Birds Of A Feather?

I've complained before about the lack of university-sponsored programs to provide mentorship for women in science. And yet, despite two invitations, I have not joined the women faculty group on campus. Does this make me a hypocrite?

I still believe that connecting women scientists with each other is a good idea. It can be particularly helpful for younger women faculty, like me, to have more senior women faculty to talk to about managing one's career and navigating the academic ladder. If nothing else, it can be encouraging to see that there are indeed successful women faculty who manage to surmount the obstacles, and to have a supportive network of people who are paddling up the same river, if not actually in the same boat.

So why the lack of enthusiasm for joining the women faculty group? Time is a big factor. Between experiments, lab-running duties, and my personal life, there's not a hell of a lot of extra time leftover. And participating in a campus organization is not high on my list of things I want to do with my extra time.

The truth of the matter is that while I believe in the benefits of such groups in theory, I remain unconvinced that they actually provide significant benefit in practice. My previous experience with campus organizations is that there is often lots of talk about lofty goals, but relative little translation into action. And I have absolutely no patience for endless debate and indecision. Moreover, I would bet that spending my time generating data, publishing papers, and writing grants will help my career far more than joining a women faculty group.

But what about the support and camaraderie of other women faculty? Well, that's what my friends and colleagues are for. Over the years, I've made friends with many other women scientists. Several are further along in their careers than I am, but most are at my level or a few years behind me. I've gotten great advice and tremendous support from them, and have hopefully been able to return the favor. I'm not personal friends with any senior female faculty, but I know several casually whom I could contact if I wanted a more experienced perspective. There are also informal networks which periodically send people my way to ask about being faculty on the non-tenure track.

I know some people who would argue that the way for women scientists to get ahead is to stick together in groups such as this. Yes, I think women scientists should support each other, but I don't believe that forming our own clique is the key to combating the good ol' boys' network. I also don't like the implicit "us versus them" mentality of this argument. Yes, there are sexist male scientists, but there are also male scientists who are supportive of women in science. I see no reason why advancement of women in science has to proceed through villification of all that is male.

I also know people who would argue that it is my responsibility and obligation as a woman scientist to join such groups. I disagree. I think it is my responsibility and obligation as a woman scientist to help and support other women scientists. How I do that is up to me. I don't think the point of feminism was to free me from being told what I can or cannot do by society, so that I can be told what I can or cannot do by other women.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you found women's networking groups to be helpful? Do you think women are obligated to stick together in their own groups in order to be successful? Yea or nay on my joining the women faculty group (I don't think I've missed the deadline yet)?

One Perfect Day

Have you ever had a day when you feel like your life is exactly how you want it to be and nothing can get you down? I had one of those rare days yesterday.

I decided to avoid the "wintry mix" on the road and work from home instead, which turned out to be extraordinarily productive. March Hare came home around noon because more than half of his colleagues had decided to stay home and there wasn't anything more he could do at work without them. So, we got to have lunch and hang out together for a while. There's something about being home on a weekday that feels deliciously naughty and decadent!

Later in the afternoon, March Hare drove me to work (he has the car with anti-lock brakes and all-wheel drive) to attend my first real faculty meeting. Typically, faculty as junior as I am only get invited to the social events, not the strategic planning sessions. I was the second-to-most-junior faculty member at this meeting and it was interesting to watch faculty from the entire spectrum of the academic ladder interact with each other. The content of the meeting itself was highly overrated, but I was ridiculously pleased to be included and recognized, especially since not all junior faculty were invited. It's the little things....

After my meeting, March Hare and I went out to dinner at a fancy-pants French restaurant that serves absolutely amazing food. As we were getting ready to leave, the owner came over to say goodbye and held out his hand. I, of course, took his outstretched hand and gave it a hearty handshake. There was a brief moment of surprised silence, and then he said, "Um...actually, I was going to help you with your coat." There was a time when I would've been acutely embarrassed by my misstep, but my skin has fortuitously thickened with age. After helping me with my coat, the man shook March Hare's hand and, with exaggerated gallantry, helped March Hare with his coat too! March Hare and I laughed about it all the way to the car.

