My favorite "high yield" guides to telling better stories

Guest post by Eric Sanford

In medical school, we usually have five lectures’ worth of new material to memorize each day. Since we can’t simply remember it all, we are always seeking “high yield” resources (a term used so often by med students that it quickly becomes a joke): those concise one or two-pagers that somehow contain 95 percent of what we need to know for our exams. My quest of finding the highest yield resources has continued in full force after becoming a PhD student.

A major goal of mine has been to improve my scientific communication skills (you know, writing, public speaking, figure-making… i.e. those extremely-important skills that most of us scientists are pretty bad at), and I’ve come across a few very high yield resources as I’ve worked on this. Here are my favorites so far:

Resonate, by Nancy Duarte:

• The best talks are inspiring, but “be more inspiring” is not easy advice to follow.

• This book teaches you how to turn your content into a story that inspires an audience.

• I received extremely positive feedback and a lot of audience questions the first time I gave a talk where I tried to follow the suggestions of this book.

• This was both the most fun and the most useful of all my recommendations.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte:

• Tufte is probably the most famous “data visualization” guru, and I think this book, his first book, is his best one. (I’ve flipped through the sequels and would also recommend the chapter on color from “Envisioning Information.”)

• This book provides a useful framework for designing graphics that convey information in ways that are easy (easier?) for readers to understand. Some pointers include removing clutter, repeating designs in “small multiples”, labeling important elements directly, and using space consistently when composing multiple elements in the same figure.

The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, pages 18-25:

• Available at http://www.jlakes.org/ch/web/The-elements-of-style.pdf

• Pages 18-25 are especially high yield and provide concrete advice (with examples) on how to make stylistic changes that make writing both more efficient, specific, and enjoyable to read.

Words to Avoid When Writing, by Arjun Raj

• Available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r6nDcF43esu3xBjmk3ERAmaEHKEB75_HflSkk3zZhBk/edit

• Turns out this blog’s creator has learned a few things about science writing!

• This is an important list to review when writing a grant or publication: each of the words, while commonly used, are a sign of sloppy thinking.

• Each word has a worked example for how to replace it with something better.

Raj Lab basic Adobe Illustrator (CC) guide, by Connie Jiang

• Available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TXmbltzBPcApCcuJ9HLOIQgWPqKylrFRWRudrN-5vBE/edit#heading=h.or1to9c1y8il

• If you have access to Illustrator, this is a fantastic resource for making or improving scientific figures.

• Worth reading each page, but also a great reference for specific problems or questions.

There are many other great resources out there that are also worth going through if you have the time (Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Bizup and Williams is another excellent writing guide), but for me these ones above had the highest amount-learned-per-minute-of-concentration-invested. 

Guest post by Eric Sanford

Dear me, I am awesome. Sincerely, me… aka How to write a letter of rec for yourself

Got an email from someone who got asked to write a letter for themselves by someone else and was looking for guidance… haha, now that PI has made work for me! :) Oh well, no problem, I actually realize how hard this is for the letter drafter, and it’s also something for which there is very little guidance out there for obvious reasons. So I thought I’d make a little guide. Oh, first a couple things. First off, I don’t really know all that much about doing this, having written a few for myself and having asked for a couple, so comments from others are most welcome. Secondly, if you’re one of those sanctimonious types who thinks the PIs should write every letter and never ask for a draft, well, this blog post is probably not for you so don’t bug me about it. Third, if the PI is European, maybe just like turn everything down a notch, ya know? ;)

Anyhoo: so I figure the best way to describe how to do this is to describe how I write a letter. I’ll aim it at how I write letters for, say, a former trainee applying for a postdoc fellowship, maybe with some notes about how this might change for faculty applying for some sort of award or something.

Okay. I usually use the first paragraph to give an executive summary. Here’s an example of what I might write:

“It is my pleasure to provide my strongest possible recommendation for Dr. Nancy Longpaper. Nancy is simply an incredible scientist: she has developed, from scratch and by combining both experimental and computational skills, a system that has led to fundamental new insights into the evolution of frog legs. She has all the tools to be a superstar in her field: talent, intellectual brilliance, work ethic, and raw passion for science to become a stellar independent scientist. I look forward to watching her career unfold in the coming years.”

Or whatever something like that. The key parts of this that you will want to leave blank is the first sentence, i.e., the “strongest possible recommendation” part. That’s an important part that the letter writer will fill in.

Okay, second (optional) paragraph. This one depends a bit on personality. For some letter writers, they like to include a bit about how awesome they are and thus how qualified they are to write the letter. This is important for things like visas and so forth. This could be something like “First, I would like to introduce myself and my expertise. My laboratory studies XYZ, and I am an expert in ABC. I have published several peer reviewed articles in renowned journals such as Proceedings of the Canadian Horticultural Society B and our work has been continuously funded by the NIH.” I personally don’t include things like this for regular (non-visa) recommendations, but I have seen it.

Third paragraph: I usually try and put in some context about how I met the person I’m recommending. Like, “I first met Nancy when she was looking for labs to rotate in. She rotated in my lab and worked on project ABC. Even in her short time in the lab, she managed to accomplish XYZ. I immediately offered her a spot, and while I was disappointed for her to join Prof. Goodgrant’s lab, I was very pleased when she asked me to chair her thesis committee.” If you are a junior PI, this might be replaced with something about how the letter writer knows about your work and any interactions you may have had.

Next several paragraphs: a bunch of scientific meat. This is where you are REALLY going to save your letter writer some time. I usually break it into two parts. First paragraph or two, I describe the person’s work. What specifically did they do. PROVIDE CITATIONS, including journal names. Sorry, they matter, too bad. Try and aim for a very general audience, stressing primarily the impact of the findings. But if you don’t, don’t worry, people probably either know the work already or not. Still, try. Emphasize specific contributions. Like, “Nancy herself conceived of the critical set of controls that was required to establish the now well accepted ‘left leg bias estimator’ statistical methodology that was the key to making the discovery that XYZ.” At all times, emphasize why what you did was special. Don’t be shy! If you’re too ridiculous, don’t worry, your letter writer will fix it.

