Potential dangers of working in the field

A couple of recent articles have pointed to potential dangers of sexual harassment or assault during scientific field work. I can't say that I'm surprised at the numbers. When you're working in a strange environment, a foreign country, in close quarters, adverse conditions, etc., the possibility of harassment or assault is increased. I am linking to the articles here to share with you. You have to be smart to protect yourself when you're in the field in many different ways.

Here is the New York Times opinion piece by Hope Jahren (University of Hawaii) about her experience in the field, including a warning to women in the field sciences, and hope that men will learn about this problem too.

This is the PLoS One article by Clancy et al. (2014) that is referenced in the NY Times article.

January 2019 update: The stories of harassment of women in the field continue. Read this compelling story of a Boston University professor and his graduate student in the field in Antarctica in Science.

Managing and spending grant funds

Are you a student wondering why your advisor can or can't spend grant funds on you? Read this post from Prof-like Substance...

Making an effective poster

Creating an effective poster is part art and part understanding the purpose of your poster. Tell a story with your poster and be prepared to have a 2-minute “elevator conversation” telling that story ready to give meeting attendees. This is your chance to highlight your work and get constructive feedback from famous scientists interested in your work! It is important to make your poster look attractive (i.e., not filled with text or data tables) and make it easy to read (can someone actually read the text from 3 feet away?).

The format
Create a 6’ x 3’ (poster sizes vary) landscape layout template in Adobe Illustrator or PowerPoint (check physical limitations on the maximum poster size that can be plotted and how much space you will be allotted at the conference – often a maximum of 36” height on plotters, sometimes you will be allowed as much as an 8’-wide poster).


The different elements of a poster
Use layers in Illustrator to make making changes to your poster less problematic. Create a layer (a box) to fill that template and lock that layer; you can choose a background color or gradient later. In a new layer, place the title of your paper (abstract) prominently at the top of the poster board to allow viewers to identify your paper easily. Include 1) the title, 2) the author(s) names, and 3) their affiliations (addresses) centered underneath. The title should be the largest type size (a minimum of 72 point type, and perhaps as much as 120 point type depending on the font), but also highlight the authors' names and address information in decreasing font sizes in case the viewer is interested in contacting you for more information. Lock that layer. Create white boxes on which you will group text and figures of related content. Put your text and figures in yet another layer on top of those boxes.


Legibility and sizing of the different elements
Prepare all figures neatly and legibly beforehand in a size sufficient to be read at a distance of 2 meters. Be sure that text and figures pulled from a .pdf, for example, will be legible and of a high resolution when printed at the final size of the poster. Paragraph and figure caption text should be at least 24 point font (0.9 cm height) and headers at least 36 point font (1.2 cm height). Use creativity by using different font sizes and styles, perhaps even color (keep in mind some people are color-blind and have a difficult time distinguishing reds and greens – opt for dark oranges and blue-green hues instead). A serif font (e.g., Times, Helvetica, Palantino) is often easier for reading the main text, and a sans-serif font (e.g., Arial, Geneva, Verdana, Tahoma, Lucidia Sans) for titles, headers, and figure labels. Left-aligned text may be easier to read than justified text.

Organize the paper on the poster board so that it is clear, orderly, and self-explanatory. You have complete freedom in displaying your information in figures, tables, text, photographs, etc. The presentation should cover the same material as the abstract. Use squares, rectangles, circles, etc. to group like ideas (the “white boxes” described above). Don't clutter your poster with too much text and keep data tables to a minimum! Include at least the text of your abstract, captions for all figures, a short geologic background, a summary of results (even prior results) and conclusions, references, and acknowledgments (any funding that supported your work, anyone who helped with analyses or field work who is not an author on your poster, etc.).


Ready to plot?
You should print your poster out on 11” x 17” paper before heading to the plotter to check for mistakes, problems with fonts or special characters, etc. When you’re ready to plot, save the file as a pdf and format the page in Adobe Acrobat to equal the size and orientation of the actual poster.

There are more suggestions at http://www.aapg.org/meetings/instructions/guide.html, but keep in mind this was written before it was common to print out a poster on a large-format plotter…

On grants

I recalled a post by Female Science Professor that deals with the issue of grants and research funding that I dug up and partially re-post below. I'm doing this because I see no need to re-invent the wheel (and because even though I've recommended her blog, I'll bet that very few students have navigated over to that site nor spent much time there), but I would add one more point to what she's written - grants are written to conduct very specific research: The budgets are detailed and MUST be spent in the way spelled out in the grant (mas o menos) unless specific permission is granted by the program officer at (in my case) the National Science Foundation. The grant itself is a contract between the Principal Investigator (me) and the funding agency - it's my job to see that research gets done in the way that I've laid it out in the grant proposal.