We then headed for the theater to see a show I'd really been looking forward to. We had even managed to get fantastic seats. The show did not disappoint--it was funny, irreverent, satirical, and had a strong liberal bent...totally my kind of entertainment! Unfortunately for the man seated to my right, this was apparently not his kind of entertainment. He spent most of the show glaring disapprovingly at the stage, and when they took a jab at Bush during the grand finale, I thought his head was going to explode! It was almost as much fun watching this guy as it was to watch the show.

And that was my one perfect day. I know how the universe works and I will have to pay for this day sooner or later. But for right now, I'm still basking in its happy glow.

The American Dream

I was at a store buying some food this evening, and ended up having a conversation with a woman who works there. She immigrated to the US about six years ago for all the usual reasons--to make a better life for herself and her family, to chase the American dream. Her husband was ill at the time and decided not to immigrate with her because he was afraid they wouldn't be able to afford healthcare. So she and her two children came here without him, and he died a few years after they left. Since then, she has been raising her children on her own with a low-paying job that requires long hours.

It turns out that she has a college physics degree from her home country, but her degree isn't recognized here. And so the only jobs she can find are ones that only require completion of high school. She would really like to go back to school to earn a US college degree so she can find a better job, but she can't afford either the time or the money. Even if she could, she's afraid she's too old now to be able to start a new career. She has thought about moving closer to the institution where I work, in the hopes of finding a job in a research lab. But the rent in that part of town is high and she's barely able to cover the cheaper rent she has now.

She told me all of this with no self-pity, no bitterness. She still hopes that sometime soon she'll be able to go back to school. A program in forensic science sounds interesting. She spoke of her daughter's recent wedding. She told me I remind her of her niece. And I wanted to weep for her.

I came here as an immigrant too. I earned a PhD, married an American, and got a faculty position. We have a cute dog, a nice house, and all the creature comforts we could want. I'm living the "American dream." I know that life isn't fair and that this doesn't happen for everyone who comes here hoping for a better life. I don't know how to solve the problem of global inequity. But it seems to me that one of the richest, most advanced, and most powerful nations in the world ought to somehow be able to do better than this.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

An article in the New York Times today announced that Toshiba is on the verge of conceding defeat and giving up on its HD DVD format, which has been competing with Sony's Blu-ray format for supremacy in the high-definition DVD market. Although HD DVD originally had the support of several major movie studios, it has since suffered erosion of support including defections by some of those studios, and decisions by Blockbuster, Netflix, and more recently, Walmart, to exclusively stock Blu-ray DVDs. And thus, HD DVD will soon join Betamax in defunct technology heaven.

The article reports that Toshiba stands to lose hundreds of millions of invested dollars in withdrawing HD DVD from the market. But in doing so, they avoid the pitfall of wasting more money on a losing venture in a desperate bid to recoup the initial investment. The business people have a term for this pitfall--the sunk cost fallacy. The idea is that what has been invested is already gone, and the decision on whether to continue investing must therefore be based not on how much has already been spent, but solely on the venture's prospects for success.

Why should we care about the sunk cost fallacy? Because academic research could really benefit from this kind of analysis every once in a while. How many times have you seen PIs throw grad student after grad student onto ill-conceived projects, as if the collective weight of their disillusionment will result in a breakthrough? How often do people struggle miserably up the academic ladder knowing it's not what they want, but doing it simply because they've already come so far they might as well keep going?

Of course, these scenarios don't always end badly, and there is benefit in knowing the strength and endurance of which we are each capable. I, for one, learned a great deal about myself during some of the not-so-happy periods in my academic career. Still, I feel that periodic objective evaluation of the path we're on and its future prospects could probably save us all from some needless suffering.

Hello, My Name Is....

I've been thinking about this whole anonymity issue since reading EcoGeoFemme's post about her encounter with another anonymous blogger at her institution. Many other people have blogged about online anonymity before, so I will probably end up beating the dead horse...again.

I know I haven't written anything that would get me in serious trouble or fired. There are a couple of posts that might make certain people unhappy with me. It wouldn't be anything disastrous, but I'm much more blunt in my assessment of people when I blog than I am in real life, and those people might not like what I have to say about them.

