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.
Sweatshops aside, only in their wildest dreams can corporate bosses have such power over their employees as research professors have over their PhD students and postdocs. There are no labor unions to worry about, no strikes, no contracts, no concept of overtime. It's up to the PI to make the rules. And with their diplomas and careers on the line, it's up to the students and postdocs to suck it up and cooperate.
PIs who are not aggressive at riding the backs of their group members are at a serious disadvantage against the PIs who are. Speaking crudely but bluntly, it's a choice of being either a dick or a loser. For those professors who choose to be ambitious, two basic options, or archetypes, are available for adoption:
1. The Slave Driver
The Slave Driver approach is to demand, control and get. It's a relatively straightforward, reliable strategy of "my way or the highway". A slave driver PI might:
- enforce a strict schedule of (long) working hours in the lab;
- phone in or drop by the lab on Saturday nights to make note of who is slacking off;
- personally check everybody's laboratory notebooks on a regular basis;
- praise group members who manage to work 36 hours straight, without sleep, all the while handling toxic or explosive chemicals;
- threaten, yell, and generally have a "bad side" people are terrified of getting on, etc.
2. The Manipulator
Relies on a more subtle and artful approach. Manipulators excel at inspiring other people to do what they want them to. A manipulator PI can:
- convince (in effect, brainwash) a person to believe that literally nothing in the world is more important than to "work hard and get good results";
- gain trust by acting like a pal, or a father/mother figure, rather than like a boss;
- have you believe he/she both a) has got your best interests at heart, and b) knows what's best for you;
- look for a person's individual "buttons" and push them to achieve desired effects on behavior;
- masquerade genuine concern for research progress as caring about the people involved;
- play on human egos, hopes, fears, etc.
And, of course, there are varying degrees and lengths different professors will go to in acting out either or both of the above general strategies at different stages of their careers. The moral of the story is: PIs who act like dicks (or, pardonnez-moi, like bitches) should not be judged too harshly. After all, they are simply trying to be good at their jobs.
comments for this post
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. 
Don't forget that all these tactics actually compound. That is, if you make someone work a lot, they will become isolated. Their only friends will be lab mates, their only interest becomes the lab and whatever they can get on their computer.
Once a student is deep enough in the program, it becomes hard to leave, since science will forever mark you as a has been, quitter that took the MS. Your career is basically over without the PhD, so students become more motivated to get that PhD.
With piles of debt from undergrad and trying to live decently, they will be forced to try to postpone their payments with more grad school. Then they become postdocs and are in so deep they can't think about anything else besides working. Academia starts to become a monastic existence, sacrificing yourself for the goals of "science". They are so much more important then people.
There is a feedback loop for the PI as well. Push people harder -> increase productivity -> become more successful and famous -> attract more and better workers (who can do more and sustain higher pressures) -> etc. What uber-ambitious "A" student will want to do the PhD with a "random loser" PI? "Star" professors always get the best students and postdocs. And it really makes me wonder, what part of their stardom is really the result of their intelligence, creativity and so on. And just how big is the part that has nothing to do with any kind of scientific genius, but comes from their willingness and ability to exploit and abuse? I don't think I know any "big name" organic chemists, who aren't known or at least rumored to be vicious slave drivers and abusive pricks. And the culture is such that it's pretty much considered normal, justified and even commendable (in North America anyway). Which isn't actually all that insane, considering the institutions also benefit from having PIs like that.
There are a few nice "big name" folks in organic chemistry. Bill Roush, Larry Overman and Sam Danishefsky are all great guys. Each of them care quite a lot about both the success and personal well-being of their students. You are certainly correct that many of the prominent organic chemists are somewhat abusive but, thankfully, not all.
Sam Danishefsky? Wasn't the rumor that he had a place across the street so that he could just look out the window and know whether or not people were working while still being shomer shabbos?
In any case, even if he's a nice guy, is working with him worth all the adjectives and adverbs? I kid, I kid.
