Scientiae Carnival March 2011: Change is the only constant

This topic was particularly timely, as a post from David Kroll (who some may know better as Abel Pharmboy) about how careers change as life evolves here inspired Biochem Belle to write an excellent response entitled the terrible beauty of change at just about the same time. Lots of other contributors also weighed in to produce a medley of posts, and introduced me to a variety of new blogs (aka procrastination devices - a habit I really do need to change... after I've caught up with you all, that is).

Many contributors wrote about change in their own lives, and the lessons it brings with it. Alyssa wrote here about how resisting the idea of career goal change affected her PhD studies, and ends with some good advice:

“There is nothing wrong with changing your path. In fact, it can be quite liberating!”

Ro at PhD Journey, one of several bloggers new to me who contributed to this quarter's carnival, writes about the changes that have happened to her during her PhD and the challenges of being a long way from your field site. I like the pictures – but I bet getting all the twigs and leaves out of that lovely hair at the end of a field day can be a nightmare! Melissa who is part of a team blogging at confused at a higher level, looks back on the tenure track after undergoing the very positive change of becoming tenured! Congratulations Melissa, hopefully this will lead to a lot more positive changes.

A couple of life stories, which inevitably involve the theme of change, were also drawn to my attention. The first one was a contribution to Women's History Month from the Smithsonian Picture Collection, the story of a female marine biologist I’ve never heard of, Mary Alice McWhinnie (1922-1980), who achieved many ‘firsts’ for women in Arctic science. The post is illustrated with photographs from the Smithsonian’s picture collection, and reminds us of the positive changes in women’s lives over the 20th century. Another life story is this piece, which explores the challenges of managing a scientific career alongside traditional cultural expectations of Indian women.

Patchi at my middle years has the best opening line for her musings on how hard it can be to notice change when it is happening :

"Today I had a serving of philosophy for breakfast"

DrO, a busy scientist-mum, wrote on her two-year bloggiversary about how her life and views have changed since she began blogging. MsPhD from YoungFemaleScientist, whose life has changed a lot recently with her decision to leave a toxic post-doctoral position without having another job all lined up, offered an interesting post about self-esteem and confidence: issues of considerable interest to many scientists, especially female ones, and both prone to change and difficult to change.

Penny wrote a guest post over at Scientopia reminding us how sometimes quite small interventions from other people can change our views or start us off on a scientific career by telling us about science and the American Girl Scouts. Sounds fun! I remember learning to wash socks in the Brownies (which involved a bit of detergent chemistry) and setting fire to a LOT of things at Guide Camp (as well as engineering wellington stands and washing up bowl stands from sticks with the help of some illicit duct tape (covered with convincingly wrapped string), but that was about all the science in my day. Elaine, another blogger new to the carnival – welcome Elaine! – wrote about how scientific knowledge can change human emotions, in a piece about the effects of new-born genetic testing on the parents of children found to have particular conditions.

I hope you all enjoy reading this mixture of posts - I'm certainly feeling inspired to write something about how I've changed since I began blogging, since my three year blogiversary and my 1000^th post are both just around the corner.

**Added**

And a late addition from DrDudeChick, once a regular science-life blogger who's been quiet for a while: welcome back, and best wishes for positive changes including more blogging!

SCIENTIAE - first call for posts for March 2011

Scientiae has moved to a quarter system this year, and the first carnival of 2011 will come out around the 20th of March (because I have been slow putting out the call and because I am actually having a few days off around the 15th).

I'd like to encourage lots and lots of posts, so I'm going for a pretty general topic. A truism widely used in one of the fields my research area touches on (way to be vague?) is:

Change is the only constant

and I would like to invite posts on that theme. You might write about changes in your discipline (or in a discipline you like reading about!) since you first began studying it, or about changes in yourself since you began studying science/got your current job/since some arbitrary and personal date. What about changes in the experiences of women in science and as scientists? For example, I'm in my early 40s - and I really wish I'd ignored the advice at school and as an undergrad to not learn to touch-type. Women were told NOT to learn to type because 'you'll end up being treated like a secretary and expected to type up everyone's papers' - nowadays with word processors all academics pretty much do their own typing, and I would love to be able to type correctly (but have been typing badly long enough that I do it quickly and have failed in all attempts so far to unlearn and relearn. Maybe I should try a DVORAK keyboard?).

