Expectations

My expectations of you and your expectations of me will vary depending on your role in the lab and your prior experience and skills. You will also find that expectations change as time goes on and you gain more experience in the lab.

Mentoring

A general principle I would like to encourage and foster, is an approach whereby we all develop our mentoring skills with each other. We all have unique knowledge, experience, and skills that may well be of value to others. If we are all open to helping each other, and open to being helped by each other, that will help us do our best scientific work and will contribute to a positive, supportive, and exciting research environment.

Drive your research project

A critically important general principle is that you should take ownership of your research project. You take the steering wheel and you drive the bus. As a supervisor I may give you advice, or suggest you go in certain directions and not others (back-seat driver?) but ultimately you must take charge of the destiny of your research project, and you make the decisions about what to do next and how to do it. More generally it is up to you to take charge of your own personal journey in graduate school. This is critically important. Depending on the project, your experience, and your personal style, I may offer more or fewer suggestions/nudges, with greater or lesser assertiveness. I will do my best to respect your own research interests while at the same time doing my best to ensure that you are likely to succeed. If you do not regard your research project as your own, you will not be excited about it, and it will not be a fun time. We will work together to develop research projects that are of mutual interest to us both.

I am not your boss

I already have a job. I already have a MSc and a PhD. You are not doing your research “for me”, you are not my employee (unless of course you are a paid staff member in which case, yes you are an employee).

Note that in some labs, trainees are hired specifically to work on particular projects that appear in funded research grants. This is typically not the approach in this lab. Sure, I have a general research program in my lab that is supported by research grants that contain proposals about particular experiments… but my approach is usually that as long as the research is in the same general realm and as long as we both find it exciting and relevant, I will support it and I will support you. We will work together to specify a research project that is compatible with the ongoing work in the lab, that is likely to be of broad interest to others in the field of sensorimotor neuroscience, and that is interesting to you and to me.

Replication

Often the place to begin when you start in the lab is to replicate a previously published finding. This is a great way to familiarize yourself with the lab equipment and with the techniques we use, in the context of an experiment for which we know (usually) what the results ought to look like. Replication is by no means a waste of time. First, it’s an important scientific contribution. Second, a novel scientific question is often based on an existing paradigm, and before assessing whether a novel effect exists, it is important to verify that the paradigm itself is capable of detecting the novel effect, whatever that may be. Replication is a great way of doing this.

General expectations

I expect you to please come to me if you are not sure what you should be doing day to day. Let me know if you are concerned about the progress of your project. Please come to me often with data. Show me plots. Show me sample signals. Get feedback from me and others about how the project is progressing. You should look at your data often, in particular to make sure that the various signals (kinematics, forces, EMG, EEG, etc) look as they should, and to make sure that participants are performing the task as we require. The data are what this is all about.

You should expect me to make myself available to you at regular intervals to look at data, talk about your experiment, talk about papers in the literature, etc. Sometimes this could me multiple times a day, a week, and sometimes this may be once every week or two, depending on the stage of your project, and your experience in the lab. You can expect me to provide critical feedback of your research in a supportive manner. I will do my best to support your work by seeking out research grants to fund the lab. I will support your travel to conferences to present your research. You can expect me to do my best to promote a positive, supportive, collaborative research environment in the lab.

Here are some excerpts from a Twitter thread by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on what research and grad school are, and are not, and how to set up the right expectations to succeed:

The hardest phase transition for PhD students, I think, is that you are supposed to be working toward competent intellectual independence. That means that your advisor doesn’t solve the problem: you do. You write your grant and fellowship proposals.

And in the case of the actual science: it’s not a problem set. There are often not step by step instructions for how to solve the problem. You are finding the instructions and implementing them and sometimes your first through fourth tries fail and it’s no one’s fault.

Of course, as in all professions, sometimes your boss [advisor] is an asshole. But sometimes it’s just hard and not because you’re being abused.

