I got my MS online - How do I ask profs for a LoR? I got my MS not too long ago (Aug 2016) from an online program at University of Cincinnati. I am planning on applying to PhD programs this winter, and I am trying to figure out the best way to ask for letters of recommendation. I am attending a conference in November where I am hoping I can finally meet my professors face to face. I am planning on sending them an email in early October to ask if they are attending the conference (which I'm betting they are because it's a huge conference), and that I would love to talk to them about what I'm interested in/why I want to pursue a PhD. I've been thinking about getting my personal statement written beforehand and possibly attaching previous papers I did well on. One of my professors wrote an amazing comment on my capstone research paper, but I'm not sure if I should bring that 16 page paper with me.

How should I approach these professors when asking for a LoR? It's awkward enough that I was an online student, so I am trying to make it as smooth of a process as possible. What should I bring with me?

I'm also going to be involved in a research project this fall at another university, and I'm thinking that will be another great source for a LoR. I am actually pretty excited about the project.

Given that every encounter you've had with your professors thus far has been online, I would suggest just biting the bullet and e-mailing asking for that letter of recommendation. I presume you built a rapport up with them during your masters programme? You could even say that you look forward to finally meeting them at the conference.

I don't think you need to worry about it particularly given, from what you said, you've done well in coursework and actually achieved the Masters. Don't worry about it, after all, the worst they can say is no, and that's very unlikely.

As for the research project: go and smash it and get yourself another recommendation so you can move confidently into a PhD programme!


Is it okay to resend an email to a journal asking for the status of a submitted manuscript? This question is related to the question asked here: Is it okay to inquire about the status of a paper when the online submission system shows no update three months after submission?.

Around 4 months ago, I submitted a paper to a Math journal for peer-review through an online submission system. The same day I received in my e-mail an acknowledgement message saying that the paper had been received.

The status of the paper on the online submission system is still "Manuscript submitted", and the paper has not been assigned to an editor yet.

One month ago, I sent a polite email asking for the status of the paper, but I got no response.

Should I send a second email in the regular way (that is to say, not using the journal's online system)?

Is it possible that things go slower during this time of the year (due to holidays or something)?

Yes, you should definitely send another polite email. You could also write directly to the editor, since your situation sounds fairly unreasonable. You deserve some sort of response to your submission. I would consider withdrawing the paper and submitting it elsewhere if you don't get a response.


2nd master's degree in "slightly-different" field? data science and machine learning specifically So i was accepted to a master data science program in the UK, but I am also interested in a machine learning specific program at another institution, also in the UK.

The thing is that my data science program has some overlap to the machine learning program, but not completely. The machine learning program has significantly more in-depth courses, and many other courses regarding deep learning's applications that are not available at my current program.

So is it fine if I apply for the machine learning program after the data science one? In the UK, are there rules that forbids this? Or would the admission committee just throw my app out since they deemed for some reason the two programs are too similar?

Thank you.

I don't know of any generic rules which forbid this. Indeed taking a masters degree after another higher degree is an accepted, although uncommon, method to switch career paths fairly deep into one's education. On the other hand, as you note yourself, that's not really what you are suggesting here, and any application is going to have significant barriers to overcome, firstly as to how you'll be funding this (masters courses are expensive, after all) and secondly as to why you aren't following the more natural career path of moving on to a Ph.D. if you want to continue your studies. Which isn't to say that a sufficiently strong narrative wouldn't manage to get you an offer if numbers weren't limited and you could explain your funding.

(It's worth noting that while the University probably doesn't have a rule against this, many potential sources of funding do)


Professor for a performance class is scheduling class time different than the class time listed in the catalog I have a professor who is allotted 8 hours of time, 2 hours Monday/Friday and 4 hours Wednesday nights to rehearse the yearly opera. However, when we received the syllabus (halfway through the semester when the rehearsals began) we found that rehearsals were scheduled M-F nights and conflicted with numerous other things in the department as well as blindsiding our work schedules and etc. Is this allowed? I can't find any language in any handbook obligating the professor to teach in the times that they are scheduled by the registrar.

