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Opinion: On being an advisor to today’s junior scientists
Wednesday, 2017/05/31 | 07:32:50
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PNAS May 23 2017; vol. 114; no.21
Figure: Scientist advisors should take pains to guide their protégés, ensuring they have every opportunity to succeed in this increasingly challenging profession. Image courtesy of Dave Cutler (artist).
Young scientists often have the same long-term goal: use one’s smarts and drive to gain insights into a problem of interest. Typically, these scientists draw upon a long-standing and time-tested scientific process: formulate a hypothesis, design experiments to test this hypothesis, collect data, interpret the data, revisit and modify the hypothesis, and so on.
Unfortunately, the reality isn’t quite so straightforward. The hours are long and the rewards short. And the challenges for fledgling scientists seem to be growing. Attractive jobs are scarce, funding is tight at many levels, and the task of publishing a single study can be onerous.
These challenges combine to yield an intimidating set of high hurdles for the young group leader to surmount as he or she leaves the comfort of the postdoctorate (or graduate student) nest. Indeed, whereas all of these challenges existed at some level when I started a new assistant professorship, the ascent to success in science is much steeper now.
From my perch as a senior scientist, one who feels fortunate to have achieved this level of success, I see several crucial questions. Who should prepare graduate students or postdoctorates when it is time for them to move on? Whose job is it to make sure that their wings are strong enough to avoid a career crash landing?
No doubt a fair percentage of this responsibility falls to the students and postdoctorates. But senior, well-established scientists must be part of a willing educational and training process that begins when we accept folks into our laboratories. Here I offer some ways advisors can assist young scientists to improve their lot, based on insights I’ve gleaned in the course of my career.
Words of Encouragement
Publishing, the primary means by which scientists advance, has become a daunting task. When I was a young scientist, a single paper often contained five to seven figures; supplemental data did not exist. Now a paper in life sciences can have Herculean publication requirements—the need to gain insights into fundamental mechanisms, perform experiments in cell and animal models, and ideally, shed light on a human disease with therapeutic implications—all supported by reams of primary and supplemental data that can sum to several papers’ worth of work.
Thirty-plus years ago, the scientific literature entailed only a handful of top journals accessed via periodic trips to the library when experiments were in progress or waiting for X-ray films to expose. The scientific literature today is vast and all of it easily accessible online. There is no longer any excuse to not read and know everything. Young scientists constantly face fierce competitive pressures from others studying the same problem.
As students, postdoctorates, and junior investigators move through our laboratories, or join junior faculty positions at our institutions, offering them positive Excelling only at the bench does not make a complete scientist; our job is to make sure the training we provide does not stop there.support and encouragement is critically important.
I learned that even the best scientists, young or established, enjoy recognition from their peers and the occasional pat on the back, even if they have tasted scientific success. In my field of cell and molecular biology, and in many others, young researchers encounter a stark reality: the actual experiments often don’t work. When I was at the bench, my most important samples seemed always to be the ones that got lost or ruined. Practicing scientists often experience the bittersweet truth that Murphy’s Law is real.
Once the troubleshooting is done, finding the perfect set of figures for a publication can be difficult. Once submitted, the review process for papers (and grants) can be challenging and discouraging; those with thin skins are not well suited for this business. All of us have looked in the mirror at times asking, “Do I really need this?” Encouragement from a senior scientist can, as in the case of encouragement from a good teacher, help retain those who are well-suited to the profession. We may not be able to put passion into a young scientist, but we can strive to help them better gauge if this career is a good fit.
See more: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/21/5321.full
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