If working at the boundaries of what we know — being confused often and working hard to reduce the confusion — doesn’t sound like fun work, research may not be a fit for you, no matter how well you are being compensated.

Research is mostly the part where you are doing the work, not mostly the part where you are presenting known results. If you mostly enjoy presenting neatly packaged results, that’s a different kind of problem solving: scicomm is great and challenging and different from research.

Research requires a kind of confidence in your own logic, that you can reason your way to a solution because the solutions are a matter of reasoning. So it requires a flexible intelligence mindset: you can learn the techniques you need to know.

But no one is going to do the learning or hard work for you. Nor should they. If your advisor does too much for you, you never become competent to do things on your own. It is a difficult balancing act that is hard to get right.

One of the most important roles of faculty advisors: helping you pick the right problems; topics that are unsolved, do-able in ~3 years, will be of interest to the community and within the student’s skill set.

Undergraduate thesis students

You have 8 months to complete a research project and produce a well polished thesis document. This is not a lot of time. When you first arrive in the lab we will work together to decide on a focused, feasible research project that is of mutual interest to us both. You may be paired with a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow in the lab, or you may be paired with me! It depends on the project.

You are expected to meet with me regularly to review progress. This is our chance together to make sure that your project is progressing and that you will be able to complete it successfully. I am here to help. You drive the bus, I provide advice and feedback … but you are the driver.

You are also expected to take advantage of the knowledge and experience of your fellow lab members: graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research staff, and volunteers. We are all here to help each other learn. We are all busy but part of our lab culture is to foster collaboration and mentoring so please do not hesitate to approach fellow lab members for help. We are not here to do your research or solve your research-related problems but we can and should be able to show you where to look for solutions. On this point: it is not a competition. We don’t draw boundaries around our ideas. We include each other as co-authors when scientifically appropriate. Including others on your project does no diminish your accomplishments. We help each other in this lab.

Masters students

You have 2 years to complete a research project and produce a well polished thesis document, and also to complete whatever coursework is required for your MSc degree. Your research project should be something that is publishable no matter how the results turn out. We will work together to come up with a project that fits the bill. A MSc thesis typically involves a single scientific question and a single study (sometimes composed of 2 or 3 small experiments) designed to test a specific hypothesis. The scientific question ought to be novel in the context of the existing literature, and of interest to other researchers doing work in the field of sensorimotor neuroscience.

Often a novel scientific question involves the development of novel techniques or experimental paradigms. You will take the lead here. We have many sources of technical help and experience both within the lab (including me) but also among the other labs in the WIRB. You will learn to draw on these sources of assistance to implement your experiments the way you want them implemented. Ours is not a “plug and play” kind of a lab, though occasionally a project will build on a previously developed experimental paradigm. The most interesting scientific questions do not have a pre-canned solution.

As a graduate student you are in charge of seeing your research project through to completion. I am here to guide you and to help by providing critical feedback, suggestions, advice, and encouragement. The more we interact the more likely you are to stay on track. It is your responsibility to ensure that this happens. I am here to help.

You are responsible for applying for funding to support your salary (e.g. OGS, NSERC, CIHR, etc). In the absence of external awards I will support you using funds from my research grants, providing that you take on teaching assistant positions (where possible) to partially offset the funds required.

PhD students

A PhD is the highest scholarly level one can achieve in a chosen academic discipline and is awarded after completion of a 4-year course of study. A PhD thesis document (a “dissertation”) is produced based on the work, which is examined by a committee composed of Professors from Western as well as an external examiner from a different University. There is also an oral examination by the same committee.

You have 4 years to complete a PhD and to complete whatever coursework is required for your PhD program. A PhD dissertation is typically composed of 5 or more chapters. Chapter 1 is a General Introduction—a literature review in the context of your thesis topic. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are individual studies. Typically each of them are published in peer reviewed journals (or to-be submitted) papers. Chapter 5 is a General Discussion in which you synthesize the results of your experiments and discuss the implications of your findings in the context of the existing literature. Depending on the nature of the experiments, sometimes two inner chapters instead of three is acceptable (but not typically). More than three is OK but that is pushing the limits of the patience of your dissertation examiners.