Performance groups, even when taken for credit, operate outside the "norms" of scheduling. It is unlikely that your concert will take place at the same time as your scheduled rehearsals, so you will need to make an "exception" to the rules just to participate in the performance—which is kind of the point of the class in the first place!

That said, the faculty member overseeing a performance class does need to be respectful of the schedule to the greatest extent possible. It is not fair to ask students to completely rearrange their schedules when alternatives are possible. If the faculty member does not believe there are enough scheduled hours to get things done, then there needs to be an adjustment in the course.

However, he will "get away" with this unless people make an issue of this. It sounds like there are a large number of people impacted. If so, then there is enough ground support that you can challenge it collectively without reprisal. (You can also "take it up the food chain" if the professor is unwilling to make changes.)


What is the effect of choosing the wrong topic(s) during conference paper submission? My domain is Image processing.

While submitting papers to conferences, authors are usually asked to select a primary and secondary topic for there paper.

What is the actual purpose of this?
What if authors by mistake select a wrong (not completely) topic instead of a more suitable topic? Does this get changed before/during the review process?
What if this is not corrected and paper is assigned to a reviewer who thinks this is not the proper topic of the paper? Does this affect the paper review process or increase chances of rejection?

Yes, this helps organize the papers for the reviewers and structure the conference. Ticking the wrong box can indeed cause a paper to be rejected, as not all reviewers read all of the papers and realize that it is just misplaces. Do choose these with care.


Why do most mathematics PhD programs in United States have rigid qualifying and breadth requirements for every PhD student? For a long time, I have been confused about the purpose of having (roughly the same) qualifying requirements and breadth (course) requirements for every mathematics PhD student (in many, if not most, mathematics departments in the United States).

I have heard that European math gradaute programs do not have such rigid requirements. In U.S., although many math PhD students only start with an undergraduate degree and they do need a lot of training in graduate math, there are still a lot of students who come with a master's degree and that is the reason I add the qualification "everyone". I am just asking why we need (roughly) the same requirements for everybody in a program instead of having tailored requirements for individual PhD students, especially for those who have already taken graduate level classes, had their confirmed interests, and even written a Master level thesis in mathematics.

In response to the comments below, I will add some parts that I deleted earlier back.

An example: many programs, such as Stanford and Ohio State, require students to take qualifying examinations in real analysis and algebra. (Some programs require exams only in real analysis and algebra, despite having strong research groups in other fields like topology.) Why are real analysis and algebra both necessary for everybody? Does an algebraic geometer have to be so familar with abstract measure theory? Does a topologist have to be so skilled in using the "Big Three" theorems of Banach spaces? Does an applied mathematician have to know Galois theory so well? Moreover, the real research is quite different from exams. The statements of problems are usually not well formulated, there is no specific time limits, the techniques can be convoluted, etc.

Taking courses are not the only way of learning things in a PhD program. PhD students can learn a subject on their own or through student reading seminars. I am not denying the necessity of taking classes for certain students (especially those who come with undergraduate degrees)---that is why I added the qualification "everyone".

So far as I've seen, in the U.S., the "required" aspects of most graduate programs are really very minimalistic and elementary. So it misrepresents the situation to refer to them as "rigid", since they're so minimal. And it misrepresents the situation as well to refer to those minimal bits as somehow clearly un-necessary for ... "non-specialists"?

I'd claim that these basic requirements are just to inculcate awareness of the various basics. Again, minimalist.

Further, some places have choices or other requirements. E.g., many require some complex analysis. We in MN do, as well as some algebraic topology and differential geometry... although students who want to style themselves as "applied" can manage to avoid quite a bit of this, by doing some "math modelling" and "numerical analysis" coursework.

