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151. Avoid These Phrases in Your Peer Review

February 28, 2021February 28, 2021 Daniel Leave a comment

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The Peer Review villain, alternatively known as ‘Reviewer 2’ or ‘Reviewer 3’, has gained meme status. This is the person who takes your submitted journal article, drenches it in red ink, shreds it, burns it, and feeds the ashes to feral pigs.

And unfortunately, it has happened to all of us. There always seems to be one reviewer that doesn’t just ask for additional experiments, but finds a way to cut a little deeper.

Maybe it comes in the form of an emotive shaming (“Disappointingly, the authors failed to cite Smith, 2015”) or a veiled accusation (“It seems possible that the outlier data has been scrubbed from this report.”), but however it happens, it can affect something more than your experiments.

Some hostile comments might make you wonder whether you belong in science at all.

But, it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it shouldn’t be this way.

This week, we talk with a linguist and a psychologist about carefully crafting your peer reviews.

150. Rediscover Your Scientific Passion

February 15, 2021February 15, 2021 Daniel Leave a comment

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Nadia wanted to help patients. She had considered going to medical school, but found biomedical research to be an exciting opportunity to develop new knowledge and therapies.

After graduate school, she continued her training as a postdoc. She was on the faculty-track, making plans for her project and her next career advancement.

Then, COVID hit.

She was living and working in New York City as the largest pandemic in a century unfolded around her. She realized she had developed some skills over her years of training – PCR, data management, lab operations – that might make a difference in patient outcomes.

So she pressed pause on her postdoctoral work to start a clinical testing lab that now runs 60,000 COVID tests each week.

149. Yes, Grad Students, You DO Have Transferable Skills

January 30, 2021January 30, 2021 Daniel Leave a comment

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If you’re a graduate student thinking about a career that lies off the tenure track, you’re probably vaguely nervous that your skills at the bench won’t take you very far in the business world.

Career experts always ask you to highlight your ‘transferable skills,’ but what does that actually mean?

Is it true that you’re hiding a set of superpowers beyond just pipetting small amounts of liquid from tube to tube?

This week on the show, we explain the mysterious world of transferable skills, and tell you how to build on those powers while you’re still a student.