We will work together when you start, to develop a general scientific question, hypothesis, or theory, that guides the subsequent development of individual experiments/studies. The general scientific question ought to be novel in the context of the existing scientific literature and of interest to other researchers working in the field of sensorimotor neuroscience. Each individual study should be publishable in high-quality peer reviewed scientific journals such as Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology, etc. Sometimes Chapter 1 also turns out to be publishable in the form of a review article.

As a PhD student, you will rapidly learn to become independent in the lab. As with MSc students, you will be primarily responsible for drawing on technical and scientific assistance within the lab and across the other labs in the WIRB in order to implement the experimental paradigms that you want to use to test your scientific ideas. I am here to help and to guide this process, but you are in charge of your research project. You will learn to become independent in the lab so that by the middle of your PhD you will be coming to me with new ideas, new pilot data, and the results of tinkering in the lab, looking for your next interesting scientific question. You should not expect to rely solely on me to hand you scientific questions for your thesis studies. However, you can rely on my experience and knowledge to help guide you towards scientific questions that are interesting, relevant for the field, and feasible in the the context of graduate studies. We will work together to help you develop the scientific questions that guide your thesis work. At the beginning, the balance may be more on my end but towards the middle/end of your thesis work you will likely be convincing me of the importance of new ideas that you generate yourself.

You must pursue research questions that interest and excite you. Do not make it a goal to think up questions you think I will like, or ideas you think the big shots in the field will like, or experiments that you think can be published in Nature or Science or some other high-end scientific journal. This is a recipe for disaster. The motivation for pursuing your PhD research must come from within, not from me, or from anyone else. This is absolutely critical. A PhD is a lengthy process that involves many ups and downs. You must be motivated from within and one of the best ways this can happen is if you are pursuing scientific questions that excite you. I can certainly help you navigate the literature and the scientific landscape, and give you feedback about your ideas. We can work together to develop your own ideas but they must be your own. You must enjoy the process of working on a PhD, not just the anticipated outcomes of the degree (fame, fortune, etc.) If you don’t enjoy the work itself, it will be a very rough time and it will be difficult to succeed.

Postdoctoral Fellows

You will typically begin with a one or two year contract providing salary and benefits during which time your job is to pursue original scientific research, in service of getting a job, either in academia or in the private sector. As a postdoc you are expected to be independent in the lab. There are many scientific and technical resources to draw upon and I am here to help.

I will support the pursuit of any scientific questions that are of mutual interest to us both. Your research is your own and you may take it with you when you leave, and continue to pursue it. This is your chance to pursue a new line of research with the full support of a lab environment around you, without being burdened by the need to apply for grants, teach, or do administration (as you will have to do if you pursue an academic job).

As a postdoc you should expect to (and embrace the chance) to take on a mentorship role within our lab and within other labs with which we collaborate.

You are responsible for applying for funding to support your salary (e.g. OGS, NSERC, CIHR, etc). Typically an initial contract is for one or two years of support from my research grants. In some cases this may be extended but this is highly dependent on circumstance, budget, etc.

Research Assistants & other Research Staff

As an employee of the lab your role is to perform whatever duties I have assigned to you. Sometimes this will involve working with other lab members, helping them with their research projects. My role is to make sure that your duties are well defined and that you have the resources you need to carry out your work. While your duties might involve working with other lab members, ultimately you report to me. I regard working as a research staff member in my lab as an opportunity to learn new research-related skills in a supportive and friendly environment. If you find that every minute of the day is not occupied by the tasks I’ve assigned to you, please feel free to spend that time exploring your research-related interests (within reason). As a heuristic, if around 20% of your time is spent this way that is OK by me. Please come to me whenever you have questions or concerns about your work in the lab.