If you're really busy, why not identify an old post that fits the theme, and submit that? Or submit any piece of writing on your blog which you're proud of, carnivals thrive on variety!

Email your links to the scientiae carnival gmail address at scientiaecarnival@gmail.com or in comments here or at the scientiae blog

Janus in summer

Alyssa suggested that this month's scientiae carnival is

"a good chance to look back - and forward! If you took part in the May 2009 Scientiae, have a look at your time capsule. What have you accomplished in that time? Are you where you thought you would be over a year ago? If you didn't take part, can you remember what your goals were for the 2009/2010 year? How far have you come since then?

Now the fun part - what is going on in your life right now? What will be happening in six months or a year from now? What are your goals? Are you looking forward to the next year, or dreading it? Feel free to interpret this in whatever way you'd like - you could do a bullet list of everything, or a snap shot of the more important things going on, or share an anecdote that will allow you to remember the summer of 2010"

I did actually take part in the May 2009 Scientiae, here, but I made my timecapsule by taking the first sentence of twelve posts scattered through the spring period, and didn't think much of the outcome:

So I've been: crunching data, having a cold, seeing students, grumbling, writing
lists, missing hairball and being amused by furball. It has snowed, rained and
sunned. I'm looking forward to the end of term. Sorry, this is a fairly poor
post.

And my multifarious list posts are abundant but not particularly relevant. So here, with a few actual snapshots from the month of July 2010, are some vague musings under the headings Alyssa suggests.

Looking back:

What have I accomplished since Spring 2009?

A good question. I have written some grants that failed and papers that got published, and given some talks, and done a bit of teaching. My house is a tip, my life is rather boring, my health is rather erratic. I weigh slightly more and despair slightly more of ever finding a romantic partner, but am a bit less lonely thanks mostly to friends-in-my-computer. My cat is still cute, entirely through her own efforts. And I don't think any of that matters much in the grand scheme of things.

Are you where you thought you would be?

Well, I didn't expect to have had the chance to teach in FavouriteIslands... and I would have hoped it would have gone better. I hoped to be healthier, either back to full time or doing something more interesting/creative/challenging with my 20% of not-working. I guess I'm disappointed to still be 'here', but not surprised.

How far have you come since then?

Not far enough. Both in terms of work done, ends tidied up, and in terms of personal growth, of health and self-discipline and all the little things that matter most. But just still being here is a good thing in its own right, to have not 'slipped further behind', to be managing to keep research and teaching and all the other stuff bumbling along with some productivity is a good thing, overall.

Looking at now

RIGHT now, I have had a crap week. I have doubted the point of what I do and the value of who I am, I have felt physically and mentally exhausted, I am fed up and grumpy and the weather is horrible (hot and humid. I get 'thunder headaches' and 'thunder nose bleeds'. And I hate hot weather. And I just got back from FavouriteIslands where three layers was comfortable on a good day, and am sweltering in a T shirt. Sulk). Here is not. nice. And I don't like the me who is here much either.

In a more general sense, 'now' involves:

1. being 41, therefore almost certain to remain childless, and with imperfect health (and poor habits, which could be remedied if only I could get to grips with their psychological dimensions). Grumbling my way through another summer as an overweight, anxiety-ridden creaky-backed incompetent with good intentions and appalling follow-through!
2. a part-time academic position which uses all my little talents and which causes me much stress and frustration and which also brings various rewards and pleasures
3. an affordable mortgage on a nice little house in a nice little town, and sufficient income that being sloppy with my spending and record-keeping some months has not stopped me from acquiring too many books for the shelves the house has and building up a small nest-egg sufficient to replace the bathroom and do a few other minor upgrades to the house if only I can be bothered to organise them
4. lonely and single and yet finding the people-contact involved at work is using up pretty much all my sociability and my energy and courage for dealing with novel situations (I being a talkative intravert) which makes those things harder to address
5. in a rut. in a rut. in a rut. A nice comfortable rut. With shinies every so often. But a rut.

Looking forward

Alyssa asked:

What will be happening in six months or a year from now?

What are your goals?

Are you looking forward to the next year, or dreading it?

And I am not sure what to answer.

Work things: they are always there and they always will be. They will keep me busy, and will appear again and again in lists elsewhere in the blog (e.g. see the sidebar).

