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Tag Archives: new ideas
Why is your lab group so separate from your department?
Few things in research are more exciting than watching ideas build as one person augments the thinking of another. Each can arrive at a place unanticipated and impossible from lone thinking. I feel almost euphoric when this happens. It may … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Creativity, New ideas, Scientific community
Tagged collaboration, creativity, innovation, isolation, new ideas
1 Comment
Can you do an ideas sandbox in 90 minutes?
I’m going to the BEACON: Evolution in Action meeting at Michigan State University next month. They asked me to run a sandbox in 90 minutes, giving me flexibility on the topic. Below is my plan. Who knows what we can … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Teaching, Workshops
Tagged creativity, innovation, new ideas, sandbox, workshop
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You are not reading enough! Take a hierarchical approach
I hope by now you have subscribed to a bunch of topics using Google Scholar, including any citations to your own work. This will keep you informed on topics closest to you, even if you don’t read the papers through. … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Managing an academic career, New ideas, Scholarship
Tagged abstracts, Journals, new ideas, Reading, table of contents
3 Comments
What exactly is a scientific sandbox or sandpit?
Our program notes say that a sandbox is an interactive session to stimulate new collaborations, ideas, and discussion. This sounds like a great idea, but I’m having a hard time understanding what exactly it means. Should it be held in … Continue reading
How to increase research creativity: work differently!
Isn’t it too bad there isn’t a simple formula for having the best ideas? Isn’t it too bad you can’t easily find the best thing to study, something easy, fun, high impact, and easily published in PNAS? It may seem … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Creativity, Grant proposals, Workshops
Tagged collaboration, creativity, new ideas, science, teamwork
1 Comment
Keeping up with the literature
Perhaps there was a time when you might have known everyone working on questions related to yours. A handful of meetings might have let you know all there was to be known in your field. If you missed a meeting, … Continue reading
Posted in Scientific community
Tagged Citation, Database, Ernst Mayr, Facebook, Google, Google Scholar, history of science, literature, new ideas, Reading, references, Research
4 Comments
Measuring the success of a scientific meeting
The success of a scientific meeting is something we care about, but measuring it may be complicated. One might think the best measure involves whether or not the stated goals were accomplished. These goals could be as simple … Continue reading
Posted in Scientific meetings
Tagged Alan Templeton, evolution, measurement, Meeting, Multicellular organism, new ideas, Organism, scientific meeting
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How to review a grant proposal
There are only four things that you should consider when you review a proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation. You should weight them more or less equally. By that, I mean that weakness in any one of these elements … Continue reading
Posted in Grant proposals, Refereeing
Tagged broader impacts, creativity, grant proposal, methods, National Science Foundation, new ideas, NIH, NSF, Peer review, productivity, Research, science, United States
7 Comments
A secret solution to the challenge of finding a work-life balance
Wash U has appointed me to their work-life balance committee. It makes me a little nervous, because I’m not sure what I think about this. In my group I want the people with passion for research and for new ideas. … Continue reading
Posted in Managing an academic career
Tagged balance, children, creativity, Employment, grit, leisure, new ideas, Organizations, Parenting, passion, Rethinking Work, sleep, teaching, work, Work and Family, Work ethic, Work–life balance
23 Comments
Lab meeting talks
She began with a couple of figures taken from someone else’s paper. They showed exactly what that other study measured. Sara Mitri told us what motivated that study. She then went on to clearly explain how her study would be … Continue reading
Sociobiology 