I haven't worked with Sam, but I know that he goes to significant lengths to aid students in his lab and from his department (at Columbia and Sloan Kettering). He certainly drives his students hard, as do most "big name" folks, but he cares about them as well. High expectations are part of the management style required for a successful lab, but these expectations need not correspond with inhumane treatment.
Ha, the spying thing is so true... I'm a postdoc in geochemistry and the construction of a new huge ultra-clean lab for my PI has just been completed. Funny thing is, the lab rooms don't have actual walls, but rather floor-to-ceiling windows... Brilliant! Anyone walking by the building can watch us like we're on display in the zoo. This PI hasn't set foot in the lab for decades, so this will be an excellent new way to keep tabs on us and the hours we're putting in.
Sam Danishefsky a nice guy? Not at all, He takes good care to appear in public as a nice guy but in one on one meetings he can be very mean and abusive to grad students and posdocs he does not like. In public he´s always praising people for their achievements but with his own group behind closed doors he had this comment for many people "his research is just such a ####ing waste of time" Is that a good moral lesson to his group? Sam will use all methods to get his research going, including blatant threats and personnal offense when things are not running well, again this will only be known for the poor soul that is called to his office. Many more examples of abusive behavior from this big name chemist. Ask the secretaries at Yale what kind of person he was as chairman.
Was Reza more a slave driver or a manipulator? What about Joyce from what you heard about him?
Reza – a manipulator, definitely. Joyce – I don't really know. I knew someone who did a rotation in his lab and did not like him, because Joyce apparently lost his temper with them at least once. But that could have been a fluke, I have no idea.
So said with "them". So did Joyce lost him temper on this person or the whole group or just the grad students?
Just that person, who was a grad student working in Joyce lab for a few months.
Be careful. I know Joyce has no problem to say to the students/postdocs; looser.
Are there some PIs who can be seen as Gods that their grad students and post docs worship (maybe Joyce fits this) that they do not need to be a slave driver or a manipulator? Did that grad student have high expectations about working in Joyce's lab and then got disillusioned because Joyce lost his temper?
Regarding post-doc and graduate student quality, how does conscientiousness (measured by grades) and general intelligence (indirectly measured by grades; directly by standardized test scores) correlate to grad student productivity in the lab? If there is no correlation for those metrics, then it is pointless for a PI to attract the best students (defined by those metrics) in his/her lab? Of course, we are talking about variations within the grad student population since the lazy and stupid (Z-score < 1; IQ < 115) have already been weeded out.
I meant to say that grades are a proxy for conscientiousness, not that they accurately measure conscientiousness; same with general intelligence.
Any god business on this planet falls under the category of manipulation, so that would still count. But you would be much better off emailing and asking these people about Joyce, they ought to know him pretty well. Grades correlate positively, but it's not just the grades, and it's far from a lottery.
There is not much of a difference between good and bad graduate (drop outs) students strictly based on GPA and test scores. I've seen people with perfect GRE and grades become total shit within a year of coming into graduate school. I think the unpredictability is mostly because experiments are so unpredictable. If you are doing a total synthesis, one step that doesn't work could totally annihilate your project. Getting scooped can also turn your graduate career into a total waste by demoting your publication to lower journals.
As far as asking about PI's, Yusei, you'd really be better off just asking the students and post-docs about it. You're wasting your time asking here. If the internet is the only way you're getting your info about Pl's, you probably don't know what your doing and should wait a while.
Be sure to cover a few topics:
1. Time in-Time out: Ask what time students get in and get out of lab usually and the number of days they work.
2. Ask about rates of placement. Are students getting anywhere careerwise? Or are they just being used and thrown to the next professor.
3. What about the area? Hot topics can become totally lame after 6-10yrs in training. Remember genomics, computational work, etc. are not doing so hot these days. So picking an area is a mine field. Med chem used to be really good, now it's the worst area to be employed in. Something that looks good now, could be unemployable in a year or two and you'll be stuck getting a PhD in it.
Professors are not ashamed of taking a student that has no chance of getting anywhere in science (for various reasons, bad pedigree, poor communication skills, etc.), making them work real hard and tossing them into endless postdocs. So you got to make up your mind about science early, because profs aren't going to tell you if you are worthless, they need you to keep working hard.