Next part of the science-meat section: in my letters, I usually try and zoom out a bit. Like, what are the specific attributes of the person that led them to be successful in the aforementioned science. Like, “This is a set of findings that only someone of Nancy’s caliber could have discovered. Her intellectual abilities and broad command of the literature enabled her to rapidly ask important questions at the forefront of the field…” Be careful to emphasize big picture important qualities and not just list out your specific skills here. Like, don’t say “Nancy was really good at qPCR and probably ran about 4.32 million of them.” Makes you sound like a drone. At the trainee level, something about how rapidly you picked up skills could be good, but definitely not at the junior faculty level. Just try and be honest about the qualities you have that you think are most important and relevant. Be maybe a little over the top but not too crazy and then maybe your letter writer will embellish as needed.

Second to last paragraph: I try and fill in a bit more personal characteristics here. Like, what are the personal qualities that helped them shine. E.g. “Nancy also is an excellent communicator of her science, and already has excellent visibility. She gives great talks and has generated a lot of enthusiasm……” Also, if relevant, can add the standard “On a personal note, Nancy is a wonderful person to have in the lab……” Probably like 4-5 sentences max. Make it sound like you belong at the level you are applying for. If it’s for a faculty position, make it sound like you are faculty, not a student.

Finally, I end my letters with an “In sum, Nancy is the perfect candidate for XYZ. I have had the privilege of watching many star scientists develop into independent scientists in this field at top institutions over the years, and I consider Nancy to be of that caliber. I cannot recommend her more strongly.” This one can be sort of a skeleton and the letter writer can fill this in with whatever gushy verbiage they want. For some things, there might be some sort of “comparables” statement here that they can put in if they want.

Tips:

• Don’t ever say anything bad. If you say something bad, it’s a huge red flag. If the letter writer wants to say something bad, they will. That would be a pretty jerky thing to do, though.
• Length: There are three things that matter in a letter: the first paragraph, the last paragraph, and how long the letter is in between. For a postdoc thingy, aim for 1.5-2 pages for a strong letter. 2-3 for faculty positions. 1-2 for other stuff after that.
• Duplication: What do you do if two letter writers ask for a draft? Uhhhh… not actually sure. I have tried to make a few edits, but sometimes I just send it and say hey already sent this and they can kinda edit it up a bit. I dunno, weird situation.

Anyway, that’s my template for whatever it’s worth, and comments welcome from anyone who knows more!

How to train a postdoc? - by Uschi Symmons

- by Uschi Symmons

A couple of weeks ago I was roped into a twitter discussion about postdoc training, which seemed to rapidly develop into a stalemate between the parties: postdocs, who felt they weren't getting the support and training they wanted and needed, and PIs, who felt their often substantial efforts were being ignored. Many of the arguments sounded familiar: over the past two years I’ve been actively involved in our postdoc community, and have found that when it comes to postdocs, often every side feels misunderstood. This can lead to a real impasse for improvements, so in this blog post I’ve put together a couple of points summarizing problems and some efforts we've made to work around these to improve training and support.

First off, here some of the problems we encountered:

1. postdocs are a difficult group to cater for, because they are a very diverse group in almost every aspect:

- work/lab experience and goals: ranging from college-into-grad-school-straight-into-postdoc to people who have multi-year work experience outside academia to scientists who might be on their second or third postdoc. This diversity typically also translates into future ambitions: many wish to continue in academic research, but industry/teaching/consulting/science communication are also part of the repertoire.

- training: Some postdocs come from colleges and grad schools with ample opportunity for soft-skill training. Others might never have had a formal course in even such trivial things, like paper writing or how to give a talk.

- postdoc duration: there is a fair amount of variation in how long postdocs stay, depending on both personality and field of research. In our department postdocs, for example, postdoc positions vary widely, ranging from 1-2 years (eg computational sciences, chemistry) to 5-7 years (biomedical sciences).

- nationality: I don’t know if postdocs are actually more internationally diverse than grad students, but the implications of that diversity are often greater. Some postdocs might be preparing for a career in the current country, others might want to return to their home country, which makes it difficult to offer them the same kind of support. Some postdocs may have stayed in the same country for a long time and know the funding system inside-out, others may have moved country repeatedly and have only a vague idea about grant opportunities.

- family status: when I was in grad school three people in my year (<5%) had kids. In our postdoc group that percentage is way higher (I don’t have numbers, but would put it around 30-40%), and many more are in serious long-term relationships, some of which require long commutes (think two-body problem). Thus, organising postdoc events means dealing with people on very diverse schedules.

2. In addition postdocs are also often a smaller group than grad students. For example, at UPenn, we have as many postdocs in the School of Engineering as we have grad students in a single department of the school (Bioengineering). If fact, I have often heard disappointed faculty argue that postdocs “don’t make use of available resources”, because of low turnout at events. In my experience this is not the case: organising as a grad student and a postdoc I have found that turnout is typically around 30-40% - postdoc events simply seem less attended, because the base is so much smaller.

3. Finally, Postdocs frequently have lower visibility: whereas grad students are typically seen by many faculty during the recruitment process or during classes, it is not unusual for postdocs to encounter only their immediate working group. And unlike grad students, postdocs do not come in as part of a cohort, but at different times during the year, making it also difficult to plan things like orientation meetings, where postdocs are introduced to the department in a timely manner.