Aside from that, however, part of the fun of blogging, for me, is the illusion of anonymity. It has to do with degree of freedom. This was particularly high when I first started blogging--since no one knew me, no one had any expectations of what I might say or think. I could therefore write anything I wanted, in theory, although in practice what I wrote never diverged much from my true opinion.

As I got to know other bloggers, however, the same social constraints which apply in real life came into play in my blogging life. It's not that I pander to my audience, but once I find a group of people I like and respect, I tend to want their liking and respect in return. This leads to self-censorship of certain rants or tirades which might offend others, or at least a tempering of some of my harsher or wilder thoughts. I've actually considered (briefly) starting another completely anonymous blog for airing some of my crazier ideas, just to see what that would feel like. This blog is me with my identity masked; that new blog would be me with a completely new persona. But that's neither here nor there.

I know I've provided enough information on this blog that if someone who knew me happened to stumble upon it, they would be fairly likely to figure out it was me. Someone who didn't know me could probably figure out who I am if they were willing to do the legwork. The city I live in is an easy guess for anyone who has a Sitemeter or equivalent. But there is more than one choice for institution, and within each of the institutions, there are multiple choices for department, lab, etc. Frankly, I've always operated under the assumption that my identity wouldn't be interesting enough for anyone to go to all that trouble.

Anyway, the reason I've been pondering this is because I've been thinking that it would be fun to meet some of my fellow anonymous bloggers. On one hand, it would be really cool to make new real-life friends. But on the other hand, perhaps meeting them would somehow spoil some of the fun and freedom. I guess it depends on whether blogging is a means of finding other people who are like you, or whether blogging is an end unto itself. I'm not sure I know the answer to that.

Playing Hooky

I've been feeling very unmotivated ever since I submitted my grant. One of my labmates called it the "post-grant anticlimax" and he's probably right. After the big adrenaline rush of racing to meet the deadline, doing benchwork just seems so tedious and mundane. Ironically, all I wanted when I was working on the grant was to be done with the tedious and mundane writing so I could do some "real" science.

Whatever the reason, that enthusiasm for experimentation has evaporated and I've been unable to jumpstart my get-things-done mode. Yesterday, after spending yet another day sitting at my desk pretending to work and wishing I were somewhere else, I decided that I'd had enough. I'm going to play hooky and stay home today. I'm not going to do any work or even think about work, and hopefully I'll manage to snap myself out of slacker mode.

I've been enjoying my morning so far, except for the fact that I forgot our thermostat is programmed to turn off the heat during the day when we're not home. It was 62 degrees in the house before I figured out why it was so damn cold! See? Definitely not firing on all cylinders.

I've spent some time reading blogs and have whittled the number of unread posts in my feed reader down to 53 from the >500 that had piled up during my brief hiatus. I've cleaned up the kitchen and made the list for this weekend's grocery shopping trip. I'm planning on spending some time playing the piano and learning a new piece I heard when I was in high school and have always wanted to play. And perhaps I'll see if I can complete the puzzle/rpg game I'm currently semi-addicted to.

With any luck, this will get the unproductive mood out of my system. If nothing else, a day of complete indulgence will probably trigger enough guilt to motivate me to work harder next week!

Hurray For Excellent Bloggers!

I've been awarded the big E by both Arduous and EcoGeoFemme. Thanks--you guys are the best!

When I started blogging, the first few other blogs I stumbled upon happened to be very negative and bitter. From my admittedly limited perspective at the time, it seemed that the only thing women scientists ever blogged about was how much it sucked to be women scientists. And I debated for a long time whether I wanted to be part of that at all.

I have to say I'm really glad I continued blogging and reading other people's blogs, because I've found an amazing group of female science bloggers who write intelligently, thoughtfully, and with humor about all aspects of their experiences, including the good, the bad, and the bizarre. It's been great fun to exchange stories and share the ups and downs of a scientist's life. Along the way, I've also discovered some great non-science blogs written by fun, interesting people that make me think about things that might not otherwise cross my mind.

There are many great blogs I read and thoroughly enjoy. Here are just a few that definitely deserve an E. I know some of you have already gotten one, but you can never have too many E's, right?

• Arduous Blog


• The Happy Scientist


• VWXYNot?