Asking about working conditions and boss and getting good info are different
Remember no positive reinforcement -- retribution in action
plus the KCN guys are all telling you about 100-hour weeks with the hope the boss will hear about it
I pretty much gave up on considering graduate school; I only asked about Joyce because I find his work rather interesting and he seems to be a very intelligent person.
BTW, what do principal investigators prefer (assuming they could choice one or the other):
1.)A highly intelligent graduate student with moderate conscientiousness
2.)A moderately intelligent grad student with high conscientiousness
The adjectives "highly" and "moderately" refer the variations within the pool of grad students... Regarding super high intelligence, it is not a guarantee for being a superstar:
Here is another paper from the editor of Medical Hypotheses (a dubiously argued paper) arguing that science filters out highly intelligent people because it favors highly conscientious people. Furthermore, the author alleges that selecting for high conscientious people over highly intelligent people leads to the lack of "revolutionary science". I agree with the selection for conscientiousness over intelligence by academic science, but I disagree that the lack of revolutionary science has to do with an institutionalized preference for conscientiousness. I am not saying scientists and grad students are stupid relative to the general population (because they are not), but if a graduate school selects applicants for a finite number of positions, it must have a way of segregating the applicants or else they could just pick them randomly. If they select based on being in the top five percent of conscientiousness (requiring a minimum intelligence of being top fifteen percent of the population since it is obvious conscientiousness alone would not suffice), then the highly conscientious student may displace a candidate who is in the top five percent of intelligence and in the top twentieth percent of conscientiousness. (uber intelligence is necessary for physics and mathematics, but not in biology where being one-sigma is good enough provided one has a lot of conscientiousness.)
My preferred explanation for the alleged lack of revolutionary science is that there is so much scientific information out there that all the low hanging fruit (as in scientific theories providing profound understanding regarding a particular subject or in practical technological application) has already been picked. The returns on information (defined as the generation of new knowledge) has a very low marginal return now.
I could not help but look up that Bruce G. Charlton guy. Professor of "theoretical medicine"? Oh god, I love crackpots, too funny:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/category/ncbi-rofl/charlton-week/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/genosprituality_srsly.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/i_get_email_49.php
Charlton is full of weird ideas. He's hard to take seriously, the scientific community generally likes more well behaved people, but Charlton tries to attack big ideas with sweeping generalizations and little data. It's all nice to think about, but that's about it.
He has valid points, especially in "Why are scientists so dull?". He points out plenty of obvious problems with science as a career. Especially how it attracts mostly drones that eventually make more drone copies of themselves. But this is simply saying what's on a lot of people's minds.
If you need some more perspective on the science PhD issue, Yusei, read Dyson's speech at the University of Michigan commencement speech for it's PhD graduates: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-need-for-heretics/
That second to last paragraph has held fairly accurately. So has the rest of the items in the speech if you care to read.
Charlton is a crank (in my previous comment I said his conclusions are was dubiously argued which does not emphasize this). Of course, he does get somethings right (I think he is correct about how scientific institutions prefer conscientiousness over intelligence). Charlton's articles at best provide something to think about, but should not be regarded as impeccably argued with irrefragable conclusions.
I only made my previous post to inquire about the traits of "successful grad students" and what PIs should select for to maximize their "human capital". My question, which I provided to elicit thoughtful responses, was a valid one: should a PI prefer highly conscientious individuals over highly intelligent ones?
Workaholic drones all the way, of course. Worker ants, diligent bees, Energizer bunnies. I would try to get myself a bunch of those if I were a prof. And maybe have one genius for every 10-20 of them to be my pet protege. I can't speak for all disciplines, but in chemistry and biology, 99% of the time a student/postdoc needs only about half a brain to function. Intelligence is a bonus, but it's a double-edged sword. Thinking can get in the way of working. PIs themselves are another matter – they can't be brain-dead. This situation is not unique to science, needless to say.
Precious. Just precious.
"only"? No, I also did that to talk about Gerald Joyce too :) .