True, in principle people can mostly learn whatever they want outside of formal courses, and I myself prefer that, because the artificial schedule of MWF classes, etc., does not fit my personal rhythms. But for some people, manifestly, this is easier than self-study. Also, I've been told by many grad students that it's easier to avoid self-deception/delusion in a more formal classroom setting. Ok.

And, of course, some people arrive in grad school being vastly over-confident of their own scholarship, as well as the significance of their "prior research experience". To make decisions based on very-incomplete information would be unfortunate.

And, of course, classes and exams are a very artificial, caricatured version of mathematics... which I think is best appreciated as not being really a "school subject" at all. Nevertheless, it is not easy to construct viable alternatives. Here in MN, anyone who really has already picked up a bit of competence in the basic subjects can "test out", by exam, and not have to take those courses. Many do. We do not try to test "mastery", but only "(at least) minimal competence".

Yes, having been involved in grad studies throughout my 35+ years here, I have often seen students complain about the alleged burdens of our "requirements". Mostly, that convinces me that they're sufficiently unaware so that they appreciate neither the minimality of our requirements, nor the universal utility of the ideas. :) But I understand that "requirements" are often viewed as "obstacles to getting on with research". I do claim that this represents a substantive misunderstanding of what's going on...

EDIT: as for a further question implied by, or suggested by, comments... although of course inertia plays some role, faculty in every grad program "require" things of grad students (regardless of eventual "specialty") after substantial consideration. Not whimsically. Indeed, exercise of such judgement is very important. The possible fact that entering grad students (arguably in possession of very little information about what they'll need later, etc.) may disagree or resent "requirements" will not deter faculty from requiring what they consider wise, based on decades of experience.

A related question, that of requiring reading competence in French and/or German, etc., has a substantially different answer. E.g., while I do still encourage my own students to learn at least French (to read Sem. Bourb. at least), and maybe German (Hecke, Siegel, ...), our program as a whole is ever-reducing these requirements, since, indeed, a greater and greater fraction of contemporary mathematics is written in English. Not all!!! I have always regretted that I didn't learn enough Russian to be able to read mathematics in it... Sure, one can "get by" being substantially illiterate, but it is quite often useful to be less illiterate! :)  This applies also to awareness of the rest of mathematics, outside one's tiny bailiwick ... however large it may seem in a myopic view! :)


What is the average postdoctoral salary in China? I got one postdoctoral offer just after completion of my PhD study. I am not sure about the amount of fellowship. I do not have any experience in postdoctoral work. What is the average salary given to postdoc fellow in Wireless Communication Engineering  particularly in China?

According to this news report Low salaries discouraging overseas academics from ChinaDaily USA,

  ... the average salary across all ranks and universities is roughly 6,000 yuan ($982) a month. That's low compared with the average entry-level salary in Canada of $5,733 and a full professors' $9,485. The average for newly hired faculty members in the US is $4,950.

Hiring postdocs is still a new trend in China. I can't find average postdoc salary yet. Once I see it (it may be in Chinese), I will report it here.

If average salary in the universities is USD$982 per month, I think I cannot say 40k USD per year is low.

Hope this helps.


Using social media brands (logos) in academic publications I'm working on an illustration related to citizen science and would like to include the concept of social media in that graphic.

The most well known social media brands (as of now) are arguably Facebook and Twitter. According to their guidelines (Facebook, Twitter) it is perfectly fine to use their brand identity in form of a non-altered logo. I do not want to refer to anything specific on these platforms, merely use their logo to symbolize "social media".

However I'm not really sure if this is appropriate for an academic publication for a number of reasons: a) it may be considered a promotion or endowment of mentioned brands. b) it may be considered unprofessional. c) it may loose relevance with time.

Are these doubts justified? Any suggestions or (better) experience with a similar case?
What are solutions to this dilemma? I suppose replacing brand logos with generic ones that symbolize "social media" as well would be one thing to consider ...