• Wayfarer Scientista


• Unbalanced Reaction


• A Lady Scientist


• Female Science Professor


• The Third Estate

A Very Happy Un-Valentine's Day To You

A friend of mine used to tease me about really being a man in a woman's body. He based this on the fact that I hate shopping, love football, don't like chick flicks, enjoy video games, and most of all, because I have no interest whatsoever in the usual Valentine's Day rituals. And this is all true.

Don't get me wrong--I know some couples who enjoy having a designated day when they can splurge and do something really special for each other that they normally would not get to do. And I think that's great. But for the majority of couples I know, it seems Valentine's Day gifts are purchased by men begrudgingly and amidst vociferous complaining, to give to their partners for fear of said partners getting pissed off and making them sleep on the couch. I might add that most of these gifts are purchased at exorbitant prices at the last minute for having come up with no better options. Doesn't that just make you all warm and fuzzy inside?

I came home from work yesterday to find March Hare making brownies because I had mentioned earlier that I was really in the mood for some dessert. He records movies that I've expressed an interest in seeing, including the horror films even though he knows I'll spend most of the movie with my face buried in a pillow while making him tell me what's happening on-screen. He spent 3-4 hours in a piano showroom listening to me play on at least 20 different pianos so I could find the one I really love. He stayed up late multiple nights in a row just to keep me company when I was working frantically to meet my grant deadline. This one deserves extra points because I was in a particularly foul mood on those nights!

My point is that the little things that are done spontaneously, and for no reason other than to make someone happy, are worth infinitely more than an expensive Valentine's Day gift purchased out of obligation. My male colleagues tell me their partners would agree with me in theory, but they would still expect a Valentine's Day gift. And not just any Valentine's Day gift, but something they really want. What that is, of course, is for the men to figure out on their own. This behavior has never made any sense to me, but that's a rant for a different day.

Several years ago, March Hare was listening to a bunch of his male colleagues complain about having to find Valentine's Day gifts for their wives. Someone asked him what he was planning to get for me, and all hell broke loose when he admitted he wasn't planning to buy anything. They told him I was going to be furious, that I really did want a gift even if I said I didn't, that he was going to be in the doghouse for months, etc. I told March Hare to tell them it was their own fault for marrying demanding, high-maintenance women. I don't think they liked that much, but it did get them to shut up about it.

My male friends claim I'm the only woman they know who feels this way about Valentine's Day. So here's my question: stereotypes and over-generalizations aside, am I really a "man" in my view of this or are there women who share my opinion?

Does "Dear Abby" Answer Science Questions?

I'm in a bit of a dilemma. A graduate student I know will be proposing his thesis soon. I attended his practice presentation and I think he may be in for some trouble with his thesis committee. And now I can't decide what, if anything, I should do about this.

His project is rather high-risk and he doesn't yet have much preliminary data. But the real problem is the way he presents himself and his work. I don't think he's figured out that he needs to "sell" his project to his committee. I don't mean that he should conceal potential problems or project false bravado. But there is clearly a difference between these two statements:

• "Here are the preliminary data on which my project is founded. I recognize there are some potential problems with the interpretation of these data. The caveats are ___, and here are the experiments I am currently performing to address each of these issues."


• "Here are the preliminary data on which my project is founded. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with these data. Here are all the potential reasons they might not mean what I think they do, and if that's true, my project will die a horrible death."

The first statement tells the committee he understands the limitations of his experimental system and has thought through how he will handle potential problems. The second statement tells the committee the project is doomed and they should make him re-propose with a new project.

Another issue has to do with personality. He is an unusually reticent, even subdued, person in a crowd of aggressive, Type A personalities. When someone challenges him on something, he tends to think it over and give a measured response acknowledging the challenger's point. While there's nothing necessarily wrong with any of this, he often comes across as lacking enthusiasm and confidence, and gives the impression he doesn't have opinions of his own. In a department where respect is earned by being able to state your opinion and defend it vigorously, his low-key style can be a serious handicap.