Why don't you ask some of those students ending their PhD in Joyce's lab Yusei? I'm sure it's wonderful in there, since they've been there for awhile. =)
Your pestering about Joyce is ridiculous, especially in light of the fact you are not going to graduate school. What's your angle? Got something to settle?
I'll STFU about Joyce okay...
The worst PI I've seen was one who lied constantly about their student's prospects. She always told them she could get them jobs upon graduation, then a year or two in, it was a post-doc, than a few years more, she just kept them in her lab up to seven years before finally letting them go to a post-doc.
The constant promises were a way for her to mitigate the high pressure lab. She also used her self as an example. She is single and childless, using that as an example of the sacrifices she's made to science and pushing it onto everyone else.
That's one way to do it. And why not? It's not like this PhD advisor role has much structure to it. There is no such thing as "PI ethics" (unless PI stands for private investigator). Physical violence violates the criminal code – but the rest is fair game, anything goes. If it works, it works. Lying about the future is not even lying because, hey, it's the future, who knows? I can only imagine what a conference on academic lab management would be like, especially if it were realistic and honest. It's no surprise they don't do those, even though the issue itself is perfectly valid and important enough.
When I left Scripps, one of the deans, Jamie Williamson, emailed me. So I basically told him about Reza's non-publication bs. And I knew full well that Williamson was aware of it. But I was curious as to what he would have to say – as a person somewhat in charge of the PhD program at Scripps. He admitted that I was not the first student to bring it up, and told me that Jeff Kelly, also a dean at the time, had "long conversations" with Ghadiri about this issue in the past. But he basically said that Scripps wasn't going to do anything about it, because that would be "dangerous". Which is basically right. Why mess with a good thing, let the PIs do whatever they need to do, everybody wins.
What's Reza's non-publication BS? I want to know about laboratory politics... BTW, what is the value of getting your name on a paper, but you are not the first author?
http://rezaghadiri.net/tag/JRD/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_authorship
so Andrei--what are you doing now?
I'm having a cup of green tea, what about you? )
no seriously. What are you doing now-- career wise? Are you working in an industrial lab? Are you doing something else w/ your life (besides this blog?) I understand that dropping out of graduate school after being so far in it can be a very difficult choice, and was wondering how you were pivoting, in terms of finding a new career.
Read the first post (esp. "My story in a nutshell") and the comments. No, I'm not working in a lab. If I ever have anything to do with a lab again, it will be because I'll happen to own it. And even then, I won't be working behind the bench myself, thank you very much. :)
And yes, the decision to quit grad school is tough to make, but finding (much) better things to do with your life actually isn't. I suppose the real difficulty lies in the plethora of choices and opportunities. But the same should also be very exciting for anyone with at least half a brain. It's also really nice not having to work all the time, to have the money, the freedom, the control over your own life. The "tough choice" aspect of quitting a PhD is mostly due to a lot of academic brainwashing and prolonged isolation from the world.
What about you, Anonymous? Is your PI a dick, or a loser?
Hey-- its Anonymous, I'm at TSRI now. I like my PI, but I don't know what jobs are out there for folks w/o the degree my friend. At least not the jobs in our field. ya know? I think a lot of places would ask why I didn't finish.. if its a science job (the job my skills would be suited for) then theyd want that degree. if its a non-science job, then they'd ask how my science chops would help. right?
I couldn't tell what you're doing.. are you working in business? consulting? sales? science?
I bet he is a consultant or probably working at Start-up...
Well, I always liked my PI too, I still think I made a good choice when I joined the Ghadiri lab. But it doesn't mean he wasn't/isn't somewhat of a manipulative prick. It's a "don't hate the player, hate the game" kind of thing.
What jobs are there for those with a degree? A degree is but a piece of paper.
As for non-science jobs, if they ask you what good science training is — just stand up and leave. You don't want to work for retards. ) Seriously though, a monkey can run columns, pour gels and wash glassware. It's not about that. But I'm getting a vibe that I'll have some more convincing to do besides linking to Peter Fiske's slides.