Other things... I find myself asking what the point of things is, what the point of my life and my actions is. Is this what I am called to do, to be? Is this the right place to do it? How can I find and exert the self-discipline needed to change my habits, to become stronger and fitter and freer (and maybe thinner and with more of a social life too) when I am repeatedly tripped up by slips into depression or illness, which make survival, the act of keeping going through the hours until things clear, of achieving the scant basics of keeping clean and the cat fed and my family not unduly worried and taking medication and being boringly sensible about it all and getting up each day and managing a bare minimum of work and doing the human act, the public mask, whilst I'm there... all-consuming. And then there is the catching-up... and although I am getting better at not despising myself and beating myself up for these phases, this lack of achievement, it still annoys and aggrieves me and makes me feel so pathetic.

I hope still, I hope to find some answers and a different balance. And maybe some goals which will make the next year less like the procession of recent years which have all been pretty similar - did some work, was ill a bit, fed the cat, did laundry. So yes, I look forward to the new year. I like Autumn! Cooler weather and crisp mornings will be good. And I can buy new stationary... that's always good!

A gloomy and somewhat self-pitying post. But, today, this week, that is how things are here. Hopefully the new [academic] year will bring new opportunities and something will change!

Fixed links

Hopefully the links are now fixed in the Scientiae Carnival post - enjoy!

Fantasy Institutes unveiled - Scientiae Carnival

Welcome to ‘Now, what was I doing?’. There’s lemonade around somewhere, and at least one chair over there under those papers… and… oh yeah, THAT’S what I was doing, putting together a carnival…

For my first time hosting a Scientiae carnival, I thought it would be fun to revive an old game we played in my grad-lab, 'Fantasy Institute'. The rules of the game are simple - you have been selected as the Director of a newly endowed research institute. It is your job to decide where the institute will be based, its codes of conduct, its structure, and who you will hire. The responses are relatively few, not surprising given the time of year, but they make up for it in quality, and I am delighted to welcome a few new contributors! I will add late entries over the next week, since it is summer after all…

The new institutes are going to address some hugely ambitious and important topics, as we'd expect from scientiae participants.

The Queen Random Cancer Institute has a pretty obvious remit, but the resources sound wonderful – I too would love to work where someone’s only job was to keep the microscopes in shape! YFS’s institute has an even more ambitious remit, curing human disease, and she reckons that can be achieved in 10 years given the perfect conditions for the best scientists – click over to find out more.

Queen Random mentioned that she wanted to include ‘outreach’ and public education in her institute’s remit, but wasn’t sure how – Alyssa at ‘Apple Pie and the Universe’ might have some answers as she plans to set up an institute for science education and reachout.

Somewhat different types of institute are proposed by two newcomers to the Carnival. Frau Tech’s ‘institute’ over at ‘Design, Build, Play’ will be an engineering company with a green remit – it sounds like engineer heaven (my Dad was a Chartered Mechanical Engineer in British industry for 40 years, so we heard a LOT growing up about less-than-great environments for engineers), and James will direct the National Internet Research Council, which will have automatic access to government – James tells me that

“For a researcher in the social sciences, there's no fantasy greater than
having politicians actually listen to you.”

A post from a blog new to me, BadMomGoodMom, was recommended for inclusion as well – it begins by relating an experience with a different kind of meeting, which would actually serve as a nice model for any of our institutes - click here to read more.

Female computer scientist’s institute doesn’t specify a particular research area, just sets up the perfect conditions for great science :

“Slacking is encouraged, in order to generate brilliant ideas”.

Go over to her site for more details. This reminds me of E.O. Wilson’s statement

“good science consists largely of play disguised as work”

I think he'd fit right in...

Wishing you all a playful and productive summer, and inspiration and energy to bring a few features of your fantasy institutes into our more mundane workplaces!

Moving offices and daydreaming

A factor has just been added to the pro-moving list: on inspecting the damaged carpet tiles (seriously, it looks as if the last person tried to gnaw their way out in one corner of the room), we realised that there is a real wood floor under the tiles... and the person-in-charge-of-furnishing says that I could opt to have the tiles removed and have the floor sanded and polished... that would be classy! Also, I can have a sofa if I move into the new office... tempting...