I guess the answer subjective but as far as I'm concerned it's totally fine to use logos.  I've done it myself*. In the caption you can make it clear they are just examples. Of course there are some exceptions.

Regarding your concerns:

  it may be considered a promotion or endowment of mentioned brands.

It's fine you take well-known brands.

  it may be considered unprofessional.

No (at least not in my research community)

  it may loose relevance with time

That's life. The entire paper is likely to lose relevance as well.

*Example:


Should I wait for the next Ph.D. openings? I'm finishing my master's degree in theoretical physics (probably with distinction) and have published a paper.

I'm searching for a Ph.D. position in theoretical physic in Europe, but I can't find any position which I'm passionate about. I think, there will be more opening in 6 month. On the other hand, I will be then 30!

Would you suggest me to wait for a position which I really love? Or should I apply to for a position which is interesting but not that much? The problem is that I'm not sure about future!

I'm not sure where in Europe you are looking, but in my experience not all positions are advertised. I would suggest to use your network (especially your MSc advisor) to contact the labs you are interested in and inquire about opportunities.

In both European countries I am familiar with (Germany and France) there are government PhD funds that are allocated on individual application from the student. So often, you can get professors who are willing to work with you if you apply for your own funding, even if they don't currently have funding for an open position and therefore aren't advertising anything. There are usually yearly or twice-yearly deadlines for this.

Whether openings are continuously advertised or clustered around certain dates will depend on your country's habits. What makes you think that better positions will open in 6 months? Are there some big grants being awarded at that point?


Is it ever alright to add a subtitle to a title shortened by publication when citing? Let's assume that a paper was submitted under the "Extremely long and necessary title that explains you are studying pieces of Class A, Class B and Class C of this Bigger (and much more frequently searched) Topic".

This, of course, had to be shortened for publication and now is published and cited under the title:

"Extremely long and necessary title that explains you are studying pieces of Class A, Class B and Class C"

Still correct but likely to fly under the radar of many researchers. So, is it ever OK in a citation (APA or in general) to add the [additional subtitles] when displaying the citation like below? Is it even ethical to adjust the title post publication?

"Extremely long and necessary title that explains you are studying pieces of Class A, Class B and Class C [of this Bigger (and much more frequently searched) Topic]"

I'm a new academic and I appreciate any thoughts.

I'd stick with the published title.  You definitely shouldn't edit it without indicating that you are doing so, for example with square brackets, and I'd avoid that too.  I've never seen anyone do it.  If you do edit the title, then the best case scenario is that you'll come across as a little eccentric, and you may confuse or irritate readers.  (They may wonder whether you are referring to a slightly different version of the paper than the one they have, for example a longer preprint or working paper that was shortened for publication.  Then they may waste time looking for it, or decide you are being sloppy about your citations.)  It may also throw off citation counts, which is not in your interests.  Incidentally, I assume you are talking about a previous paper of yours - you certainly shouldn't edit someone else's title.

Instead of editing the title, you can convey this information in the body of your paper via your citation.  For example, you could write "For background on Classes A, B and C and how they fit into Bigger Topic, see Paper X."  If you give the reader enough information, then the shortened title really won't matter.


Can I publish a survey-paper on a broader subject of a technology instead of narrow approach? Can I write a survey on a 'Broader' subject of a technology, discussing how literature has discussed the technology, instead of a particular aspect?

For example in 'cellular communication for vehicles' there can be a number of ways to explore the field, including 'implementation challenges', 'Resource allocation', 'security', 'coding', 'vehicle-to-infrastructure communication'...and the list goes on.

Is it necessary that I present the survey on any one of this narrowed field. During my Ph.D. I have read a lot about almost all of these topics, can I combine them into a survey on the lines of "Survey of communication technology in Vehicles" etc. which details all these aspects?

In theory? Sure, you can write a survey paper about any topic you like, no matter how broad.