I'm not planning to confess exactly what I'm doing. At least not yet. Around here, I too like to keep a few cards close to my chest. )
I am in AWE.
I just came across your blog and I must applaud you for your honest assessment of life as a scientist (or former) and what really happens behind closed lab doors. If only I had the courage to do something like this because I experience the same things and my PI is the same way.
Well, it's easy for me to talk because I jumped ship. I don't need any recommendation letters. But hey, if you ever feel there's a degree of anonymity and obscurity you would be comfortable with and want to share your experiences, it can be arranged. With or without naming names, institutions, countries, research areas and so on. I'd love to get a guest post section going around here.
I worked for a new professor at Dartmouth College, Jimmy Wu. The first 3 months were great, he seemed really chill and down to earth. The day the chemistry department formally placed us in his group, he called us into his office. 70 hrs a week, Monday-Saturday (Sunday's off so we could wash our laundry so we didnt smell in his labs - he actually said that) and completely abandonded the graduate student handbook. Christmas week was a mandatory week off - separate from our 2 weeks vacation. Jimmy totally ignored this and demanded that we work or use our vacation days, even though HE was taking two weeks off! If you took a Saturday off, that was a vacation day. I was unable to take one weekend off a month bec that would be 12 saturdays a year, two over the allowed vacation. Jimmy Wu - Fuck you! and i quit! His students work out of fear and one works 9 am- 2 am, 6 days a week. An accident will happen in his labs as his students are literally falling asleep at the bench. Dartmouth was a great school, but i picked the wrong advisor. He had three months to tell me his expectations, he didnt and he is definitely a dick and a loser.
That's pretty fucked up. What's even more fucked up is how well-accepted this type of "laboratory management" is in organic chem. I'm surprised there aren't more accidents, actually. Or maybe they're just non-fatal most of the time, and no one keeps track. Breathe in some carcinogens here, splash a little solvent on yourself there, poke yourself with a syringe needle... And safety inspectors bitch about bottles not being labeled according to IUPAC conventions.
Look what happened at UCLA to that girl Sanji who was burned so badly in a t-butyl lithium fire that she died a few weeks later due to the injuries. The prof was sitting in his office as she was using a 60 mL dispo syringe with small needle to transfer 180 mL or so (needing to use the same plastic syringe 3 times - not safe). Once she was on fire, a chinese lab worker tried to put out the flames with a lab coat that also caught fire. It seems bad techniques are passed from post-docs, to grad students as professors play 'cheerleader' and have no clue what practices are going on in THEIR labs. Once an accident occurs, they always blame someone or something else, never themselves. That prof should have been fired that day and should have been prosecuted for negligent homicide for failure to ensure lab safety. He claimed she had done the reaction many times before, in reality, her notebook clearly shows she did it once before on small scale. 180 mL of t-butyl lithium is no small quantity for a second time handling ultimately the most dangerous reagent in lab.
I thought the Prof. has been fired after that, hasn't he?
AFAIK Harran is still working at UCLA.
Harran gets too much blame for this incident. I know the guy. He barely started at UCLA and the accident was a cluster fuck for him. The lab was kind of messy because people had started working before everything was all orderly. The girl was obviously working with too much t-butyl lithium for a disposable syringe. The notebook pages are available online. The guy really does get too much blame, it's funny how much is thrown at him. Harran was hired as the Donald Cram Chair with tenure so getting rid of him would be very difficult.
However, rumor is that Alfred Bacher will not be renewed as a lecturer after the stabbing incident! No tenure and no union protection from what I gather. Good luck pushing that PhD in this economy. Would love to see how PhD adjunct holds up in this economy. Walmart greeter? I'm waiting to see if anymore classes get enrolled under that instructor. Too bad, the guy was getting married.
I would bet you are a poker player or something like that now (some hints in what you're saying sometimes). But I'm not myself very good at betting, so I wouldn't bet much.
Not a bad bet, I like it.