On a nearly unrelated topic*, how about writing a post for the Scientiae Carnival I'm hosting at the end of the month? We all write a lot about things that are Wrong With Science, so this is a formal opportunity to make some positive suggestions on how things might be made better! The call details are:

Summer is a good time for day-dreaming and thinking Big Thoughts, free from (some of) the stream of student enquiries, emails and phone calls that disrupt our time during the semester. So for this carnival, I thought it would be fun to revive an old game we played in my grad-lab, 'Fantasy Institute'. The rules of the game are simple - you have been selected as the Director of a newly endowed research institute. It is your job to decide where the institute will be based, its codes of conduct, its structure, and who you will hire. Dream away! Tell us what would make your institute a haven for scientists. A 'everyone must leave by 5pm' rule? A woodland setting with squirrel feeders? Daily shipments from your favourite supplier?

Please submit posts on this, or any topic related to women in science, by emailing the permalink URL of your post to scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com by 11:59 pm GMT on Wednesday, June 30th. The carnival will be posted on July 1st.


* nearly, because sofa = somewhere to lie around and daydream...

Call for posts: summer scientiae

Gosh, doesn't time fly? It's the end of another academic year, and time to call for posts for the July Scientiae Carnival.

Summer is a good time for day-dreaming and thinking Big Thoughts, free from (some of) the stream of student enquiries, emails and phone calls that disrupt our time during the semester. So for this carnival, I thought it would be fun to revive an old game we played in my grad-lab, 'Fantasy Institute'. The rules of the game are simple - you have been selected as the Director of a newly endowed research institute. It is your job to decide where the institute will be based, its codes of conduct, its structure, and who you will hire. Dream away! Tell us what would make your institute a haven for scientists. A 'everyone must leave by 5pm' rule? A woodland setting with squirrel feeders? Daily shipments from your favourite supplier?

Please submit posts on this, or any topic related to women in science, by emailing the permalink URL of your post to scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com by 11:59 pm GMT on Wednesday, June 30th. The carnival will be posted by July 1st.

Continuity: a scientiae contribution

This month's Scientiae theme is continuity, and it's an interesting one, which doesn't make it terribly easy to write about!

I'm in a position where I could have continuity of place of work, type of work etc. for the next 25 years. I'd rather like at least one or two phases of tectonic upheaval and dramatic change (though I would whinge and moan and panic and be a total pain whilst it was actually happening), because that sort of easy consistency could become a rut, and then a tramline and then a straight-jacket. I fear the kind of continuity that becomes stagnation, and the anxious part of me that feels safe in a trammelled routine of incremental data-gathering and publishing, that likes to work away at useful things that no-one will take offence at or rudely reject, work that tamely follows established and approved agendas. I fear it partly because it could feel safe, and comfortable, and even lead to 'success' in terms of various 'metrics'. So far, despite being in one place and one job for over a decade, I've managed to be challenged and keep finding new things to learn.

How far back do I need to go to describe something as a constant in my scientific life? I initially thought that my main laboratory method is a constant. But I only found out that it existed during my second year of undergrad and tried it during my third; didn't my 'science life' begin some time before that? Maybe it began when I started university (in a very different science to the one I now work in - I changed course quite dramatically during undergrad), or with my choice of science A-levels (grumpy and reluctant choice, but it was the only way "they'd" let me take four proper subjects, and I reckoned I'd be bored stiff with three), or when I chose O-level subjects, or before that in my childhood 'dinosaur phase', or in summer pond-dipping trips, or visits to the Nat Hist and Science Museums in London (a rare treat since it was usually just me and my Dad, my girly little sister went to the V&A with Mum whilst Dad and I went to the Nat Hist (my choice - dinosaurs!) and the basement of the science museum where there were all these mechanical demonstrations of scientific principles with knobs to push and levers to work (his choice)), or the cabinets of rocks in the local museum that I vividly remember from some school trip, or... I can write narratives - as one has to, for grant applications and job applications, annual appraisals and promotion bids - in which everything I do looks planned and tidy, part of a coherent whole. But just like every other part of life, the lived experience has been up and down, higgeldy-piggeldy and driven by chance and happenstance more than planning.

