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Today, I am welcoming Dr. Nancy R Gough who shares her views on academic publishing as an editor. Nancy R. Gough is the owner and founder of BioSerendipity . After 17 years with AAAS, she stepped down as the Editor of Science Signaling (a weekly journal on the topic of cellular and organismal regulatory biology), she left to start her company. She is dedicated to helping scientists communicate effectively. Dr. Gough has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Maryland Medical School and was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. You can email her at ngough@bioserendipity.com and follow her on Twitter @NancyRGough and Facebook . Science Signaling is a weekly journal about regulatory biology at all scales. Submitted papers included those about mechanisms of molecular regulation, cellular regulation, regulatory biology in model organisms, and in plants and man. I also had the opportunity to evaluate basic and applied or translational re...

I recently ran a poll on Twitter asking if people are first generation academics, or if they come from a more privileged background. The results are interesting, with the majority of votes coming from first generation students. I certainly come from a privileged background, and if you put my last name in Scopus you will find my grandfather, my father, and myself. Even though I come from such a privileged background, and I grew up in an environment where going to university was the obvious choice, I don't feel like the love for research was passed on to me from my family. My grandfather passed away more than a decade before I was born, and my father had alzheimer's disease when I was at university - I never got to talk to him about the joys of doing research. But I do remember him sitting on the beach during our holidays, while flipping through the British Journal of Urology and the American Journal of Urology. At that time I couldn't believe one can read such boring things ...

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Chris McComb. Dr. McComb is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs at Penn State University. He holds courtesy appointment in mechanical engineering and industrial engineering and is an affiliate faculty of the Institute for CyberScience. McComb attended California State University-Fresno and received dual B.S. degrees in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (2012). He later attended Carnegie Mellon University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and obtained his M.S. (2014) and Ph.D. (2016) in Mechanical Engineering. McComb’s research examines the interface between humankind and the technology and products that we create, with topics ranging from team methodology, social choice theory, machine learning, and computational synthesis. He teaches courses in design innovation, engineering design, and decision-making. Current Job : Assistant Professor of Engineering Desi...

How prevalent is gmail in accademia? I was wondering and decided to run a poll! What I learned is that most academics have several email addresses, and use these depending on the purpose. I too have four email addresses that I use daily (gmail for blog and personal use, TU Delft account, USFQ account, ADSTREN account which runs on the gmail platform). Three out of four get redirected to my Outlook. I do InboxZero, so I use Outlook files to save my emails. You can find the results and the wake below:

Today, Dr. Philip Shields shares his experience of the PhD defense. Dr. Shields is a scholar-practitioner in the field of Executive Leadership. He currently works as a manager for a General Electric Company and as an Adjunct Professor at two universities. His undergraduate degree was in Chemistry and he holds a Master's degree in Management with a focus in Integrated Logistics. His passions include faith, family, flying, friends, and bridging the gap between public and private organizations so that both may benefit through strategic alliances. May 16th is a day that I remember fondly and with pride, but like most highly anticipated events it was not quite what I expected. Three and 1/2 years of preparation and hundreds of hours of research/writing on my topic prepared me for the technical aspect of this day, but the psychological component of the day was a different story. Preparation quieted most of my fear of failure, but the prominent question in my mind that day was "...

Today, I am inviting Dr. Tammy Evans Yonce. Dr. Yonce, an Atlanta native, is a flutist, collaborative musician, writer, and professor. She is a dedicated new music performer who is particularly interested in the commissioning and teaching of new music. Dr. Yonce has commissioned over a dozen works involving flute, many with a specific focus on creating new music for the Glissando Headjoint. Dr. Yonce is Assistant Professor of Music at South Dakota State University, where she teaches applied flute, woodwind pedagogy, and courses in musicology. She recently designed and taught an interdisciplinary Honors colloquium, which explored music in connection with neurology, therapy, global studies, technology, politics, and the arts. A first-prize winner of the Atlanta Flute Club Young Artist Competition, she holds degrees in flute performance from Kennesaw State University (BM), Indiana University (MM), and the University of Georgia (DMA). Dr. Yonce can be found on Twitter @TammyEvansYonce and...

Cindy Lee studied linguistics and microbial biology at UC Berkeley, where she researched genetic engineering in sorghum. She then did her PhD at The Ohio State University, where she researched DNA repair in the context of breast cancer, but she would have graduated much sooner if her dissertation focused on cake. Now, she works as a science writer and editor. You can find her Tweeting @geneandtonic and blogging at Genes and Tonic . The ball was in the red zone, and the crowd was chanting, "DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!" Well, not quite. These are some ways my PhD defense differed from an American football game: There was no whistle for time outs: When I wasn't in the lab, I was supposed to be thinking about my research. If I procrastinated by baking cheesecake or watching sports, then I probably wasn't trying hard enough to be a Real Scientist (hello, imposter syndrome ). If I took a 20-minute nap, then I probably delayed my graduation by 20 years (there's always that fear...

Today, I am interviewing Dr. Alexandre H. Pinto. Alex Pinto is currently a Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow and Faculty Member at Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY), where he leads the group for Green Chemical Synthesis of Nanomaterials. Alex was born and raised in Brazil, where he took his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Master’s degree in Physical Chemistry, both at Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (UFSCar), advised by Prof. Emerson R. Camargo. After that, Alex moved to USA, where he took his PhD in Chemistry at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, advised by Prof. R Lee Penn, working on the synthesis of transition metal chalcogenides using microwave assisted reactions. Throughout his career, Alex has worked with the solution chemistry synthesis of transition metal oxides, selenides, and sulfides, and characterization by different techniques, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman and Infrared Spectroscopies, Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy. Since joining Ithaca College...

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! A topic that we've discussed a number of times on this blog is "life after the PhD." We have discussed career options after the PhD , I've given advice on what a reader should do after the PhD , moving around the world for your career after the PhD , working as a scholar in the gulf region , the job interview , the benefit of your academic skills for future employers , how to frame your mind for a job after the PhD , how to find a job outside of academia , how to plan an...