Overview: Each fall, academic institutions start advertising open faculty positions and those interested in being faculty start to polish their application packets. The process is time consuming- with institutions now often requiring letters of recommendation, diversity, and vision statements in addition to the standard C.V., research statement and teaching statements. As a faculty member, my involvement varies each fall- jumping from participating in a search one year to mostly responding to requests for advice from colleagues about assembling a competitive portfolio. In parallel to watching the application season begin, we typically watch large cohorts of new faculty arrive on campus to take their first full time position as a faculty member. For those taking ‘regular’ faculty positions, they are balancing starting up their research groups, teaching, and writing while also navigating a new home.
As I watch the process start this fall, I am struck by the metarules for applying for faculty positions and how some of the most important advice can be quickly buried by the onslaught of ‘new’ that arriving faculty meet. New location, new home, new cultural norms. I also have been trying to figure out what really is the most critical advice for those starting faculty positions and those applying for those positions.
To get his opinion, I reached out to Prof. Dilpuneet ‘DP’ Aidhy about pursuing a tenure-track appointment. I also took the opportunity to learn about some of his experience of starting his research group and identify the keys to making the best of those first few tenure track years. Prof. Aidhy earned his tenure at the University of Wyoming and is a material scientist who utilizes computational experimentation (molecular dynamics simulations) to understand defects in alloys and oxides. He has held positions outside of high education, working both at IBM (Bangalore, India) and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a post-doctoral researcher. He established his academic group in 2015 as an assistant professor within the University of Wyoming mechanical engineering department.
Interview Summary:
What lured you into pursuing a tenure track faculty position?
As I was pursuing my doctorate, I was intrigued by the control my advisor had over his time, thoughts, and lifestyle. Even though I noticed the stress tied to obtaining funding for research, I appreciated that he could maintain sanity and be cheerful. In addition, I leant that tenure could provide protection to pursue important research that might not align directly with the more dynamic mission fluctuations seen in industry or perhaps national laboratories. Finally, it is a high-respected career and campus life is very dynamic!
In parallel, I noticed the open-ended nature of the scientific research. Creating knowledge requires asking questions that have value. As a faculty member, I get to invest my time and emotions in shaping and contributing to students’ careers, which is rewarding. And of course, if one gets paid to talk about science, share ideas, crunch problems with the students, it is a privilege! Getting declined on funding/proposals, is obviously not so fun. But that’s life; you win some, you lose some! In our case, we win about 10% of the time!
Do you have any advice for students looking for an academic career?
I think there are few straightforward boxes that should be checked. Such as:
Create opportunities for yourself to be able to do good research in a well-known research group. This will help you to learn the nuts and bolts of being a well-rounded scientist, doing quality science, getting quality recommendation letters, and building network for future collaborations. Although pedigree matters to some extent, yet quality science and skill set are still the most important aspects of the CV based on which the applications are screened.
Publish in good journals. I often notice that a serious application for a tenure-track assistant professor position these days has about 20 published papers in well recognized journals, although it is not always a hard number.
Make use of conferences: attend conferences, present your work well, and network with future potential employers. The last part is tricky because you don’t want to sound desperate while developing a relationship. However, doing your homework by knowing their scientific work is a good starting point to get a dialogue going, and hopefully leaving a mark.
Finally, learn to sell yourself. This involves good communication skills, i.e., be able to creatively communicate your ideas. Have a good understanding of not only your niche area but the links of the chain that connect your work to the broader impacts. How does your research advances science in your area, and how does it impact other scientific areas. A good analogy would be the number of symposia into which your conference talk can be presented and be relevant!
Do you have any advice for faculty just entering a tenure track position?
I think there are few things each faculty should do are:
· Get a mentor
I think not being aware of the unwritten rules of the game (academia or life in general) is often the Achilles’ heel. So, help yourself and get a mentor. Select a mentor to whom you can listen and whose advice you are willing to follow.
· Participate in a review panel
Learning to craft an articulate grant proposal that clearly conveys the transformative nature of your work is difficult! It became easier when I was able to review batches of proposals and listen to the comments from my colleagues.
· Establish your research facility
Get your lab going. Spend the money, buy the equipment, and find your first student. It can be hard to spend your startup funds when you do not have other funding on the horizon. It can be uncomfortable to see the balances dwindling and be paralyzed by the what ifs. Don’t worry about the rainy days—you will only be awarded funding if you have preliminary results. To get those results, you will need to purchase equipment and start taking measurements. Another reason that first year faculty may have a hard time spending money is that they are kept busy by the urgent activities. Set aside time on your calendar to set up your lab. You need time to call vendors, sort through the university accounting system, etc.