The only clear continuity, the factor that links then and now and what comes next, is me-myself-I. Being human, I have good days and bad days, enthused days and depressed weeks, times when I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have an academic science job, and times when I curse that fate and am a hair's breadth from resigning and finding some other means of supporting furball and myself (preferably one without much contact with other people). My mood and my dexterity and my thinking oscillate with my hormonal cycles, my health, the seasons, the health and happiness of my friends and family, the atmosphere in my workplace; I am not a consistent, unchanging type of person.

I can however identify constant character traits, I think, which run through my scientific life and the wider 'life of my mind': a broad and enduring curiosity about 'how the world works'; an almost physical delight in learning new things, and in sharing that knowledge; a quirk of thinking that relishes making up alternative arguments and testing hypotheses; and a natural bent towards reflective practice, towards a continual cross-checking and critiquing of my own thought processes and argifying, hunting out bias and dragging assumptions into the light of day, a level and constancy of self-scrutiny and sometimes-painful honesty which can thoroughly annoy or upset other humans, especially when turned on their actions. Apparently I was a particularly persistent exponent of the toddler habit of asking 'why?', and I've not grown out of it yet, of a childlike curiosity and openness to the world around me, and a belief that asking the right question with enough persistence will open up more wonders, that learning is a Great Good and an important part of my life's purpose.

Sometimes I fantasise about starting over in a new academic discipline, or a new career. I talk wistfully about retirement, or about changing into a line of work which stays at the office at the end of the day, and can imagine being a stay-at-home mother or a gardener or a secretary if life had turned out differently. But I can't imagine NOT thinking like a scientist, whatever I actually did all day. I can't imagine not being continually drawn to dismantle and poke and fossick about in the clockwork and the tangled banks of the world around us, not constantly asking questions, not always striving to understand my ignorance and push my limitations.

Summer days, slipping away...

...that is exactly what they are doing. Again.

This is a rushed and grumpy contribution to scientiae. Not one of my best - but I'm not at my best right now, so once again what you see is what's here.

I tried to have a holiday this year. The break was good, but it took me weeks to get back into work, if I have yet (possibly not).

Summer is depressing - because there is no urgent, immediate drive to do particular things (teach classes), therefore it is much harder to avoid thinking about everything at once and realising just how many things there are to do, and how over-committed I am, but there is just enough leisure in the schedule that I also add new ideas to the list. New ideas are always more exciting... which makes all the other items on the list look less appealing.

I'm not very good at summer. What with the hayfever, strong reaction to insect bites, heat rash, dislike of humidity, general grumpiness and shutting down of functions above about 27 degrees C, and the opressive sense that I should be having fun.

It makes me want to be a kid again. Those endless days with no agenda, no rules... reading under a tree, lying on the grass trying to feel the earth spin and cloudwatching, pond-dipping, etc. etc. At least I appreciated it at the time, and was very rarely bored.

I like September. The promise of Autumn, my favourite season. New starts and new books and new opportunities - a time for reinvention.

But could I have about six months of August first? I may be unhappy about the climate, but I could really get dug into my backlog... (or so I like to think!)

Hot Science?

This month's scientiae theme is: My Science is Hotter than Dr. Isis's Naughty Monkeys Because...

I thought seriously about not contributing, because

• Although the month started well (birthday! short visit from family which ended before we all fell out! Cupcakes!), it rapidly went downhill from there. So... thinking about research mostly means guilt about what I haven't done.
• I am also slightly OFF research (or rather it feels as if it is off me) as I had 4 (FOUR) funding rejections this month.
• I am really not sure how to understand the term 'hot'. Last week I wrote this in a longer post:

...I understand 'hotness' to essentially be a measure of appearance in terms of attractiveness to the opposite sex... [or potential sexual partner of whatever type]. But I'm ... in the north of the UK, and maybe the word has evolved? But given this reading of 'hotness', I come over all prissy and say 'why can't we keep that stuff outside of the work place?'. Since we talk a lot here in the blogosphere about better ways of running the science workplace, about a fairer academe, it seems contradictory to also talk about being 'hot' since, to me at least, one of the things we're arguing for is a science which takes no account of appearance - whether that's age, skin colour... attractiveness - and little account of status to focus on ideas and on finding out how the world works, regardless of ego. DrDrA puts it much better than me over here.

I would love a future partner to find my brain sexy - in fact, I can't imagine ending up with someone who doesn't appreciate the fact that I'm intellectual and scientific in my approach to the world - but science itself?