So what's the dilemma? I should just go tell him this and help him fix his presentation, right? But it's not quite that simple. First, I'm not his PI and don't really have the authority to say anything beyond the strongly-worded suggestions I made during his practice presentation. Second, I haven't been on a thesis committee and it's entirely possible his committee won't have the same reaction I did. Third, I'm not convinced any amount of coaching would substantially alter his basic presentation style. Fourth, there may not be enough time left to fix his presentation, and making a big deal of its flaws may just induce panic.

Finally, I'm a big believer in letting people do what they think is best, and not bashing their heads in with unsolicited, and likely unwelcome, advice. I've already voiced my concerns to him and if his presentation is flawed, he will learn from this experience and develop a better method of his own. It isn't my place to cram my presentation style down his throat nor, for that matter, is it my responsibility to vet every grad student's presentation.

But I would still feel badly if he were to get shredded by his committee....

Internet: Source of Endless Amusement

Two things that made me laugh hysterically:

• The FAIL Blog


• What the internet is really for. Warning: this video contains crude, off-color humor.

Grant Writing 101

I'm not sure how exactly it happened, but I actually managed to become faculty without ever having written a grant. It's very unusual in my field, since postdocs are almost always expected to apply for their own funding. While my postdoc advisor didn't object to my writing one, he made clear he thought his lab had more than enough funding to support me, and that my time would be better spent doing benchwork.

Sounds great, doesn't it? I certainly thought so, until I became faculty and realized my first grant writing effort would determine whether or not my lab would receive nearly a million dollars in funding. No pressure...no pressure at all. My PI asked after I'd submitted it what I thought of the grant writing process. I told him I'd spent the month swinging wildly between sheer exhilaration at having a completely new challenge, and utter panic at the thought of not being able to make the deadline.

In many ways, this was an atypical grant writing experience. First, we were "invited" to submit the grant, which I thought was rather strange. Second, the grant has two PIs, neither of whom is me. In fact, I'm too low on the faculty totem pole to even be eligible to apply for it on my own, so I got to ghost-write it instead. And third, the primary focus of the grant is on an area of research in which neither the two PIs nor I have any experience whatsoever.

The grant actually straddled four fields--50% Field A, 25% Field B, 20% Field C, and 5% Field D. And my areas of expertise? My PhD was in Field D, I have a very basic grasp of Field C, I understand the output of Field B but not any of its methods, and I don't know Field A from a hole in the ground. Needless to say, the worst part of writing this grant was trying to learn several new fields in a month. And I could never quite tell if the experiments I was proposing were sound, or if I'd somehow missed a bunch of papers that would've made me realize my ideas were completely preposterous and laughable. It was an experience I wouldn't care to repeat.

But on the other hand, I now know all sorts of interesting stuff in Field A, which is highly relevant to a common human disease. And I've discovered some really cool new technology in Field B. How they work is still a complete mystery to me, but I know how they can be applied to my research in Field D, and the kind of data they could potentially generate still astounds me. I and my labmate, D, have already come up with all sorts of ideas on how to apply that technology to our field.

I think I sometimes get so caught up in the nuts and bolts of my project that I forget how exciting and fun science can be when you look at it from a broader perspective. So I'm glad I wrote this grant because, if nothing else, it reminded me of why I do research.

One other interesting thing I learned: it is much more fun to propose experiments one doesn't actually have to do. I recall at one point thinking, "Crap! Do I really have to propose this experiment? I can't think of a better way to do it, but this assay will really, really suck."

"Wait a minute...I'm not going to be the one doing this!" Type type type type type type...[evil cackle]. :-)

Holy Blog Posts, Batman!

Wow...I take a brief leave of absence from the blogosphere and when I come back, there are over 500 new posts in my feed reader!

My apologies for having been away so long. I was writing a grant--my first one--which managed to take over my life for the last month or so. But I submitted it yesterday, so I expect to be posting regularly again...at least until the next grant deadline. More on this strange and interesting experience later.

Also, thanks so much to all of you who left such nice comments on my last post about not continuing with piano lessons. You all are terrific, and I really appreciate it! I definitely intend to take lessons again in the future, but for now, I'll content myself with just playing for fun at home. Incidentally, it sounds as if enough of you play instruments that we could start our own musical group! :-)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading about what everyone else has been up to. It'll probably take me a while to get caught up on all your blogs, but it's definitely nice to be back!