sey071

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! Today, I present you the Christmas-edition of the PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer posts. With the holidays around the corner, you may wonder what to give to an academic, or you may wonder which gift to suggest your family buys for you. Here are 20 ideas of gifts that can make your favorite academic happy. 1. Notebooks In need of a nice notebook for your notes for the laboratory, for a course you will be teaching, or for a new research project you are setting up? A beautiful notebook with st...

Together with Miguel Abambres , Tiago Ribeiro , and Ana Sousa I've recently published a preprint titled "Research Counts, Not the Journal". As we're exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate . I'd be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents! Here's the abstract of the paper: If there is one thing every bibliometrician agrees, is that you should never use the journal impact factor (JIF) to evaluate research performance for an article or an individual-that is a mortal sin'. Few sentences could define so precisely the uses and misuses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) better than Anthony van Raan's. This manuscript presents a critical overview on the international use, by governments and institutions, of the JIF and/or journal indexing informatio...

Together with Miguel Abambres , Tiago Ribeiro , and Ana Sousa I've recently published a preprint titled "Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy". As we're exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate . I'd be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents! Here's the abstract of the paper: Albeit its constitutional claim for quality, Brazilian academia has largely been referred to as unmeritocratic and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two ‘obsessions’ in Brazilian academia: (i) the ‘mandatory’ Lattes CV, and (ii) the candidates’ assessment criteria in public tenders for faculty positions. Severa...

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! As a post doctoral researcher, you can be hired on a project for 1 or 2 years, on a topic that is different from the topic you worked on during your PhD years. It may feel daunting to start all over again, and do it in less than half of the time you needed to do your PhD. As I've worked on a number of different topics during my post-doc years in Delft (including my "new" research line on load testing), I'm here to demystify the process. First of all: remember that you ar...

Today, I am hosting Marie Morganelli in the "How I Work" series. Marie Morganelli has an earned doctorate in English Literature. She has taught literature and composition at the community college and university levels since 2006, and has professional experience in marketing, copywriting, and volunteer management, as well as visitor services for a large cultural institution. She is passionate about informal education, particularly with zoos and other cultural institutions, and with telling a good story. Her freelance business, www.precisewords.org , focuses on clear, concise copywriting for small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and other publications who need help telling their unique story to further their goals. She is a huge fan of travel, coffee, and wine. General : Marie Morganelli has a PhD in English literature, and is building a freelance copywriting business while working by day as an administrator for a university with a large online presence. Current Job : Fre...

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! Failure is part of life in academia - yet we are terrified to talk about our failures. In today's post, we'll explore the topic of failure in academia, we'll see how some academics are breaking the taboo, and we have a look at what you can do when failure has you bogged down. The reality of failure in academia When we see the curriculum vitae of a fellow academic, we only see all their achievements. We don't see the sweat, heartbreak, and rejection behind all these success...

I recently ran three combined polls trying to understand if we are applying for enough funding for our PhD students to actually do their PhD research. I've heard a number of stories about professors relying on unemployment benefits for their PhD students for their last year in almost every case, and I don't agree with such practices. I think we should hire PhD students with enough funding to pay them to do their research work within a reasonable amount of time. What I learned from this poll is that not all students are actually hired on projects. This different funding scheme for the PhD seems to be more common in the humanities. The three elements that I evaluated for this poll were: - How much time it took to finish the PhD - If you finished within the allotted time - If you finished before funding ran out, and if not, how you survived financially after funding ran dry. I learned that the majority of voters needed more than 5 years for their PhD project, a number that is in s...

Today, I am interviewing Dr. Philip Shields. 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. Current Job : Manager at FieldCore, a General Electric Company. Adjunct Faculty at the University of Charleston and at Liberty University Current Location : Unites States and Virtual Current mobile device : iphones Current computer : Dell PC and MacBook Pro Can you briefly explain your current situation and research to us? My research focuses on Executive Leader perceptions of their involvement with forming and sustaining Cross-Sector Strategic Alliances. ...

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! Here is Auntie Eva again with a post about planning or time management, I can hear you say with a sigh. But today, I'll focus on one specific element of time management: you need to learn how to manage your energy (essentially, yourself - your raw material) if you want to be able to manage your time. Why is this so important, you ask me. Because knowing yourself and being able to figure out what works for you is an incredibly important skill to learn. And you need to do the work yours...

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, 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...

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...

I recently ran a poll on Twitter to see what drive the day of academics. Do we mostly plan our days based on a weekly template, based on our to do lists, based on what is in our mailbox, or based on our meeting schedule? The majority is working around to do lists. I work around a weekly template, but have a daily to do list as well. When my mailbox overflows, I need more time in my weekly template for the "email + admin" category. When I have meetings beyond my weekly meetings with my thesis students, then I have to move boxes around in my template too. Here's the wake of the poll:

I recently ran a poll on Twitter to see the stress levels of fellow academics. The results are not pretty, with the majority of the respondents reporting stress beyond what is acceptable. Tell me about your stress levels in academia #highered #acwri #phdchat #profchat #ecrchat — Dr Eva Lantsoght (@evalantsoght) March 5, 2018 You can find the wake of this poll here:

Today, I am interviewing Dr. Rasheda L. Weaver for the "How I Work" series. Dr. Weaver is an Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship in the department of Community Development and Applied Economics at the University of Vermont (UVM). She is also the Co-Director of UVM’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Living Learning Community. She conducted the first large-scale study of the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprise (businesses that have a social and/or environmental mission) in the United States. Her research analyzes how entrepreneurship may be utilized as a strategy for poverty alleviation and community economic development. In her free time, Dr. Weaver is an avid salsa dancer and loves to make spicy Caribbean food for her husband and son. General : Current Job : Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship Current Location : University of Vermont Current mobile device : Samsung Android Current computer : Mac Desktop and MacBook Air Can...