Seeing all of the above, it is a no-brainer why training postdocs can be difficult. On one hand problems are conceptual: Do you try to cater to everyone’s needs or just the majority? Do you try to help the “weakest link” (the people with least prior training) or advance people who are already at the front of the field? On the other hand, there are also plenty of practical issues: Do you adjust events to the term calendar, even if postdocs arrive and leave at different times? Do you organise the same events annually or every couple of years? Is it OK to have evening/weekend events? But these are not unsolvable dilemmas. Based on our experiences during the past two years, here are some practical suggestions*:

1. Pool resources/training opportunities with the grad school and/or other postdoc programmes close-by: for a single small postdoc program, it is impossible to cater to all needs. But more cross-talk between programs means more ground can be covered. Such cross-talk is most likely going to be a win-win situation, both because it bolsters participant numbers and because postdocs can contribute with their diverse experiences (eg in a “how to write a paper” seminar; even postdocs who want more formal training will have written at least one paper). Our postdoc programme certainly benefits from access to the events from UPenn’s Biomedical Programme, as well as a growing collaboration with GABE, our department’s graduate association.
   
   
2. Have a well(!)-written, up-to-date wiki/resource page AND make sure you tell incoming postdocs about this. As a postdoc looking for information about pretty much anything (taxes, health insurance, funding opportunities) I often feel like Arthur in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
   
   
   Once you know where to look and what you’re looking for, it can be easy to find, but occasionally I am completely blindsided by things I should have known. This can be especially problematic for foreign postdocs (I’ve written more about that here), and so telling postdocs ahead of time about resources can avoid a lot of frustration. A good time for this could be when the offer letter is sent or when postdocs deal with their initial admin. Our department still doesn’t have a streamlined process for this, but I often get personal enquiries, and I typically refer postdocs to either the National Postdoc Association's Survival Guide for more general advice or the aforementioned Biomedical Postdoc Program for more UPenn-related information.
   
   
3. Have an open dialogue with postdocs and listen to their needs: More often than not, I encounter PIs and admin who want to help postdocs. They provide training in areas they have identified as problematic, and given the diversity of the postdoc group most likely that training is genuinely needed by some. But often postdocs would like more: more diversity, other types of training or maybe they even completely different pressing issues. Yet, without open dialogue between departmental organisers and the postdoc community it’s hard to find out about these needs and wishes. Frustratingly, one tactic I encounter frequently is departmental organisers justifying the continuation or repetition of an event based on it's success, without ever asking the people who did not attend, or wondering if a different event would be equally well received. To build a good postdoc program, universities and departments need to get better at gauging needs and interests, even if this might mean re-thinking some events, or how current events are integrated into a bigger framework.
   This can be difficult. As a case in point, Arjun, my PI, likes to point out that, when asked, the vast majority of postdocs request training in how to get a faculty position. So departments organise events about getting faculty positions. In fact, I am swamped with opportunities to attend panel discussions on “How to get a job in academia”: we have an annual one in our School, multiple other departments at the university host such discussions and it’s a much-favored trainee event at conferences. But after seeing two or three such panels, there’s little additional information to be gained. This does not mean that departments should do away with such panels, but coordinating with other departments (see point 1) or mixing it up with other events (eg by rotating events in two to three year cycles) would provide the opportunity to cater to the additional interests of postdocs.
   Frequent topics I’ve heard postdocs ask for are management skills, teaching skills, grant writing and external feedback/mentoring by faculty. For us, successful new programs included participation in a Junior Investigators Symposium on campus, which included two most positively received sessions about writing K/R awards and a “speed mentoring” session, where faculty provided career feedback in a 10-minute, one-on-one setting. Similarly, postdocs at our school who are interested in teaching can partake in training opportunities by UPenn’s Center for Teaching and Learning, and those interested in industry and the business side of science can make use of a paid internship program by Penn’s Center for Innovation to learn about IP and commercialization. While only a small number of postdocs make use of these opportunities per year, the provide a very valuable complement to the programs offered by the school/department. 
   
   
4. Make a little bit of money go a long way: Many fledgling postdoc programs, such as ours, operate on a shoestring. Obviously, in an ideal world neither PIs nor administrative bodies should shy away from spending money on postdoc training - after all, postdocs are hired as trainees. But in reality it is often difficult to get substantial monetary support: individual PIs might not want to pay for events that are not of interest for their own postdocs (and not every event will cater for every postdoc) and admin may not see the return on investment for activities not directly related to research. However, you may have noticed that many of the above suggestions involved little or no additional financial resources: faculty are often more than willing to donate their time to postdoc events, postdocs themselves can contribute to resources such as wikis, and collaborations with other programs on campus can help cover smaller costs. In addition, individual postdocs may have grants or fellowships with money earmarked for training. Encouraging them to use those resources can be of great value, especially if they are willing to share some of the knowledge they gained. My EMBO postdoctoral fellowship paid for an amazing 3-day lab management course, and I am currently discussing with our graduate association to implement some of the training exercises that we were taught.

As my final point I’d like to say that I personally very rarely encounter faculty who consider postdocs  cheap labor. If anything, most PIs I talk to have their postdocs best interest at heart. Similarly, postdocs are often more than willing to organize events and mediate the needs of their fellows. However, in the long run the efforts of individual PIs and postdocs cannot replace a well-organized institutional program, which I think likely will require taking on board some of my above suggestions and building them into a more systematic training program.

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*The National Postdoc Association has a much more elaborate toolkit for setting up and maintaining a postdoc association and there's also a great article about initiating and maintaining a postdoc organisation by Bruckman and Sebestyen. However, not all postdoc groups have the manpower or momentum to directly dive into such an program, so the tips listed here are more to get postdocs involved initially and create that sense of community and momentum to build an association.

Last post ever on postdoc pay

Original post, first follow up, this post

Short intro: wrote a post about how I didn't like how some folks were (seemingly) bragging about how high they pay their postdocs on the internet, got a lot of responses, wrote a post with some ideas about how postdocs and PIs could approach the subject of pay. That was meant to deal with short term practical consequences. Here, I wanted to highlight some of the responses I got about aspects of postdoc pay that have to do with policy, likely with no surprises to anyone who's thought about this for more than a few minutes. Again, no answers here, just mostly reporting what I heard. So sorry, first part of the post is probably kind of boring. At the end, I'll talk about some things I learned about discussing this sort of thing on the internet.

