papers. I enjoy reviewing papers, since it means that I get to read the latest work out there, but at the same time, it's a time-consuming task. And I have the bad habit to postpone reviewing for the weekend, since it feels more like a personal responsibility. Here are some of my stats from Publons: [ View the story "On reviewing loads" on Storify ]

Today, I've invited Dr. Monica Killen to share her story of her PhD defense. Monica graduated with a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Culture and Curriculum Studies from Chapman University. Dr. Killen’s research interests include food justice advocacy, Latino/a community organizing and ethnic studies. A first-generation college graduate and the first in her family with a Ph.D. Dr. Killen’s most recent publication is titled “Why Ethnic Studies Matters” and appears in "White” Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies (2016), Edited by Denise M. Sandoval, Anthony J. Ratcliff, Tracy Lachica Buenavista, and James R. Marin, published by Praeger. She currently lives in Southern California with her husband, son, and two dogs. The dissertation defense is the hallmark of any doctoral program. The defense symbolizes the end of a journey that began on the first day of class. However, I would argue that as a doctoral student, there is more than one defense t...

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer , your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands. These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands. If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic! The internet is full of productivity advice for office workers, knowledge workers, writers, and more. Today, however, I want to give you a "Best Of" edition of the general and specific tips that you can find on PhD Talk. Consider this as my early Christmas present to you, and perhaps something to keep in mind when you decide you want to work in a smarter and more productive way in January. Without much additional introduction, here are my twenty best productivity tips for resear...

I recently ran a poll on Twitter about how PhD students get their funding, and I was actually quite surprised by the results. In the Netherlands, most PhD students are hired as employees when funding for a project for 4 years is arranged. The student then receives a salary, social security, and other benefits for the period of four years for which the contract is signed. I thought that in other countries, funding for PhD students also came mostly from research funding, but according to the results of my poll, most actually have scholarships. You can read about the results of the poll and the explanations of others here: [ View the story "On PhD funding" on Storify ]