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- 2008 nsf advance workshop:
- Building your lab
- Building your lab - transitioning
This workshop addressed the issues faced by new faculty while building up a new research laboratory and was presented by Rebekah Drezek (BIOE).
Cultivate mentors and colleagues both inside and outside your institutional/departmental
- stay in touch with previous mentors
- establish official department mentors – helps with promotion/tenure etc.
- seek out informal mentors – more senior scientists
- build relationships with potential letter writers for tenure
- establish a set of confidants
Gain recognition and an independent identity
- talks, meetings (important for you and your students)
- service at institution (choose wisely)
- professional societies
- study sections
- collaborations
- understand your institution’s culture/expectations on interdisciplinary research (joint publications, grants, etc.)
- publications!!!
- have a strong plan in place to separate your research program from previous advisors
Develop your leadership and management style
- create a vision for your lab
- create a mission statement
- develop a written five year plan
- obtain feedback from senior faculty
- assess progress and update often
- establish a lab culture
- build an effective team
Constantly improve leadership skills
- find role models
- take courses, read books
- get to know your strengths and weaknesses – exploit one, compensate for the other
Staff your lab
- determine staffing needs
- technical staff
- graduate students vs. postdocs vs. undergrads (dept/university funding available?)
- be very picky about who is your group – productivity does not scale linearly with numbers
- sell yourself as a junior PI
- learn what size group is right for you
Protect your time
- it is OK to say no (repeat daily)
- learn what does not require your best effort – save it for what really matters
- can be as important to learn what not to do as it is to learn what you need to do
Source:
OpenStax, 2008 nsf advance workshop: negotiating the ideal faculty position. OpenStax CNX. Feb 24, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10628/1.3
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