· Set aside time to recruit the right student(s)
Put more focus on recruiting the right students in that first semester. Great students can help you develop the preliminary data for competitive grants. My advice would be to think about the challenges that you would have in the next 2-3 years and then figure out what type of skillset you need from those first couple of students. For example, if you are going to invest time in setting up your lab equipment, you may want to hire someone who has that ‘handyman’ and ‘get-it-done’ experience. For computational faculty, a student with strong coding skills to get all the codes running on the computational cluster is important. In these two cases, what may not be a good choice is a brilliant science student but without those critical skills that you so need. So, I think the approach would be – horses for courses!
· Collocate your research team members
As your negotiation stage with your department head, ask for a common office for graduate students on your team. I strongly believe that most of the learning for graduate students is peer-learning, especially in coding, running simulations, data management, research group philosophy and culture, and tool development. To get that, they should be sharing space. If you can get it, your team will have a head start.
· Learn about your department, college and program managers
Your colleagues have seen it all. Some would be exceptional in obtaining funding, others in administrative duties. Get involved with both of them so that you learn about the art of writing the proposals. Similarly, learn about the expectations of getting the tenure. In the College, identify your potential collaborators, and the available equipment. Finally, learn about all the help that is available for student recruitment, writing proposals, etc.
For proposal and funding, draft 1-page whitepapers on your 2-3 potential ideas. Send to your program managers and get engaged. Their feedback will be very important to establish your program.
· Involve in your professional society and committees
Get involved in your committees. This is critical for your professional development and visibility. Propose symposium and take opportunities to organize them. Send invitations to experts and invite them for presentations.
· Develop a culture
Develop a working style. Allocate specific hours for specific activities. Take a thoughtful and crafty approach to establish your style rather than a brut-force approach. Be open to new ideas, and restrain from a negative/complaining attitude.
“Publish or perish.” That phrase can make new faculty anxious. Any advice for new tenure track faculty?
This is the harsh truth of academia. You have to be able to communicate your ideas and they have to be acceptable to your peers. My strategy is generally two-pronged: to push for deeper science within your research, and have a couple of budding ideas that can get low-hanging fruit/papers. For example, for UG and first year G students, focusing on a paper that is heavy on generating data can be an easier way to give shape to the results that the young students can easily accumulate by doing the same simulation on different materials.
Second, develop a mentoring chain, i.e., connect young students with senior students so that they are trained for the future. This helps develop co-author papers for all students.
Third, diversify the skillset of your students in the first two years. This will help them attack the same problem from different angles, which can also help with more papers.
Fourth, think in terms of papers, and develop your approach to writing a paper. Sometimes, even before doing the first simulation, I have the title, hypothesis, abstract and a set of simulations all laid out. I test my hypothesis with specific simulations, and if it works, I have the results to write the paper quickly. This is a very organic and streamlined way to get the work done. The deeper science paper in contrast is done with continuously asking new questions on the present results. In this case, ‘what next’ is always the standing question. In any case, strictly stay away from a fishing expedition, where there is no clarity of the goal, hypothesis, or the approach.
Finally, learn to write quickly. Here is a suggestion: have the finalized figures and captions on the word document. Go for a walk and develop the complete story. Return and then rehearse! The figures should be able to the tell the story completely. Find out the missing pieces, do those specific experiments or simulations. Then, run it through your reliable colleague. If approved, write the paper! Set it aside for a week, and then return with fresh ideas. If the draft still appears convincing, go ahead, and submit. Of course, there would be additional steps involved if it is a collaborative paper.
You started a lab before and after COVID. Did you notice a change after COVID when remote work became more prevalent?
Yes. The downside of Covid for every mentor was the lack of the mentee training. I learnt it the hard way and I had to work backwards with a student. Not being in the lab among the senior students was a major bottleneck for the young students.
After Covid, there are many upsides. We have all learnt about the virtual proximity. We are all there, easily available. We have also picked up a few technical skills. For example, preparing a video of the presentation, or a tutorial is now easy. I strictly ask my students to record a presentation once the paper is written. Similarly, I ask them to develop a video tutorial on a new code they might have written. Finally, this has helped teaching immensely. We can continue to teach in the classroom, while the students can have access to the pre-prepared video lectures that are available throughout the semester to them.
Any last comments you want to share?
Read some philosophy, self-help, and science history books (a biography of Marie Curie by her daughter Eve Curie has all in one). And enjoy your work and science that you do. Not everybody gets to create knowledge. Take pride in that!