S4E8: Demystifying the Early Career Faculty Stage

The fourth Season of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Building Up the Nerve podcast, where we discuss the unwritten rules, or “hidden curriculum,” of scientific research at every career stage. We know that navigating your career can be daunting, but we're here to help—it's our job!

In episode 8, we talk about succeeding as junior faculty, including starting a lab from scratch, balancing all aspects of the job, and how to manage tenure expectations.

Featuring Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, PhD, Assistant Professor, Columbia University; Katie Wilkinson, PhD, Professor, San Jose State University; and Jack Lipton, PhD, Professor, Michigan State University.

Resources

• Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (R35): https://nigms.nih.gov/Research/mechanisms/MIRA 
• Resources from the 2022 “Maintaining a Neural Network: Transforming Mentorship Workshop”: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/news-events/events/maintaining-neural-network-transforming-mentorship-workshop 
• NIH Glossary: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/glossary.htm 
• NIH Early Stage Investigator Resources: https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-stage/index.htm 
• Support for Research Excellence (SuRE): https://www.ninds.nih.gov/funding/about-funding/types-research-support/research-project-grants/support-research-excellence-sure-program-r16 
• NIH Research Enhancement Award (R15): https://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/r15.htm 
• University of Washington BRAINS program: https://brains.uw.edu/ 
• Big 10 Academic Alliance: https://btaa.org/ 
• Books:
  • At the Helm: Leading your Laboratory by Kathy Barker 
  • Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, Second Edition from HHMI: https://www.hhmi.org/science-education/programs/resources/making-right-moves  
  • The Grant Application Writer's Workbook for NIH: https://www.grantcentral.com/workbooks/national-institutes-of-health/ 

This episode has been edited since its original publication.

Transcript available at http://ninds.buzzsprout.com/.