I studied History and Philosophy of Science briefly during my undergrad degree, and my tutor (who deserves at least one post to himself sometime) used to talk about sexy science all the time. The example I remember - perhaps because he was so fond of it! - was that Galileo wrote his books as if they were philosophical, effectively disguising the experimental basis of his discoveries and ideas, because in his cultural context natural philosophy, 'thinking about science' , was sexy and socially respected whilst practical experiments were the business of the less respected, less well paid engineer, and he wanted a university job as a natural philosopher. My tutor laid on the overt 'sexiness' aspect thickly - the merits of higher social status in attracting partners - mostly I think to try and keep the interest of a tutorial group. But the idea that sexy, hot science is science which gets respect, status and funding is one that has strong resonance in what we all do all day. The idea of writing work up in such a way as to represent ourselves as working in a 'sexy' area is depressingly familiar, the extra effort invested in designing projects and writing funding applications which clearly address the overall objectives of the funding body and can be shown to be agenda-setting, internationally significant and of immediate relevance to societal issues is a continual reality.

So if hot = sexy and sexy science is grant-attracting, prestige-acquiring, income-generating science, clearly solving some major social problem, then the science I do is not particularly hot. It possibly attracts more grants than Dr Isis' Naughty Monkeys, but this is based on the assumption that, being Naughty (and cute and hot), the Monkeys have better things to do than hammer away at the keyboard hoping to eventually write Hamlet a perfect-scoring alpha-5 application...

I have a small group, a reasonable teaching load, limited funds, and I follow my curiosity to a large extent (controlled to some degree by resources, of course - following my curiosity to Yorkshire is a lot more affordable without a giant grant than following it to Antarctica or Kilamanjaro). My current work is largely built around testing some of the assumptions which have underpinned developments in my field since the 1960s; assumptions which, when you track the papertrail to the source, are clearly back-of-the-envelope ideas, conceptual graphs with axes labelled 'small' and 'large', or based on one or two data points and some (field-grounded) intuition. That is, they are assumptions, starting points for exploration. Yet a great deal has been built on them over the last 40-50 years... including some stellar careers... which might partly explain why I sometimes get referee comments on failed applications like "we already know that this must be true, X says so" which reference the paper which clearly states 'based on a single observation' or 'one possible model of this relationship is...', and a lot of informal feedback that it's 'brave of you' to test these assumptions.

I think that this basic revisiting of the things we hold to be self-evident is important in science. I am partly drawn to this work because I have a different training background than most researchers in my field. I bring a hard sciences perspective (if it looks good it needs MORE TESTING! and what are the LIMITATIONS and ERRORS on these measurements?), a certain level of mathematical literacy and more importantly a lack of fear of maths, and a belief that hypotheses and assumptions must be periodically challenged lest they solidify into innovation-inhibiting beliefs - none of these things are emphasised in training, or regarded as important cultural norms, in the more typical disciplinary route to this field. I also find it fun to trace the evolution of ideas in the literature, to track down the ways in which they have or haven't been rigorously tested, and to think about new ways to approach the underlying problems.

But my field is pretty much basic science. Interpretations of data produced by us feed (very slowly and rather indirectly) into model testing or form one thread of the background knowledge needed to design the experiments that might inform applied strategies that address important societal concerns. Or at least that address something that sounds cool to a lay audience - not always the same thing. And I work one more remove away from that, on the science that underpins the interpretations of the data... let's just say that, however necessary what I do is, writing a one-sentence sales pitch showing how relevant, exciting and useful my work is is not that easy.

My work isn't flashy, its 'hotness' isn't immediately obvious. You need to get to know it to appreciate its charms. But it's pretty darn seductive once you become aware of those details... I might not be bringing in the grants, but I'm increasingly invited to give talks, run workshops, join projects (as an unfunded partner... sigh), host training visits from other group's grad students and other activities which show that parts of it are of value to other members of my field. I'm not exactly qualified to give advice to anyone else here - my 'success' such as it is is down to a mix of luck, hard work and persistence, though I hope it will inspire others who aren't (whether by accident or inclination - my back-story is a mixture of both) working in the centre of sexy fields, not about to cure cancer, stop global warming and develop a means of getting 200 miles to the gallon in an SUV. But I'll close by talking about the strategies I'm using to try to improve my odds of getting funded, which might give some ideas to others:

• I'm working on building connections with the several-steps-removed end-users of the work I do (users of the syntheses of the interpretations of the data other people collect and interpret using some of the conclusions from my work), and looking for opportunities to build larger group projects which my work (and funding for my work!) can be embedded within. European Union Framework programmes contain specific schemes to support multi-discipline multi-centre research, and there are also national schemes. CrunchyNutGrant was for one such national scheme, and so is the March deadline. I've successfully got small pots of money for meetings, was a core group member of one workshop-network, and am part of another large Scandinavian project that has secured funding and is starting in January (my share is only travel money really). This is a long, slow process, and probably I need to be better at the politics of attaching myself to the right coat-tails... but it has provided a lot of travel and connections already.
• I'm doing a lot of 'pilot work', preliminary studies, in my own time - slowly, very slowly - with a view to building a collection of solid publications and concrete examples. These will of course support funding bids, but they are also about chipping away at the wider perception of many of the older 'gateholder' members of my field that these foundational assumptions are proven truths - once people realise that, maybe it'll be easier to do the work I want to do! But I can't impose on grad students (they have enough to do with their own work within their funded time) or rely on undergrads (it takes time to acquire field and lab skills), and I would feel bad about imposing on a post-doc (though... I probably would... if I had one and it showed the slightest interest... only on projects that would lead to actual papers though...).
• Every now and then I fire off an application (like UnlikelyGrant) which directly addresses my interests without much sugar coating, focusing on the importance of having a sound basis for any science. They often fail. But not always.
• I'm currently writing a couple of review-type papers which hopefully expose the assumptions in an interesting, publishable way. Again they tend to be a bit on the back burner, because of the amount of reading needed, and because publishing joint papers from other projects takes priority because it affects other people's c.v.s too, especially when early-career scientists are involved.
• I'm also writing grants etc. for projects which relate more immediately to 'hot' areas, generating the interpretations that... etc., and have been more successful there... but sadly successful in ways which haven't led to money and people HERE in MY group (and therefore very few brownie points towards future promotion/raises for me...). And designing the data collection for said projects in such a way that it can also contribute to my main interests... or collecting some additional samples that relate to my main interests, to analyse on the side when I have time...

Like many scientists, I have several different themes actively under investigation in my group and my general work at any one time. Much of what I do is quite routine, adding 'bricks to the wall' or 'dots on the map', not pushing frontiers. Oddly enough, it can be easier to get funding (especially for grad students) to just add bricks rather than work on the foundations of the wall. If I was feeling particularly cynical, I could build a nice Kuhnian explanation for that! But the foundation-challenging stuff is what I find exciting.

So... I conclude that my personal research passion is not 'hot', but it's a keeper. Affection for it has snuck up over time, until I now realise that I'd be miserable without it. The challenge is to convince others to see it through my eyes, and support our relationship! :-P

scientiae-carnival

Added weight

I've been dithering over writing for this scientiae, and over what to write. As a new blogger contributing something for a carnival is both a scary idea and a way to ease my new-fledged blog into one of the communities it would like to be part of (helping IT to gain weight), so it seemed like something I should definitely do. But getting past the title to a possible contribution was hard. Is hard. You see, I'm... well built. a full-figured woman. obese. sturdy. substantial. large. outsize. stout. buxom. Rubenesque. I take up a lot of physical space. I eat when I'm stressed, angry, frustrated, depressed, over-worked. I've done all of those a lot these last few years. And, in a society where carrying excess poundage is seen as a character flaw, a sign of lack of willpower, my physical weight ironically down-weights my words and my presence.

I'm not going to write about physical weight, but about this second kind of weighting; about the values, the weights, attributed to different peoples' words and to different parts of the academic job.

I am a scientist. I have a lot of patience for slowly amassing data, I love designing and implementing sampling strategies, I like grappling with a problem, turning it round and round in my mind until I can find a loose thread and begin to tease out a possible solution or new direction. I know how to shape my findings into neat little packages for presenting or publishing. I like knowing something no-one else knows. Like a kid with a screwdriver, I want to know how the world works and am never happier than when taking the back off the clock and peering inside. I can think clearly and systematically, synthesise literature, read pages of mathematics. I am also a human female, and I like to be nice to people, I like to help, I love to be needed, I want to be liked. I cry when I'm upset, and have a very hard time NOT crying when someone is overly critical of me or when a paper is rejected. I'm imaginative, I daydream a lot, I think about things sideways, backwards and upsidedown. I can be intuitive. I'm loyal. I'm domesticated (in a messy kind of way). I love my friends and my family and cats; I hate ironing and grape-flavoured boiled sweets (North American people - purple sweets should always be blackcurrant. Grape is a major disappointment). I try to be better, kinder, wiser, to grow in faith and as a person. I value integrity above conformity.

