About me, that is. On the one hand, I don't find myself that interesting of a conversation topic. I'm me, and I already know a lot about myself. On the other hand, I've realized I'm spending time talking about myself in the comments under this or that post, often repeating what I've said before. And although none of this is strictly relevant to the general topics I want to discuss here, it might help for me to explain where I'm coming from.
So ask away, wait for somebody else to ask first, or for me to say something regardless. Questions like, I don't know, "Just how badly do you hate Reza Ghadiri?" or "Are you a bus driver now?". Anything you like.
Only one catch: I'll answer anything I like. :)
P.S. Later on this post may be taken out of the main chain of entries, you'll be able to find it in the "About" section. Same permalink though.
That's what my PhD advisor of five and a half years, Dr. M. Reza Ghadiri, would tell us — graduate students and postdocs working in his laboratory at Scripps. "I'm just a cheerleader" was his humorous way of saying that we were the ones pushing research forward, while he was there to encourage and motivate. And that he did. The interesting part is how.
Professor Reza Ghadiri himself probably did not expect any of the following to come out in the open, and become readily accessible to a worldwide audience. Let alone have a website like this pop up every time someone types Reza Ghadiri in Google. What can I say? Welcome to the Information Age!
This post is composed of tiny little chapters. (Should we say, nano-chapters?) There are eleven of them here already, I can think of a few more that I might append in the future.
Imagine yourself as a PI, head of a laboratory, professor in an academic institution somewhere. (That is, if you aren't already.) As a PI, you have to worry about many things. Let's take a closer look at one of them. Namely, how do you make those PhD students and postdocs work their asses off for you?
If you care about climbing the ladder of academic success, it is what you want. If you don't yet have tenure, it is what you desperately need. Most professors have no time (or desire) to do any lab work themselves. It all comes down to students and postdocs. And how hard they work depends on how well their PIs motivate them.
Bonuses, pay raises, promotions and stock options are commonly used for motivational purposes in the business world. But we are not in the world of business here. This is Sparta! Academia. Fortunately, a PI can employ other methods of workforce motivation. Unfortunately, most of them aren't pretty. Read more...
Today's reading material is this presentation by Dr. Peter S. Fiske. It's about scientists and engineers being forced to explore non-traditional career paths due to PhD gluts. It is also about scientists and engineers being fit to succeed on all kinds of career paths. Read more...
2. How to avoid (still) being broke by the time you're 60
It doesn't mean that you can't have some of the good things in life--although it does mean you can't have all of them right away. If you have been waiting patiently for a new car, or better coffee, go ahead and enjoy them. Just don't develop a lot of expensive habits or indulge in them too often. Being underpaid for so many years can even work to your advantage: Years of tight spending have probably taught you a few things about living cheaply--but well. You probably don't even have time for too many indulgences, anyway.
Sounds great! Where do I sign up? Oh, right, 4 years in college, 6-7 years in grad school, 2-3 more as a postdoc. Read more...
Advice is usually meant to be helpful. Which only adds to the temptation to follow it. Especially if the questions you seek answers for are not trivial. Especially if you ascribe some degree of authority or expertise to the person giving you advice. But it is dangerous to overlook one simple fact. On the subject of your life, there can ever exist but one expert. The only person in the world whose interests perfectly match your own. And that person is you.
Let's have a look at three examples of career and financial advice for young scientists. One article from Nature (in this post), another from Science, and a presentation from a recognized author and lecturer on the subject of career development for young scientists and engineers (in later posts). Read more...
I think it's time for me to clarify where this "Reza Ghadiri Project" is heading.
Direction 1. Perspectives on academic science
Three previous posts that fall under this category are: "On the Nature of the PhD Program in Science", "A formula for success in Academia" and "Publishing strategically: You got to know when to hold ‘em". Scientific research does not come out of a vacuum. It involves institutions and individuals — with choices to face, decisions to make, strategies to develop and consequences to create. With my focus mainly on natural sciences, academia and the Western world, I am interested in how science is done, how it can, cannot and possibly should be done, and why.
Direction 2. "Rate-my-PhD-or-postdoc-supervisor-dot-something"
There are review websites for nearly everything nowadays. Books, cars, companies, jobs, co-workers. Read more...
From a career point of view, publications are no small matter in science. This is especially true for academia, where publication records serve as a measure of professional competency and success. Having said that, does it make sense for a professor to be careful about when and what to publish? To hold on to otherwise readily publishable work for a while? Or to be reluctant to publish at all?
It's not that unpublished papers remain on Prof. Reza Ghadiri's desk forever. Given enough time and pressure from group members whose work is in question, Dr. Ghadiri does submit papers for publication in scientific journals. Rather, I think, it is the tendency for it to happen later rather than sooner that fueled the meme of Journal of Reza's Desk.
Not to worry, the real-life Dr. M. Reza Ghadiri is still a professor at The Scripps Research Institute in California. I am talking about a lesser known, electronic, Reza Ghadiri. Here's the story.
Remember Clippit, the annoying paperclip character from Microsoft Office 97 and 2003? It was the same kind of thing, except it looked like The Sims version of Reza Ghadiri himself. Imagine that, a custom-made Office Assistant! Animated, it would move its little bald head, play with models of cyclic peptides and make questionable (or, frankly, obscene) hand gestures. It came with a repertoire of phrases too. Including something like "Welcome to the world of bullshit. There is much you can learn here" and "We will publish lots of papers". Read more...