First off, though, again, for the record, I support paying postdocs well and support the increased minimum. I think a minimum starting salary of $48K (however inadvertently that number was reached) seems to be a reasonable minimum to enforce across the US. Based on what, I dunno, honestly. I just think we need a flat national minimum: it would be hard/weird for NIH to do it by cost of living across the US, but at the same time, relying on institutions to set their own wage scales is ripe for abuse. More on that later.

Anyway, it is clear that one of the top concerns about postdoc pay was child care. No surprise there, postdoc time often coincides with baby time, and having kids is expensive, period. One can get into debates about whether one's personal life choices should figure into how much pay someone "deserves", but considering that the future of the human race requires kids, I personally think it's a thing we absolutely must be considering. There are no easy answers here, though. Igor Ulitsky summed it up nicely:

@erlichya @dgmacarthur @arjunrajlab biggest issue is by far the family part. $50k used to be ok for a single person in Cambridge, but 1/2

— Igor Ulitsky (@IgorUlitsky) December 4, 2016

@erlichya @dgmacarthur @arjunrajlab a family with 2 kids needs $90k. Problem is that paying based on fa. status discriminates as well 2/n

— Igor Ulitsky (@IgorUlitsky) December 4, 2016

@erlichya @dgmacarthur @arjunrajlab solution needs to be affordable daycare. 3/3

— Igor Ulitsky (@IgorUlitsky) December 4, 2016

I think Igor is absolutely right, an institutional child care subsidy is really the only way to do it. The problem otherwise is that the costs are so high for childcare that just paying everyone enough for childcare regardless of family status would quickly bankrupt most PIs' grants. But just paying more based on "need" has a lot of flaws. I think it was telling that at least some trainees said that they wouldn't begrudge their coworker with a kid if the PI paid them more. Well, what if your coworker had parents who lived with them? Or parents who could live with them? Or a spouse who earned a lot of money? Or was home from work often because of the kid? And how much extra should they be paid? Enough for "cadillac" child care? Bare minimum child care? I just don't think it's reasonable or wise for PIs to be making these decisions. If, on the other hand, the institution stepped in to make this a priority (as both my postdocs have argued), then this would solve a lot of problems. They could either provide a voucher applicable to local daycares or provide daycare itself at a heavily subsidized rate (I think Penn does provide a subsidy, but it's not much). This is, of course, a huge expense for institutions to take on, and I'm sure they won't do it willingly, but perhaps it's time to have that discussion. Anecdotally, I think there really has been a change—before, many academics would wait until getting a faculty position (maybe even tenure) before having kids, whereas now, many academics come into the faculty position with kids. I think this is good and important especially for women, and I think it's pushing this particular issue for postdocs into the foreground.

The other big issue folks brought up was diversity. Low wages mean that those without means face a pretty steep price for staying in science, potentially forcing them out, as this commenter points out from personal experience. I think this is a real problem, and again, no real answer here. I'm not convinced, however, that the postdoc level is where that gap typically emerges—I'm guessing that it's mostly at the decision to go to graduate school in the first place. (The many confounders likely make such analyses difficult to interpret, though I don't know much about it.) Which is in some ways perhaps a bit surprising, since unlikely medical/law/business school, you actually get paid to do a PhD (although I believe most analyses still suggest that you could earn more overall by just getting a job straight away, maybe depending on the field). Also, higher pay would mean fewer postdoc positions, making the top ones more competitive, thus potentially further hurting the chances for those facing bias, although my guess is that this latter concern would not outweigh the former on diversity.

Along these lines is the notion of opportunity cost, with at least a few people (typically computational) noting that the postdocs they want to hire can earn so much on the open market that if they didn't pay them a lot, it would be hard to get them. At the same time, interestingly, a couple trainees invoked the ideals of the free market, saying that people should be paid whatever they can earn. Hmm. Well, I think this gets into the question of what the cost of doing science is. All stages of scientist (from trainees to PIs) probably on average earn less than we could in private industry, with that differential varying by field and circumstance—that is the price for doing what we love. The obvious question is whether this sets up a system primed for abuse. There are some who are willing to work like a dog for next to nothing for the chance to keep doing science. For this reason, there has to be a reasonable minimum to ensure at least some degree of diversity in the talent pool. Beyond that, I personally have no problem with people paying above the minimum if they so choose (and institutional policies that prevent that strike me as pretty unfair and something to fight against). If this helps keep talented people in science, great!

The notion of a free-market approach to pay is an interesting one, one that led me to the following question about the cost of doing science. Let's say that I had a ton of money. Is there some amount of money I could pay to get a postdoc that I otherwise would lose to some big name PI? Like, let's say I paid my postdoc $1M per year. Well, I'd probably be getting a lot of top quality postdoc applications (although still probably not even close to all). But what about $100K? How much would that factor into someone's decision to do a postdoc with me? I venture to say that the answer is not much. How little would someone be willing to accept for the opportunity to work with a big name who could greatly aid their quest for a faculty job? All I can say is I'm glad there's a minimum. :)

I also learned a bit about online discussions on this topic. As I said in my first post, I was super reluctant to discuss this topic at all online, given the opportunity for misunderstanding and so forth. And sure enough, I got some of what I thought were unfairly accusatory responses. Which, of course, is something that I was guilty of myself (and I apologize to MacArthur for that). Hmm. I still stand by, sort of, my point that the original tweet from MacArthur came across in a way that was perceived by many as boastful, even if that was not his intent, and that that may not be the most productive way to start a discussion. That said, I also have to acknowledge that waiting for the "perfect" way to discuss the issue means waiting forever, and in the meantime, just saying something, anything, publicly can have an effect. Clearly the collective tweets, posts and responses on the topic (most are imperfect, though I particularly like this one from Titus Brown) are having the desired effect of engendering a discussion, which is good. And, as a practical matter, I'm hopeful that airing some of the institutional differences in postdoc pay may help both trainees and mentors (see some examples in my second post). It is clear that there's a lot of mystery shrouding the topic, both for trainees and PIs alike, and a little sunlight is a good thing.

