Staffing Your Research Project: A Balancing Act

1
Staffing Your Research Project A Balancing Act

• Victoria P. Knutson, Ph.D.
• Assistant Dean of Admissions
• UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences,
  Houston
• Associate Professor, Integrative Biology
  Pharmacology,
• Medical School

2
Managing Your Academic Life

• Major considerations
• Grant Funding
• Publications
• Educational Activities
• Service Activities
• Managing Laboratory Personnel
• Post docs
• Technicians
• Graduate Students
• Administrative Staff

3
Managing Personnel Mentoring

• Career Progress Yours and Theirs
• Personnel content of your lab
• Students? Techs? Post-docs?
• How many of each
• Peer-reviewed papers
• You/they BOTH need good quality papers
• They need 1st author pubs you, last author
• Available projects for students
• Fishing expedition? Silver platter?
• How to match level of project to student skills?
• Project philosophy
• Assembly line? Start-to-finish?

4
Mentoring Considerations

• Management skills and style
• Coddle and micromanage? Throw them in the deep
  end? Too nice/abusive?
• Nurturing? Squashing? Build self-esteem?
• Teams vs. solitary work?
• Generate a collaborator or competitor?
• Time commitment to general lab duties?
• Do you watch the clock?
• Your viewpoint on the student/advisor
  relationship training your replacement?
• Relationship must work on multiple levels.

5
Student/Advisor Problems

• Student doesnt understand hierarchy whos the
  boss?
• Mentor/student lets problem go on too long
  without intervention
• Mentor runs out of money
• Mentors style in conflict with student needs
• Mentor doesnt foster maturation with expanding
  responsibility
• Student tries to dictate timing and duration of
  process
• Separation anxiety at end
• Mentor too close to situation

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Final Considerations

• Respect
• Situation not locked in concrete
• You are the long-term resource, they are
  transient
• Surrogate father/mother
• Learn to be a mentor this is not a genetic
  predisposition
• Warm body/pair of hands
• Be prepared for lag time in productivity
• Rewards growth, productivity, relationship