Academic science is a tournament. The number of open faculty positions is always limited. Only a handful of them in the major league places like Harvard, Scripps or MIT. University education, PhD and postdoc work are all stages in the competition to land a job in the academia. Making tenure is a hard-earned success for a scientist. But it only marks the end of the qualification rounds. The game is just beginning.
How does a professor succeed in the academia? What is the competition for? Three things. Read more...
The internet is not just for porn. Science professors can have websites too. For example, you can find the website of a chemistry professor by the name of Reza Ghadiri if you search for "Ghadiri lab" or "Ghadiri group website". Or, you might find this page instead. Which is fine, since there is not much to see on the actual Ghadiri Lab website anyway. Has not been for many years.
Check the Internet Archive for yourself. 2001-2005 was the Surfer Dude era, and all the Ghadiri group had to show you was this here. "A new site will be arriving soon", it said. In 2003 I have actually seen a Ghadiri group website made by a student in the lab. He even made CGI animations to showcase recent projects in the lab. Reza must have preferred the surfer dude though, because that website never went online. In 2005 the surfer went away to make way for a plain page entitled "Ghadiri website under revamp". It read "The Ghadiri web sie [sic] is undergoing reconstruction. Please try again later". Read more...
It sounds very academic. You are a "student" "attending" graduate "school". You have an "advisor", or "mentor". You receive a "stipend" or a "scholarship". There are classes to take and exams to pass. It all ends with "graduation" when the diplomas are "awarded".
I am talking about PhD programs in chemistry, biology and the like. What exactly is this process you have to go through to get a doctorate? Is it...
Education?
Kind of. Sort of. Not really.
The classes? Haphazard and inconsequential. You "get them out of your way" in the first year. At Scripps they actually told us not to worry about getting good grades. Passing is enough, nobody really cares. In the end, research work is what counts.
That's right, work. They expect you to put in 50-60 hours a week for 5 years. And they require you to be productive. Teach yourself what you need to do the work. Learn what you can while working. All that repetitive, routine, brain-numbing lab work is not going to do itself. Frustrated, you might start wondering if trained monkeys could replace you. Sorry, those are expensive. You, on the other hand, are not.
Since so much work is involved, perhaps being a graduate student is... Read more...
JRD, or the Journal Of Reza's Desk, does not have the impact factor of JACS or the readership of Nature. OK, so it is not even a real journal. It is a running joke in Dr. Reza Ghadiri's lab, and to some extent around Scripps as well. At least it was while I was there. I have no idea who came up with it originally and when. But as a Ghadiri lab member, I did come to appreciate the humor.
Here is how you can get your paper "published" in the Journal of Reza's Desk:
Join the Ghadiri lab as a postdoc or a graduate student;
Work on a project for a year or two, get results;
Write up a scientific paper;
Wait for Reza to send it out to a scientific journal for review and publication.
You will not be notified if or when your paper is accepted into JRD. But, if a year or more have passed, and Dr. Ghadiri still has not submitted your manuscript where you thought it was supposed to go (a real journal, like JACS or Biochemistry)... Congratulations, you have a paper in JRD! Read more...
Who is Reza Ghadiri? Dr. M. Reza Ghadiri is a professor in the Chemistry Department at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI, or simply "Scripps") in California, United States. He was my Ph.D. supervisor for >5 years, 2003-2009.
What is RezaGhadiri.Net? It is the online home of a web project I started in January 2010. It is named after Reza Ghadiri, but make no mistake: Dr. Ghadiri himself has no part in it. Unusual? Not really. Just think of all the colleges, medical centers, parks and avenues named after George Washington.
My Story in a Nutshell. I studied to be a scientist and worked in academic research labs for a long time. Long enough to take a good look at how the scientific community operates. To know the good, the bad and the, well, ugly details that are not normally advertised. In April 2009, 5+ years into the Ph.D. program at Scripps, I quit graduate school and discontinued my scientific career. I am very glad I quit, even though I am still glad I had that experience. And now I have things to say – about postgraduate education in science and academic science in general.
Feel more than free to participate:
spread the word: post a link to RezaGhadiri.Net where you think it will generate interest (your blog, twitter, facebook, forums etc.)
discuss – registration, real name or email are not required to comment
This is an experiment. Is it time to talk about a change in how people organize themselves to do science? Or are things fine the way they are? Who cares? Do YOU?
Figure 1. Number of daily visits to the Reza Ghadiri • Net website in the past 4 weeks.
I've been a student of science for over 10 years. Most of that time I worked in academic research labs. The last and the longest time – in the laboratory of Dr. M. Reza Ghadiri at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI, California, United States). In April 2009, over 5 years into my PhD thesis work in bioorganic chemistry, I quit the Ghadiri lab and left Academia. "Reza Ghadiri Project" is here because I wanted to raise a little hell some issues about PhD in Science and Academic Science in general. So...
I've been a student of science for over 10 years. Most of that time I worked in academic research labs. The last and the longest time – in the laboratory of Dr. 