All that said, I still think that in addition to online rants of various kinds, with an issue this complex, it's pretty important for us all to talk with each other face to face as well. After all, we're all on the same team here. Academia is a small world, and while it's important to disagree, personal attacks generally serve nobody… and might as well be transparent about who you're disagreeing with so they can disagree back:

.@arjunrajlab Finally: you can stop subtweeting me. I can handle being named in your posts; and anyone who wants to can search text anyway.

— Daniel MacArthur (@dgmacarthur) December 4, 2016

@dgmacarthur Sure thing, sorry, I guess your Twitter feed has provided some inspiration a few times… :)

— Arjun Raj (@arjunrajlab) December 4, 2016

@arjunrajlab I like to consider myself your arrogant Boston muse.

— Daniel MacArthur (@dgmacarthur) December 4, 2016

(In my defense, the only reason I "subtweeted" is that I really didn't want to call MacArthur out personally because his was just the latest tweet out of many of this kind I had seen. And I suppose it worked in that many people I know who read the post indeed had no idea who I was referring to. But giving him the chance to respond is probably on balance the right thing to do.)

Anyway, while I have not met MacArthur in person, I'm guessing we'll probably cross paths at some point, at which point my main concern is that we'll discover we agree on many things and so I won't have anything else to write about… :)

Some less reluctant(ish) follow up thoughts on postdoc pay

(Original post, this post, second follow up)

Well, looks like that last post incited some discussion! tl;dr from that post: I wrote that I found tweeting about how high you pay your postdocs above what most other labs pay to be off-putting. There are many factors that go into pay, and I personally don't think talking about how much you yourself pay is a productive way to discuss the important issue of postdoc pay in general. Even if the intent is not to boast, it certainly comes across as boastful to a number of people, which turns them off from the conversation. To be clear, I also said that I support paying postdocs well and support the increased minimum. It's the perceived boast, not the intent, that I have issue with.

So I learned a LOT from the feedback! Lots of comments, fair number of tweets (and these things called "subtweets"; yay internet!) and several personal e-mails and messages—more on all that in a later post; suffice it to say there's a "diversity of opinion". Anyway, okay, I said that I didn't like this particular way of bringing about discussion about postdoc pay. But at the same time, I do think it's a good thing to discuss, and discuss openly. Alright, so it's easy for me to criticize others about their tweets or whatever, but what, then, do I think is a good way to discuss things? Something I've been thinking about, and so I want to write a couple posts with some ideas and thoughts.

Overall, I think there are two somewhat separate issues at play. One is the immediate, practical issue of how to increase awareness of the problems people have and bring about some better outcomes in the near-term. The other is long-term policy goals and values that I will bring up in a later post (with relatively few ideas on what specifically to do, sorry).

So, to the first point, one of the things I learned is how surprisingly mysterious the subject of postdoc pay is, both to prospective postdocs and to PIs alike. Morals and high-minded policy discussions aside, seems like many just don't know some basic practical matters that can have a real impact. Anyway, here's a few relatively off the cuff suggestions of things to think about based on what I've heard, and feel free to add to the list.

First, for potential postdocs, the main thing to do is to remember that while science should in my opinion be the primary factor in choosing a postdoc, pay is another important factor and one you should definitely not shy away from, awkward though it may seem. I think advocacy begins here, on a practical level, by advocating for yourself. Keeping in mind that I haven't hired that many postdocs and I'm not sure how some of these ideas might hold up in practice, here is some information and some ideas for trainees on how to approach pay:

• Ask about pay relatively early on, perhaps once there's real interest on both sides, during or maybe better after a visit (dunno on that). It may be uncomfortable, but at least make sure that it's clear that it's on your radar as a thing to discuss. Doesn't mean that you have to come to a hard number right away, but signal that it's worth talking about.
• Before having such a discussion, it's worth thinking about what number seems fair to you. There is the NIH minimum, and then there's your life situation and location and so forth. You are an adult with a PhD, so take stock of what you think you need to be happy and productive, and don't be afraid of saying so. What can help with this is to think about what you might otherwise make outside of academia, or what the average cost of living is in your area, our your particular personal situation, or whatever other factors, and come up with a number. Having some rationalization for your number, whatever it may be, is important to help you maintain fortitude when you do discuss pay and not feel like you're being impudent. Remember that the PI probably finds this awkward as well, and so having guidance can actually help both parties! And if you're a decent candidate, you may have a surprising amount of bargaining power. At the same time, remember that the PI may have their own expectations for the discussion (which may include not having the conversation!), and so you may catch them a bit off guard, depending.
• Some basic orientation about pay: the major national guideline comes from the NIH. The NIH sets a *minimum for fellowship* pay. This used to be ~$42K a year for a starting postdoc, and then there was some labor ruling that caused that to increase to ~$48K a year. Institutions often follow this NIH guidance to set up their pay guidelines. This ruling got overturned recently, and so now some institutions have gone back to $42K starting, while some others have not. These are the national guidelines for a baseline. Clearly, some places in the country are going to be more expensive than others.
• This is the NIH guidance on the minimum. At some places, yes, you can definitely be paid more than the minimum (apparently, many trainees didn't know that). At some places, there are institutional rules that prevent PIs from paying more than the minimum or some other defined number or range. At some places, there are institutional rules that require PIs to pay above the minimum. If the PI has flexibility, they may have their own internal lab policy on pay, including a "performance raise" if you get a fellowship. And it's also possible that the PI just doesn't have any clue about any of this and just goes along with what HR tells them. At the same time, keep in mind that the PI does manage a team with existing players, and they must manage issues of fairness as well. Anyway, point is ask, do not ever assume.
• Some points of reference. Many (most?) postdocs work for the NIH minimum (which of course does not mean you should or should not, necessarily). Stanford institutionally starts at $50K. As mentioned last time, some folks pay $60K (Tweet was from Daniel MacArthur, who has asked that I not subtweet, sorry). Right or wrong, clearly some PIs take issue with this. I've heard of some fellowships that went up north of $80K. I think that $80K is probably considered by most to be a pretty eye-poppingly high salary for a postdoc, but dunno, I'm old now. Computational work often pays more than straight biology because a lot of those folks could make so much in industry that it's harder to attract them for less (maybe $10K+ premium?). Math often pays higher than biology because postdocs are considered sort of like junior faculty. Physics often pays better as well, perhaps dependent on whether you have some named fellowship. Anyway, you have an advanced degree, do some homework. I think it makes sense to be sure your number reflects your self-assessed worth but is within reasonable norms, however you choose to define "reasonable".
• As in any negotiation, there may be back and forth. As this happens, you may have areas in which you are flexible, and maybe the PI is flexible. It is also possible that the PI is unable or unwilling to bend on pay. At that point, it is up to you to make the decision about whether that sacrifice is worth it for you. There are of course further policy discussions that must happen in this regard, but for now, this is what you are faced with, and it's your decision to make.
• It is possible that PIs may not even know all the options for pay. Sometimes, there is some institutional inertia on "how they do things" that everyone just goes along with. This can be hard to find out until you get there and find out who to ask, though.
• There are often some hidden costs, and it's worth considering what those may be in your case. These can include things like out of pocket payments for health insurance (including family), gym memberships, and various other benefits. Note that sometimes these costs can vary depending on your official position at the institution, which in turn can change depending on whether you have a fellowship or whatever (sometimes, a fellowship reduces your status, thus costing you more for many things, ironically). There may be some sort of child care benefit or something, or at least access to the university daycare. And there may be some commuting benefits, in case that's relevant. Some places are able to cover moving costs if the PI wishes.
• There are a host of issues for foreign postdocs, and someone more knowledgeable than I should probably write about them, but some costs I've seen are visa costs (sometimes paid by institution, sometimes not, very confusing), and also travel costs associated with yearly return visits to the home country for visa purposes. These return visits, by the way, may be avoidable with longer contracts, which may or may not be available, which was something I just learned recently myself.
• For a lot of the above hidden costs, the PI may not even realize that these sorts of things are going on, and they may be willing to help. There is a possibility that they can cover some of these costs, depending on institutional rules, or maybe it can be a rationale to negotiate a higher salary.

Here are some thoughts for PIs, probably mostly for junior people (which I still consider myself, but I'm probably just kidding myself). Most of these I'm just kind of making up on the spot, being a relatively inexperienced postdoc-hirer myself:

• It took me a while to learn all the intricacies of what constitutes pay. What are the pay scales? What can I pay for? Moving costs? Commuting costs? Benefits? I still don't think I fully understand all of this, but I wish I had a better understanding when I started. When I started, it was like "you can hire a postdoc, here you go."
• I'm still not fully clear on all the hidden costs to my people and what benefits they get, and I should really brush up on that, potentially making a plain English document for new lab members.
• At the institutional level, it took me a while to disentangle what is actual policy on things like pay vs. what is just "the way we have always done it". Breaking these unofficial rules gave me some flexibility to do good things for my people.
• I am thinking of developing a coherent lab policy on pay, explicitly stating what I will and will consider when figuring out overall pay level, relative pay between people, etc. I haven't really worried about it so far, and that's been fine, but having something like that would really help. I guess that's sort of obvious, so maybe I'm just sort of late to this bit of common sense. Am I alone in that?
• I think in the course of coming up with such a policy on pay, I'll probably think about exactly what my values are, what these kids' opportunity costs are, and how much I think is reasonable to live on in Philly. I mean, I kinda do this already, but haven't really thought about it very seriously, and periodic reexamination seems appropriate.
• I'm not entirely sure I would share this policy within the lab, though. Thing is, everyone's circumstances are different, and exceptions are frankly pretty much the rule. I think the point is just to have some sort of internal guidance so that at least you won't forget about anything when deliberating.
• I'm wondering whether and to what extent it's worth discussing lab cost management with the people in your lab so that they see how the sausage gets made. I had one trainee who was surprised to find out (not from me, but rather from Penn HR) exactly how much their pay actually counted against a grant once all the benefits and so forth were added in. There is an argument to be made (that I've mostly subscribed to) that postdocs should just focus on their work and not worry about the lab bills. There's another argument to be made that sharing such information gives people a sense of the true costs of running a lab for training purposes. Then again, it's a fine line between being informative and passive-aggressive. Dunno on this one.

Anyway, who knows if this will help anything, but consider this my contribution to the discussion for now. While it certainly won't solve all the problems out there, given the surprising lack of knowledge out there, perhaps this information will be of some use. More in another post later on policy things that came up, as well as how to talk about these things on the internet.

Some (reluctant) thoughts on postdoc pay

Update 12/7/2016: (first follow up here, second follow up here)

I have generally steered well clear of the issue of postdoc pay, which engenders pretty heated conversations that I'm SO not interested in getting into publicly, but one thing I'm seeing is really bugging me these days: people bragging on Twitter about how much they pay their postdocs above the NIH minimum. Like this:

I don't mean to single these folks out—it just happened that I saw these tweets most recently—but I've seen a few such statements over the last year or so since the announcement that the mimimum for salaried workers would be increased to ~$48K or so (which was just recently reversed).

Why is this irritating? Well, first of all, in this funding climate, and given many labs that have to make many tough choices, it does strike me as a bit arrogant to talk about how much more you can afford to pay than many, many other very well-intentioned scientists. The implication is that people who don't pay as much as you do are paying an abusively low amount, which is I think an unfair charge. For these reasons (and maybe a few others), I just don't think it's really appropriate to publicly talk about how much you pay your people. For the record, I support paying postdocs well, and I think the increase is overall a good idea. My point here will be that there is not an obvious default "right" position on the issue of postdoc pay, and I think it is far more complex than just saying "We should pay postdocs a decent wage."