"Over the years I have found that even moderately well informed and apparently sane graduate students have trouble understanding some basic issues involving grants and research. These issues include:

- Grants have start and end dates. They do not go on forever. This might be confusing in part because PIs can get no-cost extensions for a year (or two), so grants may have a longer life than their original start and end dates might suggest.

- Grants have budgets. They do not contain an infinite amount of money. Even when some students are told exactly how much is available for a certain activity, they seem to think that somehow there will be more and/or they are surprised and upset when the money runs out.

- The total $ amount of a grant is not equivalent to the amount the PI has available for the research. A substantial amount of the money in a grant goes to the university, not to the PI.

- Grant funds for grad students may be much more than just salary. Some institutions also require that the PI pay tuition and benefits. Grad students may not be highly paid, but they may be a significant component of a grant budget.

- Proposal budgets for most proposals can't be too high. PIs develop a sense for what the funding agency/program would consider to be reasonable vs. too high. For this reason, PIs have to do some delicate balancing between grad stipends (+ related costs) and research activity expenses.

- Students supported on a grant may start their graduate studies before or during a particular grant's lifetime. It may not seem fair to the student, but this timing relative to a grant's lifetime may affect the advisor's stress level about doing the research on a particular time scale, and that stress level may be transmitted to the student.

- The time between proposal submission and notification of the proposal's fate may be long.

- Some university accounting systems are so bizarre and complicated that it can be difficult for a PI to know exactly how much money is left in a grant. For example, it can be difficult to determine what is encumbered and what is not, and whether all outstanding invoices have been paid. There have been times when the actual amount remaining in one of my grants has been off by tens of thousands of $$ from what the accounting tables indicated. This is particularly stressful near the end of a grant. Budget stress level may fluctuate depending on when PIs look at accounting statements. A graduate student might perceive this as erratic behavior in an advisor.

- In some cases, departments/institutions make new policies that cost PIs money in existing grants even if this money was not originally budgeted. For example, my department occasionally mandates that graduate students receive raises that are effective immediately, even for existing grants. I supported the raises, but the money has to come from somewhere in finite budgets. This means less money for research activities.

Most of us could do a much better job of explaining the proposal/grant system to our students, but I think that it is inevitable that when issues of money, time, and stress are involved, as they are during a typical graduate program in Science, there are going to be difficult situations. I also think that grant management is one of those things that you have to experience yourself before you can really understand what is involved.

Maybe some computer science person will create a video game - SimGrant. Advisors can give it to students and postdocs to play and see how they do with the various decisions involved in writing transformative proposals, keeping various members of a research group funded, and dealing with kafkaesque accounting situations. I think this would be great, but the only problem is that the game couldn't use a proposal submission system like grants.gov or else no one would play, and those forced to play would end up shooting their computers."

How to do research, part 1

This is a hard one. Because research is such an unstructured task, it's difficult to describe how to do to it (and do it well). I'll try to pull a few key points from this web site to get started (you'll have to scale a PhD timeline to an MS timeline for SF State):

On doing research in general:

"For many new graduate students, graduate school is unlike anything else they've done. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what it is you're supposed to be learning. Yes, you have to complete a dissertation, but how do you start? What should you spend your time doing?

Graduate school is a very unstructured environment in most cases. Graduate students typically take nine hours or less of coursework per semester, especially after the second year. For many, the third year -- after coursework is largely finished and preliminary exams have been completed -- is a very difficult and stressful period. This is when you're supposed to find a thesis topic, if you're not one of the lucky few who has already found one. Once you do find a topic, you can expect two or more years until completion, with very few landmarks or milestones in sight."

On day-to-day activities [my changes are in brackets]:

"You'll have to read a lot of technical papers to become familiar with any field, and to stay current once you've caught up. You may find yourself spending over half of your time reading, especially at the beginning. This is normal. It's also normal to be overwhelmed by the amount of reading you think you "should" do. Try to remember that it's impossible to read everything that might be relevant: instead, read selectively. When you first start reading up on a new field, ask your advisor or a fellow student what the most useful journals.... are in your field, and ask for a list of seminal or "classic" papers that you should definitely read.... Start with these papers and the last few years of journals and proceedings."

I will add that you should subscribe to automatic journal updates (e-alerts) that send you the titles and links to the current month's publications in major journals - start with AGU, GSA, MSA, Elsevier/ScienceDirect, and Springer. If/when you publish your research, you will be expected to be up-to-date with current research in your field. And you may spot a paper that is just what you're looking for...

"Before bothering to read *any* paper, make sure it's worth it. Scan the title, then the abstract, then -- if you haven't completely lost interest already -- [look] at the introduction, [figures], and conclusions. (Of course, if your advisor tells you that this is an important paper, skip this preliminary step and jump right in!) Before you try to get all of the nitty-gritty details of the paper, skim the whole thing, and try to get a feel for the most important points. If it still seems worthwhile and relevant, go back and read the whole thing. Many people find it useful to take notes while they read [directly in the margins of the paper to find relevant points quickly]. Even if you don't go back later and reread them, it helps to focus your attention and forces you to summarize as you read. And if you do need to refresh your memory later, rereading your notes is much easier and faster than reading the whole paper."

Organize papers in folders according to a broad(ish) topic (e.g., microstructures) so that you can go back and find relevant papers easily.

On staying motivated:

"At times, particularly in the "middle years," it can be very hard to maintain a positive attitude and stay motivated. Many graduate students suffer from insecurity, anxiety, and even boredom. First of all, realize that these are normal feelings. Try to find a sympathetic ear -- another graduate student, your advisor, or a friend outside of school. Next, try to identify why you're having trouble and identify concrete steps that you can take to improve the situation. To stay focused and motivated, it often helps to have organized activities to force you to manage your time and to do something every day. Setting up regular meetings with your advisor, attending seminars, or even extracurricular activities such as sports or music can help you to maintain a regular schedule.

Chapman (see [chapman]) enumerates a number of "immobilizing shoulds" that can make you feel so guilty and unworthy that you stop making progress. Telling yourself that you *should* have a great topic, that you *should* finish in N years, that you *should* work 4, or 8, or 12 hours a day isn't helpful for most people. Be realistic about what you can accomplish, and try to concentrate on giving yourself positive feedback for tasks you do complete, instead of negative feedback for those you don't.

Setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals is a good idea, and works even better if you use a "buddy system" where you and another student meet at regular intervals to review your progress. Try to find people to work with: doing research is much easier if you have someone to bounce ideas off of and to give you feedback.

Breaking down any project into smaller pieces is always a good tactic when things seem unmanageable. At the highest level, doing a master's project before diving into a Ph.D. dissertation is generally a good idea (and is mandatory at some schools). A master's gives you a chance to learn more about an area, do a smaller research project, and establish working relationships with your advisor and fellow students.

The divide-and-conquer strategy works on a day-to-day level as well. Instead of writing an entire thesis, focus on the goal of writing a chapter, section, or outline. Instead of implementing a large system, break off pieces and implement one module at a time. Identify tasks that you can do in an hour or less; then you can come up with a realistic daily schedule. If you have doubts, don't let them stop you from accomplishing something -- take it one day at a time. Remember, every task you complete gets you closer to finishing."

It is very important to make regular progress (i.e., each week). Keep track of how you spend your time: if you are a TA, spend no more time on those tasks that you are paid for (normally 10 hours per week). Your classes should take up another ~25% of your time (because coursework is not the focus in graduate school). You should be spending about 50% of your time "doing research". This should all total at least 40 hours per week, particularly if you want to complete your graduate research within a fixed period of time (2-3 years for an MS, 4-6 years for a PhD). So that translates into at least 20 hours per week "doing research" if you're TAing and taking classes, more if not.

"Doing research" could mean:

• reading papers (a never-ending task...) and following up on potentially-interesting references therein,
  
• investigating an analytical technique (what kind of samples do I need to collect to do Ar/Ar dating? are there any considerations I should keep in mind when collecting my samples? who has the facilities nearby to prep my samples and do the analyses? how much will it cost? is this the right technique to solve the problem I'm interested in?),
• looking at maps to plan field work (where are the roads? where are the relevant rocks? where can I go to find a particular structure? what's the best time of year to go [too hot?, snow-covered?]),
• working with your data (do I see any trends in the REE data for different sample types? is there a correlation between U concentration and U/Pb age?),
• drafting a figure to go into your thesis and/or for a publishable paper,
  
• writing a grant proposal to pay for thin sections or lab analyses you'd like to do,
• looking at thin sections, hand samples, field notebooks and writing rock descriptions (a pretty fundamental task for anyone in my group),
• cutting rock chips to send off to have thin sections made and finding a quality lab to do that work with a relatively quick turn-around time,
• crushing rocks and doing mineral separation or hand-picking minerals for analysis,
• learning how to do mineral separation
• writing your thesis...
  

Research projects that involve both original field and lab work will take longer because you've got to prepare to go to the field, do the field work, process your samples (mineral separates, thin sections, etc.), prepare for lab analyses, work in the lab, and then interpret everything. Working on samples that have already been collected or a thesis project focusing entirely on a lab-based investigation will take less time. Some people can work more efficiently, others less so. Work when you are most productive (early morning? late at night?), and do something more mindless (like hunting for papers or drafting a figure) when you're not being productive. Be sure to carve out regular, uninterrupted time to do your research each week in a place where you can minimize distractions (cleaning the toilet can wait).

I'm sure there is more I'd like to say about doing research so watch for part 2....