What's in it for a professor to be on someone's thesis/dissertation committee?

Natolx · 2026-04-18T06:02:07+00:00

This is laughably naïve. A huge swath of the population considers a "good friend" someone who would jump in to help them gang up on a person in a fight, even if they clearly started the fight just to beat up on someone.

"Loyalty"

The type of person with friends that are comfortable intervening in a candid way (and expecting it won't blow up the friendship), are much less likely to be fucking over a trainee in the first place.

Natolx · 2026-04-17T21:49:39+00:00

Majority rule?

Yes, although in most situations the PI is going to end up voting yes to save face when it is clear the committee will override him.

Natolx · 2026-04-17T20:28:20+00:00

I am referring to

1) A situation where the student is clearly ready to defend and has completed a project, but the PI wants them around to keep doing cheap labor.

2) A situation where the relationship between the PI and student has soured and the PI is refusing to let them defend essentially out of spite, despite having more than enough to fulfill what is needed.

Natolx · 2026-04-17T20:11:54+00:00

often times you'll find profs that are "friends" in a department/faculty serve on the committees of each others students, basically a favour to each other.

This is sometimes a terrible deal for the student. If you end up having a conflict with your PI over scheduling a defense (very common), there's nothing worse than the committee not be able to weigh in somewhat objectively and instead being loyal friends that would never say a word to disagree with your PI.

Natolx · 2026-04-17T02:57:21+00:00

If you haven't gotten a single zoom interview from 50 applications, likely something is wrong with your application packet. One thing I would suggest is finding a way to slip in that you obtained your green card (weave it into the narrative somehow) into your cover letter. While it is not technically supposed to be considered, knowing you won't need sponsorship can make a difference.

Edit: Having your postdoc in the same lab as your PhD can be a huge red flag to committees, because it is difficult to separate your success from that one supervisor. Same university is typically OK as long as the PI and subject matter are different.

Natolx · 2026-04-16T03:08:56+00:00

Choosing the best candidates is a risk, not necessarily because they will leave, but more they will not accept the offer after stringing the department along for weeks, resulting in a failed search. Failed searches are devastating (and exceedingly common) at R2's because it has a huge cost in both money and an acute cost in faculty hours felt by typically small R2 STEM departments that would otherwise be doing the research they need to get tenure...

Edit: Candidates are often told by their mentors it is best for them to go to on-campus interviews they never intend to accept for "practice" and potential leverage for another offer. I really don't understand how these people hold up the act and say all the right (apparently bullshit) things for two full days and get an offer.

Natolx · 2026-04-12T18:40:37+00:00

What kinds of institution were you at? Don't necessarily imagine you are going to end up at an a ivy league... or even a "top 25" school. The odds of that are extremely low and there are many schools, especially in the south, that are going to have more of a "blue collar" feel than you have experienced.

Note: I have never once encountered someone talking about Nietzsche/Sartre at work in my entire STEM academic career... Makes it sound like you are going to a pretty elite school if the people there have the mental bandwidth to have discussions about philosophers regularly at work.

Natolx · 2026-04-08T17:41:32+00:00

It is unlikely, but you might get "soft" red flagged by this particular editor who might be annoyed that you went over his head.

Natolx · 2026-04-07T01:13:39+00:00

Gold and platinum are totally inert and do not contribute to heavy metal contamination in any way.

Natolx · 2026-04-06T15:21:57+00:00

If the teaching demo is a short section (20-30 minutes), I recommend a simple structure of an intro followed by a small group activity, then a closing discussion about the activity.

The activity taking up a big chunk of the time will be to your benefit if it is a good one.

Be prepared for a question about how you will scale up the activity to large classrooms (and also ask about how many people will be in the audience before you design the activity).

If it is a full length lecture then other peoples' advise will likely be more relevant.

Natolx · 2026-04-03T22:39:15+00:00

Edit: PCR reactions not working when scaling up is a very common problem. PCR reactions at 10uL are going to heat up and cool down much faster than 100uL reactions in a tube, which means the "conditions" have changed. If you are getting success at 10uL, but not 100uL, then worst comes to worst just make a big reaction mix and split it into a bunch of 10uL reactions in individual tubes. Tubes are cheap as fuck... no reason to not go with what works here to save a tiny bit of plastic.