Indeed, I think the key difficulty is pinning down exactly what we mean by the notion of "decent wage". For instance, in the first tweet above, the PI is from Cambridge/Boston, and the second is from NYC. Now, the proposed federal regulation for starting postdocs is (was) $47,484, and that would apply everywhere. Including, say, Ann Arbor, Michigan (which I choose for no particular reason other than it's home to a major, world-class research institution, but in a relatively affordable location). Now, comparing the cost of living of any two places is tricky, but I found this estimate that Boston is roughly 1.4x as pricey as Ann Arbor (which sounds probably about right). Bragging about paying $60K? Well, shouldn't that be $66K? Live in Cambridge MA instead? No better, $76K. So let's stop crowing about how "decently" the Broad Institute pays, okay?

So, is $60K "fair"? Hmm. From the PI perspective: a Boston PI could say, well my dollars don't go as far, so in a way, doesn't the Michigan PI have an unfair advantage? Then again, the Michigan PI could say hey, why do I have to pay more (relatively speaking) for my postdocs? Why does the Boston PI not have to pay the same effective wages I do? Why should they not have an enforced effective minimum standard pay and have the freedom to pay effectively less?

The motivation of PIs may also matter here as well. The focus in the discussion has been on PIs taking advantage of cheap labor, and that definitely happens. But some PIs may define their mission as training as many scientists as possible, which certainly seems reasonable to me, at least from one point of view. (And I do wonder how often those who brag about paying so much above the minimum have actually had to make the tough choice of turning away a talented postdoc candidate due to constrained funding.)

From the NIH perspective: what is the goal? To get as much science as "efficiently" as possible? To train people? To create a stable scientific workforce? Or to better human health? Should the NIH even allow people in high cost of living areas to pay their postdocs more? Would it be fair to consider this pay scale in grant review, just as other areas of budgets are scrutinized? Does increasing the minimum penalize those who pay the minimum in non-Boston/SF locations unfairly, thus increasing inequity? Or does it provide a general boost for those places, now making them more attractive because their NIH minimum dollars go further? Should the NIH scale the size of grant by cost of living in the area of the host institution? To what extent should the NIH support diversity of locations, anyway?

From the trainee perspective: It's pretty easy for trainees to say that whatever they're paid right now is not fair (though you might be surprised how little many assistant professors make). So for trainees reading this post, let me ask: what would be fair? Okay, maybe now you have a number in your head. Where does that number come from? Is it based on need? Consider: should a postdoc who has a family be paid more? Wait a minute, what about the postdoc without a family? What about immigrants with expensive visa costs? Or potentially families to support in their home country? Moving costs? Commuting costs? Should postdocs be paid more when the institution is in an expensive city? Should postdocs be forced to live further away from the institute to seek more affordable housing? My point is that there is no clear line between necessity and luxury, and wherever that blurry line does get drawn will be highly dependent on a trainee's circumstances and choices.

Or should that number be based on performance? Should the postdoc entering the lab with a flashy paper or two be paid more than the one without? Should a postdoc get a raise every time they publish a paper, scaled by how important the paper is? How many grants it generates? I think it's reasonable to assume that such an environment would be toxic within a lab, but wouldn't the same be true of pay based on personal circumstance, as just discussed above? And isn't such performance-based pay already what's sort of happening at a more global level in flush institutes where PIs can get enough grants to pay well above the minimum?

As you have probably noticed, this post has way more question marks than periods, and I don't claim to know the answers to any of these questions. I have thoughts, like everyone else, and I'm happy to talk about them in person, where nuance and human connection tend to breed more consensus than discord. My point is that reducing all this to a single number is sort of ridiculous, but that's how it works, and so that's what we all have to start from, along with various institutional prerogatives. In the meantime, given how simplistic it is to reduce this discussion to a single number, can we please stop with the public postdoc pay-shaming?

Honesty, integrity, academia, industry

[Note added 7/22/2016 below in response to comments]

Implicit in my last post about reputation in science was one major assumption: that honesty and integrity are important in academia. The reason I left this implicit is because it seems so utterly obvious to us in academia, given that the truth is in many ways our only real currency. In industry, there are many other forms of currency, including (but not limited to) actual currency. And thus, while we value truth first and foremost in academia, I think that in some areas of industry, even those perhaps closely related to academia, the truth is just one of many factors to weigh in their final analysis. This leads to what I consider to be some fairly disturbing decision making.

It’s sort of funny: many very talented scientists I know have left academia because they feel like in industry, you’re doing something that is real and that really matters, instead of just publishing obscure papers that nobody reads. And in the end, it's true: if you buy an iPhone, it either works or doesn’t work, and it’s not really a debatable point most of the time. And I think most CEOs of very successful companies (that actually make real things that work) are people with a lot of integrity. Indeed, one of the main questions in the Theranos story is how it could have gotten so far with a product that clearly had a lot of issues that they didn’t admit to. Is Theranos the rare anomaly? Or are there a lot more Elizabeth Holmes’s out there, flying under the radar with a lower profile? Based on what I’ve heard, I’m guessing it’s the latter, and the very notion that industry cares about the bottom line of what works or doesn’t has a lot of holes in it.

Take the example of a small startup company looking for venture capital funding. Do the venture capitalists necessarily care about the truth of the product the company is selling or the integrity of the person selling it? To me, from academia, I thought this would seem to be of paramount importance. However, from what I’ve been hearing, turns out I was completely wrong. Take one case I’ve heard of where (to paraphrase) someone I know was asked by venture capitalists at some big firm or another to comment on someone they were considering funding. This person then related some serious integrity issues with this person to the venture capitalists. To which the venture people said something like “We hear what you’re saying. Thing is, I gotta say, a lot of people we look at make up their degrees and stuff like that. We just don’t really care.” A lot of people make up their degrees, and we just don’t really care. A number of other people I know have told me versions of the same thing: they call the venture capitalists (or the venture capitalists even call them), they raise their concerns, and the venture people just don’t want to hear it.

