On theory, postdocs, and Jeremys
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I thought I would mark the end of the calendar year by searching for what was most formative from that year, science-wise – perhaps an event, lesson or realization that I think best defined my growth for that year. I am not sure how many years I have left in science but if I do find myself in an academic career, perhaps I will have created a list of lessons learned as I journeyed in science.
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As open scholarship becomes more embedded in academic structures, its players are negotiating different challenges that are coming to the fore. Recent discussion in science reform Twitter circles has been about potential conflicts caused by the products of open scholarship (preprints, open data and open code). On the surface, it may appear that open scholarship is causing more issues but here, I’ll suggest that it’s the same old underlying problem, and that the science reform movement should prioritize action on that problem.
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I’ve recently reached the end of renowned chef David Chang’s autobiography, Eat A Peach, which I enthusiastically recommend. There are some surprising parallels between the culinary industry and academia, and his lens on the former is relevant and insightful. In the afterword, on the impact of the pandemic on the culinary industry, he writes:
It’s late into a Chicago winter – the snow is finally melting, the cold is finally lifting, the daylight is finally lasting longer. Many are looking forward to the summer where the city will revive, social possibilities will emerge and the weight of the past half-year will be lifted. It seems to me that in many ways, science is looking forward to a similar return to normalcy. A return to less restrictions on data collection, inspiring in-person conferences, business as usual.
This blogpost is a personal exploration into my racial identity and how it may have interacted with my life in science. Looking Asian but sounding Australian, I feel like I’m stuck in the middle. Through privilege and naïveté, I somehow missed what being Asian in science meant. I think being open about our experiences can be incredibly helpful to starting conversations and producing positive change, and I wholheartedly believe diversity in science is incredibly important and needed.
With every new year, I (and I’m guessing many others) start thinking about resolutions they want to keep or goals they would like to achieve. (It’s also about now, around the end of January, that people tend to give up too.) I find it useful to go through a bit of introspection, figure out what I am working towards and lay down some plans for the future – academia is such a constant grind (there’s always something to be done) that it can feel like we are always behind and not achieving anything. This is especially true in the midst of a global pandemic which has upended data collection for human research, forced most scientists to adapt to working from home and added an underlying current of stress. Some well-thought-out goals might help by being markers of progress in a career where it feels like achievement only comes at the end of a big (often years-long) research project. On the other hand, lofty goals like “I will have x first-author publications by the end of the year” seem completely unhelfpul and may just add on to the stress – and you’re probably giving into the Incentives with that kind of goal, right?
I have been doing a bit of reflection on the year, and one of the most rewarding things I did in 2020 was founding and organizing the ReproducibiliTea Journal Club at the University of Chicago! ReproducibiliTea started as a grassroots initiative in 2018 and has since become a global community centered on meta-science, discussing and improving research practices in response to the reproducibility crisis in science.