Caroline Adegun began her career as a human resources recruiter. Then a stint working for a celebrity in Los Angeles inspired her to open The Hollywood Wingwoman Talent, the first non-profit talent development firm serving low-income (and sometimes homeless) artists trying to make it in the industry. And recently, she has become a force on social media, taking the new Clubhouse app by storm. With more than 50,000 members now (and growing daily) in her faith-based “club,” Caroline channels her background in human development to create a sense of community for people around the world — at a time when they need it most.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael J. Feuer, Dean of the GW Graduate School of Education and Human Dev, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
Very few animals can combine information to adjust their predictions in a flexible way by using domain-general intelligence as humans do. In episode 74, Amalia Bastos from the University of Auckland discusses her research demonstrating that kea parrots can make predictions based in probabilities, and adjust those predictions based on physical and social information.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Parsing Science: The unpublished stories behind the world’s most compelling science, as told by the researchers themselves., which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
This week, we dig into the mailbag to answer your questions!
What’s in a Name?
We start with an email from Tegner about what happens when your department changes its name before you even begin your trainining:
I have recently been admitted and have accepted admission to a PhD program in “Immunology and Infectious Disease.” The only issue is that upon talking with the department about classes for my first semester it seems that they have just recently merged my program with the Microbiology PhD program and [the program I applied to] doesn’t really exist anymore. I was wondering: is this common? Have other people been admitted to programs that don’t exist anymore?
We certainly HAVE seen this before, and usually it’s not a big deal. Departments and programs change names all the time, and it shouldn’t have much of an impact on your experience, nor on your long-term prospects.
Most postdocs positions and hiring committees care about your research papers and recommendations, not so much about the words at the bottom of your diploma.
Avoiding Comparisons
Next up, Jessica asks:
I joined a lab at the same time as another first-year student in my program. I would really appreciate advice on “How to not let your thoughts run rampant with comparison in your lab”. I feel like he has more experience than me in a lot of research areas related to the lab. I know no one wins in the comparison game so any insights you have about how avoid it would be great!
Well, Jessica, you’re not the only one to experience this – we did too! And I’d wager most people do at some point in their careers.
Dr. Haas’s article focuses on the comparisons we make when perusing social media and how that can affect our mood. But the advice is useful in this context as well.
For example, Dr. Haas recommends becoming aware of the events and triggers that lead you down the comparison rabbit hole. The more you can be aware of those traps, the more you can avoid them.
Josh recommends looking back on your own growth in order to appreciate just how far you’ve advanced compared to where you began. That self-comparison can help you acknowledge your own evolution over time.
Clinical Experience for Bench Scientists
And last, but not least, Francesc is noticing an internal drive to work with patients, not just samples at a lab bench.
I am a 3rd year PhD student working in a project about cancer but I feel that research is not my vocation. Intsead, I think that my real passion would be to work directly with patients. What options do I have?? I have done quite a lot of research but I find it really difficult to come across anything directly related with patients having a PhD.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Joshua Hall and Daniel Arneman, PhDz, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
Uyen Nguyen and Joshua Conrad Jackson are back to discuss some things you might not have heard about sugar. More sugar consumption may lead to risky business in kids. We also examine whether the increasingly popular taxes on the sugar industry actually reduce sugary drink intake.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Useful Science, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
Earlier this year Eindhoven University of Technology faced a social media backlash after announcing that from July 2019, all academic staff vacancies will be open to female applicants only for the first six months. Many people questioned the legality of the move.
In this first episode of a six-part series about careers in physics, Cornelis Storm, who leads the theory of polymers and soft matters group at the Dutch university, tells Julie Gould why the “radical step,” was sorely needed. He also describes why the physics department, and the discipline more generally, will benefit from being more diverse.
“For whatever reason there is a large group of people that are not considering a carer in physics.” he says. “There’s not a single piece of research that suggests men are better at this job than women.”
Astrophysicist Elizabeth Tasker, an associate professor at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, was hired through a similar policy, and tells Gould about her experience.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nature Careers, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
The internet should have transformed science publishing, but it didn’t. We chat with Michael Eisen (Editor-in-Chief of eLife) about reoptimizing scientific publishing and peer review for the internet age.
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Episode citation
Quintana, D.S., Heathers, J.A.J. (Hosts). (2020, December 21) “122: Reoptimizing scientific publishing for the internet age (with Michael Eisen)”, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/USYFC
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dan Quintana, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
In this episode of Talk Nerdy, Cara is joined by Dr. Katie Mack, theoretical astrophysicist and author of “The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).” They talk about the formation of the universe by the big bang, how we know its current trajectory, and possible scenarios for its final destruction. In reflecting on the ultimate eschatological question, Katie and Cara grapple with humanity’s quest for meaning in the great beyond.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cara Santa Maria, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and Radiology at Stanford University. She is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Carolyn’s research combines chemistry and biology. Her lab develops tools from chemistry that can be used to study biology with the goal of ultimately creating new molecules that can cure diseases and help us live better, healthier lives. She has three young boys, and she keeps busy when she’s outside of the lab taking them to swimming lessons, gymnastics, and out to the movies. Carolyn received her undergraduate training in Chemistry at Harvard University and was awarded her PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. She went on to complete postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco and then accepted a faculty position at UC, Berkeley. Carolyn just recently joined the faculty at Stanford in 2015. She is the recipient of the UCSF 150th Anniversary Alumni Excellence Award, the Hans Bloemendal Award from Radboud University, the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the Royal Society of Chemistry Organic Division Bioorganic Chemistry Award, the Lemelson-MIT Prize for Inventors, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and many other national and international awards and honors. In addition, Carolyn is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In this interview, Carolyn shares her journey through life and science.
The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. Marie McNeely, featuring top scientists speaking about their life and c, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.