Let’s logic this out a bit. The question is why venture capitalists don’t care whether the people they fund are liars. Let’s take as a given that the venture capitalists are not idiots. One possible reason that they may not care is that it’s not worth their time to find out whether someone has faked their credentials. Well, given that the funding is often in the millions and it probably takes an underling half a day with Google and a telephone to verify someone’s credentials, I think that’s unlikely to be the issue (plus, it seems that even when lies are brought to their attention, they just don’t care). So now we are left with venture capitalists knowingly funding unscrupulous people. From here, there are a few possibilities. One is that someone could be a fraud personally but still build a successful business in the long term. Loathe as I am to admit it, this is entirely possible—I haven’t run a business, and as I pointed out in the last post, there are definitely people in science who are pretty widely acknowledged as doing shoddy work, and yet it doesn’t (always) seem to stick. Moreover, there was the former dean of college admissions at MIT, who appeared to be rather successful at her job until it came out that (you can’t make this stuff up) that she faked her college degrees. I do think, however, that the probability of a fraudulent person doing something real and meaningful in the world is probably considerably less than the infamous 1 out of 10 ratio of success to failure that venture people always bandy about, or at least considerably less than someone who's not a Faker McFakerpants. Plus, as the MIT example shows, there’s always the risk that someone finds out about it, and it leads to a high-profile debacle. Imagine if Elizabeth Holmes said that she actually graduated from Stanford (instead of admitting to dropping out (worn as a badge of honor?)). Would there be any chance she would have taken her scam this far without someone blowing the whistle? Overall, I think there’s a substantial long term risk in funding liars and cheats (duh?).

Another possibility, though, is that venture capitalists will fund people who are liars and cheats because they don’t care about building a viable long term business. All they care about is pumping the business up and selling it off to the next bidder. Perhaps the venture capitalists will invest in a charming con-artist because someone not, ahem, constrained by the details of reality might be a really good salesman. I don’t know, but the cynic in me says that this may be the answer more often than not. One might say, well, whatever, who cares if some Silicon Valley billionaires lose a couple million dollars. Problem is, implicit in this possibility is that somebody is losing out, most likely some other investors along the way. Just as bad, rewarding cheaters erodes everyone’s sense of trust in the system. This is particularly aggravating in cases when the company is couched in moral or ethical terms—and in situations where patient health is involved, everything suddenly becomes that much more serious still.

Overall, one eye-opening aspect of all this for me as an academic is that while we value integrity, skepticism and evidence very highly, business values things like “passion” more than we do. I don’t know that an imposition of academic values would have necessarily caught something like Theranos earlier on and all the other lesser known cases out there, but I would like to think that it would. Why are these values not universal, though? After all, our role in academia is that of evaluation, of setting a bar that employers value. In a way, our student’s aren’t really paying for an education per se—rather, they are paying for our evaluation, which is a credential that will get them a job; in a sense, it’s their future employers that are paying for the degree. Why doesn’t this work when someone fakes a degree? When someone fakes data?

Here’s a thought. One way to counter the strategy of funding fakers and frauds would be for us to make this information public. It would be very difficult, then, to pump up the value of the company with such a cloud hanging over it, and so I think this would be a very effective deterrent. The biggest problem with this plan is the law. Making such information public can lead to big defamation lawsuits directed at the university and perhaps the faculty personally, and I’ve heard of universities losing these lawsuits even if they have documented proof of the fraud. So naturally, universities generally advise faculty against any public declarations of this sort. I don’t know what to do about that. It seems that with the laws set up the way they are, this option is just not viable most of the time.

I think the only real hope is that venture capitalists eventually decide that integrity actually does matter for the bottom line. I certainly don't have any numbers on this, but I know of at least one venture capital firm that claims success rates of 4 in 10 by taking a long view and investing carefully in the success of the people and ventures they fund. I would assume that integrity would matter a lot in that process. And I really do believe that at the end of the day in industry, integrity and reality really do trump hype and salesmanship, just like in academia. I don’t know a lot of CEOs, but one of my heroes is Ron Cook, CEO of Biosearch Technologies, a great scientist, businessman, and a person of integrity. I think it’s not coincidental that Ron has a PhD. For real.

Update in response to comments, 7/22/2016:
Got a comment from Anonymous and Sri saying that this post is overblowing the issue and unfairly impugns the venture capital industry. I would agree that perhaps some elements of this post are a bit overblown, and I certainly have no idea what the extent of this particular issue (knowingly funding fakers) is. This situation probably doesn't come up in the majority of cases, and it may be relatively rare. All that said, I understand that my post is short on specifics and data when it comes to funding known fakers and looking the other way, but I think it will be impossible to get data on this for the very same reason: fear of defamation lawsuits. You just can't say anything specific without being targeted by a defamation suit that you will probably lose even if you have evidence of faking. So where are you going to get this data from?

And it's true that I personally don't have enough anecdotes to consider this data. But I can say that essentially every single person I've discussed this with tells me the same thing: even if you say something, the venture capitalists won't care. In at least some cases, they have specific personal examples.

Also, note that I am not directly calling out the integrity of the venture capitalists themselves, but rather just pointing out that personal integrity of who they fund is not necessarily as big a factor in their decision making as I would have thought. My point is not so much about the integrity of venture capitalists—I suspect they are just optimizing to their objective function, which is return on investment. I just think that it's shady at a societal level that the integrity of who they fund is apparently less important to them than we in academia would hope. Let me ask you this: in your department, would you hire someone on the faculty knowing that they had faked their degree? I'm guessing the answer is no, and for good reason. The question is why those same reasons don't matter when venture capital are deciding who to fund.