In practice, there are two main restrictions: practicality, which is - how the heck will you write a proper review of a subject so large given resources that are available to you, and is now the right time for you to do that?; and publishability, which is your ability to find an appropriate venue that considers it on topic and get reviewers to sign off on it as good.

For the obstacle of practicality, as your starting scope becomes broader more papers must be included, until it quickly becomes unwieldy. Using your example, a search on Scopus for "communication technology" AND "vehicles" returns 265 articles in 2017 alone, and only slightly lower amounts for previous years. Removing the word "technology" shoots the results into the thousands per year, as an example. Clearly not all of the papers returned by a keyword search such as this are relevant (and not all relevant papers are turned in 1 keyword search), but a proper review paper covering even only the last 5-10 years would still be a considerable undertaking. The length of time you need to cover depends on the publications in your field, and I've seen some reviews cover 50 years, which obviously would not work if the scope included 10,000+ papers.

This leads into the issue of publishability. One problem is by being more broad, some of the more specialist topic venues might consider it out of bounds. But honestly, the more likely problem is that as you broaden the topic, it becomes harder and harder to do a good, convincing job of covering so much material. The exact numbers vary by fields, but in fields I'm familiar with a published survey paper generally covers at least 10 years of work, and is sufficiently bounded in scope to include around 200-300 papers. Re-using the example from Scopus, if even 20% of the papers returned in a keyword search were relevant you'd already be at over 400 papers already, which only includes searching in title/abstract/keywords. I've also been repeatedly told this sort of work is hard to publish at the top venues my colleagues care about, but this of course varies by field (its also rare to publish meta-analyses in my field, but this is certainly not true in other fields).

Reviewers will also inevitably ask, "what is new here?", so you'll need to explain how such a review covers things that no one else has already covered in this way. If 3 papers review A, B, and C, and you propose A + B + C, it will tend to be seen as "nothing new, reject" - and if you make it A + B + C + D, only D is new, which can also encourage rejection because only a small percentage of your review is 'new'.

The other big issue - which draws on both these restrictions - is what the "point" of the paper might end up being? If its just "here's a bunch of papers", that is often seen as less interesting than if your review also systematically addresses interesting research questions. So if you, for instance, set the scope to be "challenges for industry adoption of between-vehicle communication technologies", your systematic review is more structured, it will be less likely to read as a paper-dump, and conveniently in your selection of papers you will have more criteria to look for that allows you to throw papers out as unrelated - narrowing down the papers you need to actually cover in depth. But if its just "lets talk about a bunch of papers that happen to be about this general topic", you are going to need a lot of work to explain what is "interesting", and a reader might need to put in more work to figure out why this is worthy of publication - which generally does not bode well for the project.

None of this results in a "yes, do it" or "no, don't do it". As always, the best two sources of guidance is the literature in your field (what are published surveys, how are they structured, what do they cover, where are they published) and senior researchers who may have been involved with surveys before and can give you first hand experience more relevant to your specific field.


Who grades the mathematics phd comprehensive exams? Is it a committee of professors, or is it one professor -- whomever wrote the exams?

I'd think a committee is much more likely than an individual professor, but I suppose it could depend on the size of the graduate program.  Comprehensive exams are handled in many different ways in different departments (when they are held at all), so there's no way to give a universal answer.  For example, in some departments the grading is delegated to junior faculty, while in others it isn't.  If you are interested in the answer in your own department, you'll have to ask them.


What is the purpose of an undergraduate viva for a dissertation? What is the purpose of an undergraduate viva for a dissertation?

In the viva the supervisor is present who moderates the viva and a second examiner who asks the questions.

Lets say that my supervisor knows that a certain topic included in the dissertation is not my strongest point, would it be fair for a large number of the questions to be directed on this topic?
Should my supervisor have made this clear to the examiner in the viva?

