Ask the mentors: A follow-up interview from the 2020 OHBM Annual Mentoring and Career Development Symposium
This year at the virtual OHBM’s Annual Mentoring and Career Development Symposium, we invited three wonderful mentors to present lessons they have learned along their own academic journeys related to the theme “Success in academia: A road paved with failures”. We opened up a live 30-minute Q&A session at the end of the symposium but as is all too common, time flew by and it was impossible to get through all of the thoughtful questions our trainees had. We followed up recently with Dr’s Terry Jernigan, Xavier Castellanos, and Erin Barker, and gained their valuable tidbits of wisdom on navigating current academic waters as a trainee.
OHBM Trainees (OT): What are some emotional and/or practical strategies that grad students can use when faced with inevitable failures in the scientific research process?
Terry Jernigan (TJ): If by failure, we mean research results that do not come out the way one expects, then redefining this as science is the only honorable “strategy”. Of course, the best science strategy is to structure one’s work so that almost any outcome is informative. It is also helpful to ‘diversify’ one’s research efforts to some extent – e.g., some work dependent entirely on new data collected in one’s own lab and some other work addressing relevant issues in secondary analysis of large-scale data resources – though this is just one example. Separate lines of research focusing on different but related questions. This way the frustration from a slow patch in one area may be offset by some interesting new results in another.
If we are talking about failures in the peer review process, the best strategies are: read and listen very carefully and scrupulously address every criticism; always resubmit at least once if that is an option; and, again, have at least 2 irons in the fire at all times.
Xavier Castellanos (XC): Failure is rarely the best word; rejections are inevitable, and it's essential to develop a thick-enough skin to not take them too personally, but anything that's new and important has always been met by skepticism and rejection. Persistence is the key to making it, and always learning from the process. Ironically, not being rejected may be a sign that one is not aiming high enough - the super high impact journals reject most submissions, but a manuscript that is not submitted never has a chance... so while not every manuscript should be sent to Science or Nature, aiming high is worth doing, with awareness that it's usually a long shot.
Erin Barker (EB): We can use strategies that maintain a sense of optimism and openness, and strategies that boost positive mood/emotion. Research shows that when we feel good, that feeds "upward spirals" of well-being. You need to identify people and activities that help you boost your positive mood. We also need to accept the fact that the research process is one characterized by set-backs and failures, but we learn through those experiences and if we can apply what we learn, it can lead to future success.
OT: If you were doing your training again now, what would you do differently to when you trained originally?
TJ: Take advantage of the rapidly improving curricula in data science – and become an efficient, as well as an effective, programmer.
XC: I trained in the last century - it's never the same river... so I can't say what I would do substantively. The process, though, remains the same. Find mentor(s) who has/have a track record of developing young scientists; work as hard as you can, but take at least one day off from all work once a week; and develop your instincts for what is likely to be hot in a year or two. Nobody can see much farther than that, but it's all about making bets on where fields are going.
EB: This is a really hard question. I think that at each point where a big career decision had to be made, I made the best choice under those circumstances and with the knowledge I had then. I do wish I had taken the advice from a statistician as my first post-doc 15 years ago and learned R when I had more time to do that.
OT: Do expectations of academic competence need to shift right now in response to uncertainty from the covid crisis?
TJ: What does “academic” have to do with this? And whose expectations? The most important expectations are those we have for ourselves. We will all respond differently to the uncertainty of the COVID crisis, and the crisis will take many forms and levels of intensity across individuals. The only general advice I would give is for all in the academic world to be supportive and accepting to ourselves and others as we adapt to the altered demands on us, and that if we are lucky enough to experience any silver linings, we should not be ashamed to embrace them.
XC: We may have reached maximum uncertainty with COVID, and we are all working at less than full efficiency, especially if children are involved. Still, this too shall pass; stay healthy, make time for the truly important (things that have to be done; things you love doing) and realize that items that are not in those two buckets may not get done. But don't cut corners on doing things well. Our reputations are all we have - don't get one of being brilliant but sloppy.
EB: I'm not sure about "competence" but certainly productivity with respect to the speed and quantity of research outputs. Everyone is struggling in some way and we all need to be charitable and kind to one another.
OT: How do you know if academia is not the right career path for you?
TJ: If something else looks better to you.
OT: There are so many skills that we need to develop in research (i.e. in methods, coding, statistics), it can feel overwhelming! What is the best balance between knowing/doing it all yourself and finding collaborators who take care of specific parts?
XC: Nobody can do it all - never did, but especially true these days. It's all about building relationships which yield benefits for all involved - not everyone benefits precisely the same, but the net effect should be positive over time, or it won't be sustainable. Again, track record and culture are the clues. The prisoner's dilemma encapsulates the fundamental choice of whether to be cooperative or territorial. Which strategy is most effective depends on the overall culture as well as the potential partner. Start collaborating, until it's clear that it's a one-way street. If that is not resolved, then learn from that, and make different choices the next time - no hard feelings.
Specifically, work out, in writing (email) who will get authorship credit - and general position, or the decision making process, before finding out whether the paper is going to Nature or to PLoS One - agreements can be changed later, but they are much better when explicit. With that framework, collaboration, which is essential, becomes easier.
OT: How important is motivation in accomplishing our academic milestones? How can we find motivation in uncertain times like these?
EB: It is easier to feel internally motivated when we feel connected to what we're doing, supported by others in what we're doing, that we're good at what we're doing, and that what we're doing is taking us where we want to go. Given the uncertainty that we're all facing, it may be a good strategy to derive our motivation from things that are certain in the present and adjust as needed as the future becomes more clear.
OT: A big thank you to our mentors for their time in answering these questions and we hope these words help you along your academic journey and facing new challenges that inevitably arise along the way!
The Mentors
Dr. Terry Jernigan is a Professor of Cognitive Science, Psychiatry, and Radiology, and the Director of the Center for Human Development at the University of California, San Diego. For over 30 years, she has studied the human brain using noninvasive imaging. This work has focused on brain development and aging, neurodevelopmental disorders, neuropsychiatric and substance use disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders. For the last decade her central research interest has been the developing human mind and brain, with a focus on the dynamic neurodevelopmental processes that give rise to human individuality—and on how these processes are affected by experience, substance exposure, genetic variation, and other factors. She is Co-Director of the Coordinating Center for the ABCD Study. She has served on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, the Council of Councils of the National Institutes of Health, and she currently serves on the NIH “Helping End Addiction Long Term” (HEAL) Multidisciplinary Workgroup, as well as scientific advisory boards of several research organizations in the United States and Europe.
Xavier Castellanos studied Chomskian linguistics at Vassar College, experimental psychology at the University of New Orleans, and medicine at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. He was in the first cohort of “triple board” residents (combined training in pediatrics, psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry) at the University of Kentucky, after which he spent a decade conducting child psychiatry research at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda. In 2001 he moved to New York University, where he is endowed professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, professor of radiology, neuroscience and physiology and an affiliate member of the NYU department of psychology. His work has focused on using brain imaging to better understand neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He was an early advocate of examining low-frequency fluctuations in brain function and in behavior – both of which have become mainstream lines of investigation. Listed by Thomson Reuters (now Clarivate Analytics) as one the top 1% cited scientists in psychiatric neuroscience since 2014, he has served on many national and international review committees and was Vice-Chair of the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Workgroup on ADHD.
Dr. Erin Barker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and member of the Centre for Research in Human Development at Concordia University, where she directs the “Lifespan Well-Being Laboratory.” She is a developmental scientist whose program of research examines patterns of emotional experience across developmental transitions. She is particularly interested in how stress and coping affect mental health and wellbeing during the transition to adulthood.