Interesting post, but if those are the only ways to succeed as a PI, you can count me out. I heard about grad students and postdocs committing suicide over stuff like this. It's a seriously emotional game. I wonder how those PIs can sleep at night knowing they are overworking people for peanuts. You really have to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing for both you and the trainee. Unfortunately, those hard-headed PIs moved through the same system, so it's arrogance breeding arrogance. PIs hate alternate careers because they are an escape from the system. A PI can't screw your career if you no longer seek one in academia.
You seem to defend the PIs at the end of the post, but with the titles you have given them, can you honestly agree with it? Slave driving and manipulating were tools used by some pretty evil people in history......think about it.
No, I agree, I'm hardly a fan of all the crap, and it's a joke of a defense anyway. Academia is a funny little world, isn't it. There's a rat race, and everybody is overworking for peanuts, including the PIs (unless they do stuff on the side, but that's another story). They compensate with delusions of grandeur and free airfare when a conference trip doubles as a family vacation. Screw that.
You are my personal hero. Been there, done that, got fed up with it, and now share it with everybody else? You've got guts, and I thank you for it.
As a science graduate student, I've spent a great deal of my own time trying to verbalize exactly what it is that I'm experiencing. I've gotten tired of the manipulation and mind tricks used by my advisers, and have become increasingly depressed with the realization that in the end, it won't matter - because we are overproducing PhDs to such a level, that I'll be traped in this tornado of PhD followed by Post-Doc number 1, followed by Post-Doc number 2, followed by depressingly small odds of getting a chance in academia - which would in essence monopolize my entire life, and make it impossible for me to remain healthy, balanced, and be happy.
I love science, but science didn't love me back.
It's not a pretty realization. Growing up, we were bombarded with images of space shuttles, stars, cells and bacteria, cool chemical compounds... only to find that the road to science takes you straight through its own personal sweatshop, run by someone very adept at manipulating you to get what he/she wants.... for damn near free.
I'm disillusioned, and I know a heck of a lot of you are too. They wonder aloud "Why aren't american kids pursuing science", and they figure we're not smart enough. But maybe if they tried to listen to what we have to say, they'd realize the real problem is in these sweatshops that we call graduate school. Having tasted the bitterness of real science, I think the real question ought to be "Why are so many american kids pursuing science?"
Thank you for this blog. It's genius, and you've just made my day - nay, my year.
My Ph.D. adviser was a #2 (pun intended). He was nice to me until I thought for myself and then he actively tried to sabotage me and lashed out in unbelievably unkind ways. This comes with a story:
I was in the process of finishing up last year and got a post-doc with another researcher that my Ph.D. adviser considers a rival and hates. Actually hates. I was unaware of how much he hated my post-doc adviser until I accepted the position. I figured they just had scientific differences as people do. Anyway, the post-doc was at a good institution and the adviser is well-known in our field. So, I was really excited that I got the job. When I went into to his office to tell him that I was accepting the position he lashed out and told me:
1. That the post-doc adviser was only using me to get to him.
2. That I was unqualified for the position.
3. That he couldn't work with me any more (I was in the process of finishing my diss.)
4. That the post-doc adviser was just trying to "steal me away from" him because he knew that I was "his."
Now, #4 and #2 don't really jive because I can't suck at my job and be valuable at the same time, but whatever. Anyway, I went to the head of my program and he managed to calm my adviser down enough so that I could finish etc. Since this time, the Ph.D. advisor has submitted a grant on my research topic that I wrote part of without my name, asked me to steal data from the lab of my post-doc adviser, and has accused me of stealing ideas from him.
The really awful part is that I can't completely cut ties with him without losing a lot of my research plans. I'm a field-based biologist so I can't leave my site easily, and because he is more senior he keeps trying and partially succeeding in taking over research that I started.
There's pretty much nothing I can do without losing out. I'm a long-term thinker though, and someday I'll write a book on adviser student relations and how to be a good adviser and he'll figure prominently in it.
Honest to God, I hope you do it.
I want to post something about my PI - but is it safe - as in can he sue me?
Anyone can sue anyone, but in the united states (except for the 1st circuit which includes ME NH RI MA), truth is always a defense against libel. If you are in CA, CA comes with very strong protections against SLAPP. IANAL; YMMV.