This is me. All of me comes to work and goes to conferences, not just a brain with the emotion/personality nodes disconnected. Yet in academia, passionate words and speech patterns, especially from an 'emotional', 'overly dramatic' woman, are down-weighted as indicating character flaws or 'emotional investment' which is intrinsically a bad thing - as scientists we're meant to be coldly objective (we all know the 'she's aggressive and pushy, he's ambitious and has leadership qualities' situation). I want to be warmly objective!

The lesson I'm trying to learn this year and next is that when I try to 'play the game' using externally set values for the things I do and am, I will be off balance - the weights of the different parts of my life will be wrongly distributed. It is up to me to recognise the true weight of things, and to distribute them appropriately for efficient and enjoyable carrying.

In my current context, success is measured by salary (and therefore promotion to the rank of 'Professor' where salaries are not set on a national scale but can float free). Success is measured by grants successfully. Success is measured by publications in the 'top-ranked' journals and invitations to speak at prestigious meetings. Time spent on teaching is time that doesn't really count. Time spent on collaboration, unless it will bring money to my institution or get me a first/last authorship paper in a top-flight journal is poorly spent.

I'm not saying that these success metrics aren't valid or important. Unpublished data might as well never have been collected. Grants enable me to do more and to do it better, as well as train and influence the next generation of scientists. But when they are the only indicators, it's like trying to carry a very unbalanced load. Each failure - and there are constantly failures, papers rejected, grant applications failed, others getting promoted younger or being praised more publically - causes a big wobble.

Some of the other things I do take up time and space in my life. They feel relevant to being a good university, a good person, a good scientist. For example, I've learnt that my passion helps me communicate effectively and run good classes - one of my favourite comments from a student evaluation was "It's impossible to fall asleep in Dr B's class even when you've been up all night, she's too enthusiastic". My empathy for others, my willingness to take the time to listen and to support, means that students seek me out. Listening to a student and asking the right questions to help them work out a solution to a problem takes several times as long as telling them an answer, and added up over many students means I might get one less paper out this year. Collaborating and sharing ideas and software and data, editing the English of a paper for a non-native-speaking colleague, refereeing papers carefully and writing long reports, and taking the time to compliment and encourage others, all mean that I can easily spend more time coaching/supporting than doing. Each of these acts has weight, but it's a weight we're often encouraged to dismiss, deny or minimise.

By treating these aspects of the job as less weighty, I end up berating myself for underachieving and feeling like a failure. "I did nothing today" often actually means "I saw three students, taught a class, had an email exchange about why so-and-so's data is making the model play up, ran so-and-so's data myself, found the problem, sent a long message explaining the problem and the work around, popped into the lab three times to check what was going on and lend a hand, talked to the technician about whether we needed to get some new sample bottles or could clean the old ones, wrote a reference for someone, prepared a handout, took two phone calls... and didn't do anything that will directly lead to a publication or grant".

No wonder I feel burdened at work, yet at the same time feel that I'm a light-weight failure as an academic and a scientist.

Sciencewoman and Alice subtitle their blog '...being the change we want to see'. Re-weighting the different aspects of our jobs as scientists and our lives as human beings is probably the key change I want to see; so I hope that in learning and living this lesson, I can help to create an environment where statements about the equal importance placed on teaching, contributions to the community, administration and research in appointments and promotions to faculty positions are no longer glib marketing speak greeted with a cynical look but are taken for granted. And where passion, emotion and intellectual abstractions can be mixed in a conversation without anyone making judgements about anyone else. And while I'm dreaming, I'll have a pony... :-)

By acknowledging the weight of every aspect of my job, I hope to feel like a successful scientist and academic more often, and to actually get my workload in balance (and maybe that will give me a solid place from which to tackle my physical weight issues?).

scientiae-carnival