If you’re leading a research program, you’ve likely mastered a complex calendar. You block time for meetings with team members, protect hours for writing, and manage lots of day-to-day admin. But what happens when you sit down during that writing block and find you simply can’t focus? Or when a day packed with back-to-back meetings leaves you feeling drained, even … Read More
Deciding When to Let Go: 5 Strategic Questions Before You Quit a Project
In the life of a research program, new projects often start with excitement and possibility. But over time, some initiatives lose their momentum. They continue to demand your team’s time, energy, and funding, while the path to a meaningful outcome becomes less clear. Letting go can feel like admitting defeat, but in the strategic “business of research,” choosing to stop … Read More
Building Resilience in Academia: Thriving Under Pressure
Academic careers in STEM and health fields are uniquely demanding. The path from graduate or medical school to a faculty position, often via a postdoctoral stage, is long, competitive, and fraught with uncertainty. Grant application rejections, publication pressures, teaching responsibilities, and work-life integration challenges can lead to anxiety, burnout, and attrition. These realities underscore the need for resilience, which is … Read More
The Hidden Curriculum: Navigating Unwritten Expectations for Research Faculty
PhDs who’ve chosen an academic research career often expect that, after the gauntlet of training, holding a faculty position will allow them to focus on doing great research. And this is true to the extent that great research is the centerpiece of the role. Yet, with so many other responsibilities, focus gets divided such that much less time is spent … Read More
The Art of Saying No: Protecting Your Time Without Burning Bridges
In a world where opportunities, requests, and obligations constantly compete for our attention, learning to say no is one of the most valuable—and underrated—skills we can develop. Many of us hesitate to decline requests, fearing we’ll come across as unhelpful, damage professional relationships, or miss out on future opportunities. But the truth? Saying no doesn’t have to mean shutting doors or … Read More
Designing Faculty Development Programs that Actually Work
Faculty development programs are essential for helping academic researchers grow their skills, advance their careers, and meet institutional goals. But let’s face it: not all faculty development programs are created equal. Too often, they’re generic, overly theoretical, or disconnected from the real challenges faculty face. So how do you design faculty development programs that actually work? Programs that engage participants, … Read More
Building Specific Aims for Your Grant Proposal: Starting with the End in Mind
Once investigators achieve their first major grant(s), they naturally tend to scale their programs (more resources, more personnel, more projects). With this shift, they typically have a lot more data and new questions/directions than in those early years of independence when they may have felt that they didn’t have enough (data, papers) or weren’t sure they were proposing enough (aims/sub-aims). … Read More
It may be “Spooky Season,” but one thing you don’t have to be afraid of is that upcoming progress report.
Getting a research grant can be a fraught process that, when successful, brings both relief and excitement. But those feelings might be short-lived as you begin to encounter new worries about being able to accomplish what you proposed to do or having to write more proposals to maintain/expand your funding. “I was so glad that I got a grant, but … Read More
Gain Efficiency, Get Back Your Time: Leveraging Processes & SOPs to Streamline the “Knowledge Work” of Research
Got an analysis or experiment to run? I bet you follow a protocol for that. Protocols represent a key part of processes or step-by-step plans of action. Standard operating procedures, protocols, and other forms of process provide critical infrastructure for research to ensure reproducibility, fidelity, consistency, and efficiency, with respect to experimental or analytic endpoints. These are tangible products of … Read More
Navigating the Administrative Burden of Academia: Tactics for PIs Who Are Drowning in Admin Tasks
One of the surprising realities for PIs is the sheer amount of administrative work involved in the role. Many stay in academia for the potential to pursue their research interests, yet end up finding their days filled with emails, meetings, paperwork, and countless other administrative tasks. One of my clients recently referred to the job as “47 rats in a … Read More
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