Jim Austin, Unplugged jim160_2005.jpg Like many of the folks here at Next Wave my professional journey has been radically nonlinear. I was a North Carolina newspaper reporter with an undergraduate degree in physics, writing about wastewater treatment plants, school board meetings, and church socials, when the physics department at the University of North Carolina offered me a pay raise to go back...
In an article in this week's Career Development Center, Robert Austin explains his theories on managing knowledge workers. Here he discusses how those theories might apply in a laboratory setting. CDC: The typical academic laboratory employs "agents" with a wide range of expertise and experience, from the unmotivated undergraduate student who understands little about the work, to the experienced ...
It seems as if the whole world has a problem with its scientists. Governments and scientific institutions in North America, Europe, and elsewhere have expressed concerns over their nations' futures, concerns that are rooted in changes in the scientific workforce. Early career scientists are likely to agree that there's a problem, but that's about as far as the agreement is likely to go. If you as...
Agricultural Research Agricultural Research There's a special intensity that comes with leaving home and working hard in a new place. Few experiences are more important for young scientists than the opportunity to actually do science, as opposed to just reading about it in a textbook. That first research experience is when many young scientists first realize that imagination, problem-solving skil...
The fundamentals of energy production have changed little since higher apes first learned to heat and cook with fire. Although nuclear fission, photovoltaics, wind, and water now meet a small portion of the world population's energy needs, humans today get most of our energy the same way the cave people did: directly from the sun or from fire. The only things that have changed are what we choose ...
From the Science's Next Wave archives: A management expert provides insight into the challenges of managing knowledge-based enterprises--like your laboratory.
These days the path to scientific independence is long and steep. But every year a new cohort of scientists makes it to the top, thanks to lots of hard work, determination, talent, and at least a little good luck. This week, we celebrate the success of the new faculty class by profiling eight early career researchers from the United States and Europe who this year came of age, beginning their fir...
Science classroom (National Science Foundation) (Photo: National Science Foundation) Scientists are a diverse lot, but they typically share one characteristic: When it comes to their research, they are perfectionists. Which is why some aspects of academic employment can be painful to the average scientist. Consider institutional service, an activity that's widely reviled. Why is committee work so...
Lecture hall, University of Innsbruck Tenure may not be a rock-solid guarantee of permanent employment and academic freedom, but it's unquestionably a crucial professional milestone for academic scientists. Even if guaranteed lifetime unemployment isn't a professional priority, not getting fired probably is. And that's an interesting thing about the tenure track: Either you win a lifetime-employm...
It happens frequently. In conversation with a colleague from a research university, I describe my six-course teaching load and a laboratory staffed only with undergraduate students: no technicians, no grad students, and no postdocs. My colleague looks at me like I'm either crazy or superhuman. Or both. I am neither. After 6 years of teaching and doing research at Bates College, a small liberal ar...
By some estimates, more than half the postdocs in U.S. science labs are foreign born. Insecurity is the rule, because most are supported by research grants, and many reside in the U.S. on temporary visas. Meanwhile, many Americans have decided that foreign-born scientists pose a security risk--not because they are here, but because they are likely to leave. We depend on them, says a draft report ...
When the first high-temperature superconductors were reported 20 years ago, expectations for the field were high, but those expectations have mostly remained unfulfilled.
In connection with Science magazine's Breakthrough of the Year, we sought out some of the people who today are applying new technologies to the advancement of evolutionary science.
Employment in the chemical industry has been slow for several years. But chemists with the right skills have been finding jobs anyway, and today, prospects for young chemists with industrial aspirations are improving.
