One of the reasons why I talk a lot about being mindful and intentional about this choice is that I don’t want science trainees to get lucky. I started out by asking how Joanne found the lab that she wanted to be a part of. This work has given Joanne unique insights into what researchers should look for in a lab and crucially, what they should avoid.īut before this work, Joanne was a researcher herself. Joanne worked at the Impact Seat based in Boston, Massachusetts, which performs diversity, equity and inclusion consulting. Later in the episode, we’ll hear from two academics on how particular factors, the age of the lab and the size of the institution, influenced their decisions.īut before we get to them, I spoke with Joanne Kamens. In this, our first episode of the series, we’re taking a look at the most fundamental question: how to choose a lab that you want to move to in the first place. There's plenty to talk about, and so we’re bringing you six episodes to investigate. We’re looking at all aspects of this question, from dealing with new cultures when moving abroad, to the challenges facing scientists with disabilities when they move labs. In this series, we’re looking at a crucial step that many scientists take multiple times throughout their careers, moving labs. Hello, I'm Adam Levy and this is Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast.

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In the first episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about moving labs, Kamens shares advice alongside Tim Fessenden, a cancer researcher and postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and Kim Gerecke, a behavioural neuroscientist at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. “I would say item number one is: Is the PI a jerk?' she says. Kamens lists questions you need to have answered before making a move. Because of the long hours and relatively low pay, you are doing them one by offering them your labour, she explains. Laboratory leaders are not doing you a favour when they hire you, says geneticist Joanne Kamens, a senior consultant at The Impact Seat, a scientific workplace consultancy based in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Bigger They Are by Kim Alan