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stemphdmentor.bsky.social
📈 Full prof at a U.S. R1, running a lab and managing millions in federal funding… for now. 🍻 This is the advice I'd give over a beer. 🔗 stemphdmentor.com #academicsky #phdlife #newPI #sciencesky
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tl;dr — this EO co-opts the language of open science to implement a system of political control wherein presidential appointees are given broad latitude to designate any number of reasonable scientific activities and inferences as scientific misconduct, and to penalize those involved accordingly.

submitted 5 days ago • 109 comments

If any potential advisor or collaborator talks like this while in charge, wish them luck, run, and never look back.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Yes, we are. 💪

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

people need to internalize, very quickly, that federal research grants are a hypercompetitive contracting process not charity, and that what Uncle Sam gets in return for that money is American dominance in the future

submitted 12 days ago • 165 comments

I recently learned there are current graduate students selling materials and coaching programs on PhD admissions. I admire their entrepreneurial spirit, but can someone explain why people with negligible to zero experience reviewing PhD applications are trusted in this role? #PhDSky #PhDLife #phd

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Now is not the time for private institutions to be making the situation worse.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Another scoop from Jeff Mervis (@policyhound.bsky.social): NSF's ~1400 grant terminations have disproportionately affected PIs from groups underrepresented in science: women, racial & ethnic minorities, & those with disabilities. 1/3 www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 16 days ago • 15 comments

A PhD student and woman in a male-dominated field worried (among other things) that she wasn't assertive enough. My advice: Go easy on yourself for not being assertive enough. Some of your peers are definitely too assertive and not thinking twice about it. #womeninSTEM #academicsky #phdsky

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

Kseniia Petrova's story is worth reading www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

please tell your letter-writers if you get the job/award!

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

An excellent description of the constant heartbreak. We’re not alone, my friends. #savensf #savenih #academicsky

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Recently saw someone who planned to send out ~100 cold emails in search of a postdoc position. 🫠 Friends don't let friends. An easier approach: 1. Read (and ideally network) carefully. Narrow your search to a few labs. Literally one to three.

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

There's so much to do here, but I think advisors can help by setting clear expectations and providing encouragement during the long stretches when research effort can seem fruitless. #phdsky

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

If you’re a scientist in the U.S., or if NIH or NSF funds your work, you know this has has been one of the worst weeks of 2025. (I can’t remember the last time I felt this burnt out, dealing with one needless crisis after another.) But we are in this for the long haul. We must pace ourselves.

submitted 27 days ago • 4 comments

Important PSA for anyone at the start of their scientific career especially. Broader PSA for anyone who cares about advancing science.

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

My quote of the day A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. Rosalynn Carter

submitted 40 days ago • 2 comments

Academia is cool because if you're doing it right, every paper you published in the last 3 years feels inadequate now that you understand the topic better, but it'll take 3 years to get out the version where you get it more right, and you get to do that until one day you die! Isn't that cool

submitted 40 days ago • 20 comments

I have never appreciated the opportunity to research as much as I do now. Spent 1.5 h yesterday working with a grad student through some fun conceptual problems in one of his proposed thesis projects. It was the most rejuvenating thing I did in a very hard week.

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

+1. Harvard standing up is great. But let's not pretend they were the first or only institution to resist. It is important to recognize the efforts happening all over, and to continue to build on those efforts collectively.

submitted 44 days ago • 7 comments

Build relationships before you need them, folks. This is coming up so often these days in recruiting, discussions with collaborators about fallback plans, etc. The scientific community is for the most part a pretty supportive and beautiful place.

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments