Research Advice

Why choose a science major? Obviously this is an answer that varies a lot person-to-person, but I have been asked it enough now that I think it is time to address the elephant in the room once and for all. I can’t take credit for navigating the overwhelming maze that is picking a major at […]

I’m going to start this by making two big disclaimers: Okay, and with that out of the way, this is what I recommend keeping in mind when choosing a PI and lab for grad school! Mentorship: how hands-on and supportive is the PI Do you want a PI who you meet with regularly, someone who […]

I had the pleasure of going to the Exploring Biology Conference 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania! Exploring Biology is a huge conference made up of multiple large professional societies coming together. The society I came with was the American Association of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). This conference is a huge 5 day non-stop networking and […]

Communicating science to non-scientists is a skill that takes time to build, and honestly, it’s not something most of us are formally trained to do. As scientists, we’re taught how to write papers, present data, and explain our work to people within our field. But once you step outside of that space, everything changes. Most […]

With everything moving online over the past few years, virtual conferences quickly became the default. What used to be something you’d travel for, flights, hotels, long days at convention centers, suddenly turned into something you could attend from your desk. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. A big part of conferences, […]

What is STEM Outreach I’m sure many of you have heard about outreach before, and likely done it in some way, shape, or form, whether that was something you chose to do or something required in high school or college. At its core, outreach simply means reaching out and helping a community. In STEM (Science, […]

Graduate Women in Science (GWIS) is a smaller professional society of ~800 women in science around the United States. Once a year, they host a conference to bring women from across the STEM disciplines together, learn from and connect with each other! 2022’s GWIS conference was at my Alma Mater, University of Wisconsin-Madison, so of […]

Keeping up with scientific literature, career development, experiments, and everything else going on can feel like a lot, especially during graduate school. It’s very easy for things like reading papers or staying updated on career paths to fall behind when you’re focused on day-to-day work. What’s helped me is finding ways to make this information […]

What are informational interviews and why should you do them? Informational interview: speaking with someone about their knowledge for insights on their career path & areas of interest. This is not a request for a job or an interview! They can feel intimidating at first. Reaching out to someone you don’t know, asking for their […]

I’ve always loved planning and organization, and grad school puts everything I know about organization to the test! There’s so much always happening: experiments to plan, experiments happening, data to analyze, papers to read, meetings and classes to attend, and then still trying to have time to present at conferences and network. It’s a lot […]

Why should you do research in undergrad You are here, so I imagine you must have already come to the conclusion that doing research during your undergradaute career would be at least SOMEWHAT intriguing. But let’s convince you why anyone in any STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) major should at least dabble their feet […]

Hello! This blog is a bit more of a heart to heart with myself, but I hope by sharing this it might help at least a couple prospective or first year PhD students like myself. Take notes Take notes all the time on everything, even when learning things like a new lab machine. You never […]

The biggest question I get asked about graduate school, after asking about my research, is whether graduate school lives up to the “all work, no play” mantra many associate with a life in academia. To answer this question: no, I strive to have a strong balance between my life in the lab and fun beyond […]

Reading should be straight forward. Books draw the reader in and make you want to read more. News articles have catchy titles and cool images. Scientific papers, however, seem to do everything in their power to detract from an enjoyable reading experience. The culture of science and scientific writing praises those who find more complex […]

I hadn’t heard of impostor syndrome until a couple of months into graduate school. I felt out of my league and completely stupid compared to my colleagues and lab mates. After feeling this way for a while, I finally had the courage to bring it up with one of the older graduate students in my […]

So you got through the applications and the excruciating waiting time, and you just received the email to schedule an interview with the graduate school program! Congratulations! We are going to quickly walk through how you can prepare yourself before to ace your graduate school interviews! Search the school’s offer rate from the applicant pool […]