Last month, I wrote about the horrors that thesis advisers can inflict upon grad students. That was easy. I’ve been a grad student before, for a stretch of *muffled cough* years, and complaints about thesis advisers were practically a standard greeting: “Hi! My thesis adviser sucks! How was the cell bio midterm?” But when science devolves into interpersonal conflict, the thesis adviser—unassailable authoritarian though she or he may be—is not always at fault.
Archives for June 2017
Advice for how research scientists can best mentor those who work in their labs (essay)
I’ve written a lot of articles about what junior scientists can do to navigate their own career transitions, but I would now like to urge mentors to help and support them in those endeavors. In a recent Open Forum discussion on graduate education at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, it became clear that research faculty are key to the future of science. They have the single most important influence on a trainee’s personal and professional development.
$1M grant to boost engineering education at College of Menominee Nation
The National Science Foundation grant supported an event that brought John Herrington, the first enrolled Native American (Chickasaw) to fly in space, to the College of Menominee Nation and UW–Madison over a three-day visit. Herrington (back row, third from left) met with students and shared his inspirational journey from childhood to his eventual career at […]
New program makes vegetables, produce available for free on campus
A line of about 20 students and staff members stretched down the hallway of the Student Activities Center Friday, waiting for the chance to get their hands on fresh beets, lettuce, onions, dill and other spices — all for free.
On Being a Black Man
I am typically classified by others as a “big, black guy”. I’m 6 foot 2 inches tall, and I weigh around 240 pounds. I have often been asked by strangers what position I played, or where I played college ball (I didn’t). I am a 29 year-old Jamaican male living in San Francisco, working as a software engineer. The words to follow are some thoughts I have had for a while, that I have only recently found the courage to pen.
