This document is largely adapted from the Cheng Lab at UC Berkeley.
What you can expect from me:
Advice: You can expect me to push you towards greater independence and help you achieve good results. More specifically:
General directions: You can expect me to share my overview of the research field, and in particular, what is the frontier.
Specific directions for each project: You can expect me to propose one or more research projects, and you are encouraged to propose yours at any time while you are in the group. During each project, you can expect me to help you interpret results, help you decide on next steps and help you prioritize those next steps (but will strive to guide your thinking rather than do it for you).
Meetings: You can expect me to meet with you regularly to discuss progress and future plans. The baseline for the meetings will be about once per week. Within this time, you will have my undivided attention. The frequency and the length of the meetings can be adjusted depending on the stage of your research. See ✍️Meeting Structure.
Emails and slack: You can expect me to return emails or slack messages relatively quickly, whenever possible. If somehow I don’t respond within a day or so for no obvious reason (e.g. traveling), please send a reminder.
Papers: You can expect me to help you prepare papers and edit drafts of written work. When you send me a draft, you can expect a response within 1-2 weeks in most cases, if not sooner.
Annual reviews: You can expect me to go over your development plan with you at least once per year to see if you are on track for your goals and help you overcome any challenges.
Career development: You can expect me to be supportive of your career development. More concretely:
Reference letters: You can expect me to send reference letters on time. Clear and advanced (>= 1 week) notice is generally expected. See ✉️Letters of Recommendation.
Grants and fellowships: You can expect me to encourage and support you to apply for your own grants or fellowships. If appropriate, I can share my past proposals with you. You can expect me to provide general advice about grant writing, and provide broad feedback on the drafts of proposals. See 🏆Fellowships and Awards.
Job applications: You can expect me to give advice on job applications, including faculty, postdoc, staff scientists and industrial positions. If I know an opening that may be appropriate for you, I will pass the information. Generally, I encourage you to do a dry run of the job talk in front of the lab, so we can all give feedback.
Network: You can expect me to introduce you to my scientific collaborators and friends, whenever possible.
Financial and research support: You can expect me to provide full funding for your salary, computing resources, and other reasonable research costs (e.g. a laptop, desk, books, conferences, scientific visits) during your contract.
Conferences: You can expect me to send you to one conference/workshop per year if possible (preferably more if we can afford it or if you get your own funding). I will not always keep track of which conference is suitable for you, so please keep an eye on it and propose which ones you want to go to! See ✈️Conferences.
Fairness and wellbeing: You can expect me to do my best to promote a fair and fruitful work environment. If there is any incident that makes you feel unjust or discriminated against, please do not hesitate to talk to me face-by-face. If you have any issue related to your physical or mental wellbeing, please let me know.
Family-friendly policy: You can expect me to be understanding of your family plans. If you have certain family duties, we can make a work plan that best accommodates that.
What I expect from you:
Good research:
I expect you to conduct research with the utmost scientific integrity. Never manipulate data or plagiarize written work (even if it’s your own previous work).
I expect you to push yourself out of your comfort zone and do something that you thought was not possible. By the time you leave, I expect you to try to become an unambiguous expert of a certain topic. For research output, I expect you to prioritize quality over quantity but to maintain steady and tangible progress.
I expect you to develop a broad overview of the field. This means having a good knowledge of the key literature and the history of the field but also having your own interpretation.
Good citizenship:
I expect you to treat all of your lab mates with respect. Each person is an important contributor to our team that we can learn from.
I expect you to support and help your fellow lab mates, particularly the new members of the group.
I expect you to do your fair share of the “chores” of the lab, as needed.
Wellbeing: I expect you to actively take care of your own wellbeing. If there is anything that the whole group can do to help your wellbeing, please let us know.
Data management:
I expect you adopt a good file management system and to back up files. See 🏦Data Backups.
For each paper, I expect every step to be reproducible. At the end of the project, you will be expected to share your data and scripts with the community. See📝Publishing Process.
Communications and team building:
If you don’t understand, ask questions, don’t be silent!
I expect you to attend all of the private meetings with me and the lab meetings, unless there is a reason why you cannot attend, in which case please let me know in advance.
I expect you to be communicative of what you need to be productive and happy. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you think there is anything about my supervision or the lab management that can be improved.
I encourage you to try to attend most of the lab activities.
Career development:
I expect you to think strategically about your career plans. Actively go to conferences, network, and practice skills for giving talks.
Working hours:
Office hours: I expect you to be present in the lab for most of the hours between 10am-4pm on weekdays (except for holidays) as that is when most of the lab activities and collaborative discussions can occur. The remainder of your work time can be whenever you wish and flexibility in schedule is a perk of the job. Please let me know of any extended travel that you plan. See 😴Vacation Policy.
Working from home: I expect you to pick a work schedule that is best for you and for your development. For most, that will probably involve working more than the conventional 40 hrs/week in order to reach your full potential. The general guideline is to work hard and stay happy. If at any point your current work schedule interferes with your wellbeing, prioritize your wellbeing.
Problem solving: I expect you to solve problems as independently as you can, although I am always here to help.
I expect you to habitually exploit online resources and develop a systematic workflow for debugging. The overall suggestions are: 1) read the manual (if applicable), 2) search any pertinent GitHub issue page and potentially open up an issue yourself if needed, 3) Google the error messages that you are getting, 4) Claude/ChatGPT. When you do ask for help, if it is non-trivial (or done on GitHub), make the bug reproducible and describe the problem clearly with a minimal example.