Expectations
What you can expect from me, the PI.
- You can expect me to be kind.
- You can expect me to care about you, your wellbeing and your mental health
- You can expect me to care and make decisions based on your individual career goals.
- You can expect me to write you a recommendation letter.
- You can expect me to respond to your questions and concerns in a timely manner.
- You can expect me to provide you with the facilities you need to get the job done.
- You can expect me to provide funding for the lab and its research.
- You can expect that my door is always (metaphorically and sometimes literally) open for you to approach me about anything you need.
- You can expect me to invite you for coffee now and then.
- You can expect me to celebrate both minor (learning a new piece of code) and major (submission of a paper or having one published) accomplishments.
- You can expect me not to tolerate bullying, manipulation, harassment of any kind, nor toxic competition between members of the lab or anyone in the CBH.
- On the same note, you can expect me to take seriously any complaints regarding the point above.
- You can expect that I do not contact you out of normal working hours. However, if I do (sometimes I feel I need to send something asap otherwise I might forget, but I try my hardest not to do this), then I do not expect that you reply to me until you are at work.
- You can expect me to be flexible when it comes to work hours, when you are expected to be in person ect.
- I will never ask you to work on the weekends (except in circumstances where participants for a research study can only be scheduled on a weekend and we have agreed upon this beforehand) and you can expect that I will respect your time off to the fullest. If scheduling of a participant for a research study falls on a weekend, then I will be explicit about you taking time off during the week to compensate your lost weekend time.
What I expect of you, a member and representative of the lab.
- I expect that you are kind.
- I expect that when you are at work, you are at work, and when you are not at work, you are NOT at work.
- Relatedly, I expect that you take time off. Burnt out is real (see this definition: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642). You can find your time off details in Workday.
- I expect that you are a good citizen- even when you are not at work and out in the wild, you are still representing the lab and the University, so please be kind.
- I expect that you are productive and that you are constantly learning (I will help).
- I expect that you are inquisitive, interested and rigorous in your work.
- I expect that you proactively engage with me (i.,e that you are scheduling meetings with me and reaching out to me to discuss projects/code/papers ect).
- I expect that you take ownership of the projects that you are responsible for.
- I expect that you are transparent with me, your peers and members of the extended CBH folks.
- I expect that you compare yourself to former versions of yourself, not your peers. Think about where you were 3, 6 or 12 months ago, and compare yourself now to that person. If you haven’t progressed as you would have liked, then organize a time to meet with me and we will figure out why and strategize to ensure you’re moving towards what you want to achieve.
- Similarly, I expect that you take the time to help other lab members. Either in their duties if necessary (within reason) or for example by teaching them an analysis pipeline that you know but they may not. This is not wasted effort, at some point they will teach you something you didn’t know. What comes around goes around.
Communication
We as a lab communicate in several ways.
In person: Hopefully we can communicate mostly in person. As I say, my office door (319 ISEC for now) is always open, feel free to knock whenever you need to speak with me, if I can chat, I will wave you in. If I cannot, organize a time with me to come back.
Online: The fastest and easiest way to contact me is via the Tim’s Team Slack channel. DM me and I will try to respond as soon as I can. This way, we also have our conversations documented. Please post any statistics, code, project-related questions that may help your peers into the #general channel or in a project-specific channel. This way, everyone can benefit from our back and forth!
When we are working with collaborators outside of the lab (students or faculty of the CBH or with grants/administrative personnel) then email is the preferred means of communication as we will need to cc people in.
I hope to set up a system where we document email exchanges that are relevant for lab projects to keep them up-to-date and everyone up-to-speed. As of yet, there is no such system. Please try your best to keep track of developments.
Style: Everyone has their own way of communication, some people are direct, some are passive, others are outright aggressive. All I ask of you is to be kind and empathetic. Put yourself in other people’s shoes as often as you can. That sort of goes for every interaction you have in the lab. Being able to see how another person sees a situation and not just your own view is a very important life skill to learn.
Communicating with me, the PI:
Think of me as an input-output box. I should not be always telling you what to do and how to do it, and you should not be doing all of the work and only showing me final results. By frequently showing me your work (failures and successes), I will be able to provide you with constant (and hopefully valuable) feedback. By showing me your work- what worked, what doesn’t work, why it didn’t work- we can have fruitful and productive conversations about how to get the most out of your work.
Conflict
At CNE we do not tolerate bullying, harassment of any kind, toxic competition or manipulation. We aim to foster an environment of transparency where everyone feels comfortable and safe.
If you feel that any of these ideals are not being upheld and you feel comfortable coming to me about them, I urge you to do so. If you think that they are more serious or that I am involved, then here are some resources you can turn to:
Here is a link to the university ombuds person : https://provost.northeastern.edu/ombuds/ This office can be used to seek confidential advice on how manage work place issues and concerns.
The office of university equity and compliance handles more severe cases of discrimination, including sexual harassment, here is a link to their office: https://www.northeastern.edu/ouec/
Here is a link to a definition of academic bullying: https://www.awaws.org/academic-bullying.html