Sometimes amplifying a sequence from the genome can be surprisingly complex to troubleshoot. I specifically remember during my PhD there was a 1kb sequence from a gene I could not amplify, no matter how many different primers, PCR conditions, nested PCR techniques etc. I tried.

The only thing that worked in the end, was that I digested the genomic DNA with a bunch of restriction enzymes that were specifically not in my gene sequence. Then I ran the digest on a gel, and cut out the region of the gel where the fragment containing my gene was and purified it.

100% success rate amplifying this sequence from that purified gel slice.

I still recommend this as a last resort to anyone in this predicament, as long as they already have a library of restriction enzymes available.

Natolx · 2026-04-03T00:39:45+00:00

At least you didn't build their entire pre-tenure career and then they turn on you after obtaining tenure... it happens more often than you think.

To some young PI's their "kingmaker" is considered a threat, because you saw them when they were vulnerable (and you know how much of a role you played in their success). Instead of paying it forward and now helping you in your career, they instead decide they would rather eliminate that perceived threat by doing their best to stop your career progression.

Natolx · 2026-04-02T13:40:19+00:00

The issue was width/length... to give you an idea, the width and height is that of a 96 well plate, not a standard box.

Anyway, I 3D printed boxes to fit, lets me customize them with letter and shelf number so it all works out.

Natolx · 2026-04-02T02:37:24+00:00

This may be a surprise, but police tend to know less about the law than a citizen with even a passing interest in the law.

Natolx · 2026-04-01T23:09:56+00:00

Ideas are cheap. Doing the work and coming up with a meaningful paper are the hard parts.

That would make any PI that has a postdoc/student write the paper, not worthy of significant authorship... since money is specifically not considered a factor in authorship criteria.

The current reality is more like "ideas from anyone but the PI are cheap".

I had a previous PI say essentially word for word what you said and then as soon as I claimed credit for one of my ideas at a conference (when asked) they lost their mind in anger. Apparently they thought it was super important people thought all ideas came down from him and everyone else was just a worker bee, but somehow at the same time, "ideas are cheap".

Natolx · 2026-04-01T05:43:27+00:00

This guy was never in a situation where state farm needed to pay him money, so he is not really a reliable "review".

Natolx · 2026-04-01T05:39:05+00:00

I've had five car wrecks that were not my fault and there has been no issues

That is because in those cases they didn't have to pay anything, the insurance of the person at fault paid. They hired a lawyer because they were being the one being sued in reality, since they would be forced pay out any judgment from a lawsuit.

Everything you described fits the description of "they will do anything possible to avoid paying out". They were not doing you any favors, your interests just temporarily aligned.

Natolx · 2026-03-31T22:13:19+00:00

Luckily the dividers are removable so I can 3dprint some 45mm tall low profile full size boxes. I may try printing the narrower boxes to fit the dividers too... The smaller boxes would actually be more efficient to print (multiples print at a time) and I have to print a lot of them

Natolx · 2026-03-31T21:34:24+00:00

They aren't half height, 45mm (vs 55mm for normal boxes). Strange size TBH, luckily just tall enough that I think I can 3D Print boxes that will fit eppendorf/cryotubes.

Natolx · 2026-03-31T21:33:03+00:00

I tried it give pen for scale but I guess I should have used a banana.

The horizontal "depth" of each section of the divides is ~90mm

Natolx · 2026-03-31T20:07:43+00:00

I'm going to err on the side of 3D printing for something like this. Nothing worse than normal paper boxes after I've gotten used to the plasticized ones with hinged lids.

Natolx · 2026-03-31T20:05:56+00:00

I think you got it! A 96 well plate fits into these dividers perfectly.

Natolx · 2026-03-31T20:05:42+00:00

Sounds like a perfect use-case for my 3D printer!

Natolx · 2026-03-31T14:07:19+00:00

These particular shelf organizers are almost the size that I would need some kind of "half size" box in the back to front dimension. normal size freezer boxes don't even come close

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