There is no single purpose of the viva, but broadly speaking it tests a student's ability to act like a researcher. It is not easy to define what does "being a researcher" mean, but the list of skills required definitely includes such things as: understanding the importance of the problem and its place in a wide picture of researchchoice of appropriate method to solve the problem ability to find a sound, elegant and technically accurate solution ability to communicate the solution for different audiences Many undergraduate assessments only test skill 3 from the list and (partly) skill 2. When students prepare a coursework or sit an exam, they always communicate their results in a certain style, typically in writing, and written for the single reader: the lecturer running the module.

Unlike a typical assessment, the format of viva allows three-way communication between the student, the text of thesis, and the readers / examiners. The opportunity to ask student a question about the text changes the game completely for all parties. For the student, the task is not only to write and present a text with the solution, but also to understand the solution, the questions which may be marginally connected with the topic of the text — a «big picture». For examiners, the goal is not only to check the formal correctness of the arguments, but also to make sure the student can freely use these arguments, and apply them to problems within the big picture.

Answering your specific question: it does not matter, what does the supervisor know. In viva, you, as a researcher, present the thesis. Your skill to be solely responsible for the text you produced is what is tested, not the text per se.  It is you, who should focus the examiners on the important parts of your thesis. Through the way how you present the research, you should be able to create a right context, and to attract the attention to the strongest parts of your thesis. Success in this part will invite comfortable questions; failure will result in a number of random questions distributed all over your thesis, which you'll have to answer. If you feel really uncomfortable talking about (some) part of your thesis, you possibly should ask yourself, why this topic is still a part of your thesis in the first place.


Is there a consensus on how long you should know a person before you ask him/ her to write you a recommendation letter for graduate school? I was wondering if, in general, the length of time you have spent with your professor/ superior has a great impact on your application.

What I personally have done is that if I get an A+/A/A- with his course I would reach out to him for a recommendation letter. This might not be the case for several Professors (it is a case by case basis), but in general this works. I also would ask for recommendations for Professor's that I have done research projects with.


Should I quit my undergraduate project? I am doing an undergraduate project on matrix analysis which mostly involves functional analysis(but not a lot of heavy machinery) but I realize I don't really like the area very much and my work isn't particularly non-trivial. I have an excellent and patient guide.The alternative is that I can instead read a bunch of graduate texts in analysis over the next year.
Here are the pros and cons of quitting the project I could come up with:

Pros:
1. If I quit, I will be reading some graduate texts.
2. I will be reading something I like.

Cons:
1. I will lose out on valuable research experience. I am concerned that the lack of it will render my applications to graduate schools in the US rather ordinary. 2. I have an excellent relationship with my guide.I am a little concerned she might be disappointed with the switch.
(I can't work under someone else for various reasons.)
Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Well, I believe you should not quit your research right now.
In my opinion what you said about your research situation was very good. You should know that the purpose of B.Sc. project and research is to get familiar with research world and to do something real in the Correct Way.

I think a helpful, devoting professor is like a gold in these situations. She can help you throw your bright future. It does not mean you should stick to this field for the rest of your life! Take it as a start for your future more professional research experiences.

Also, you can talk to her about different fields which you like. She may find you a combined nice problem to work on.


What should I say to my project advisor who thinks I may not get a Ph.D position? I am an undergraduate student who is looking forward to work in Theoretical Physics in the future and therefore, I chose a project advisor who is a string theorist. But since, my grades are average and I failed his QFT course (which I am going to repeat anyway), he believes that I may not get a Ph.D position if I continue to do my undergraduate project with him. And he is trying to push me into fields in which I have no interest whatsoever. And he may be right.

I took his QFT course and I worked hard, despite that I failed, not because I am stupid, it is because I am a bit slow and he went with the course at blazing speeds (but I do not blame him, it is not his fault), but since, I took his course, I got motivated and deeply interested to continue with Theoretical Physics. In short, I am in this too deep to discontinue. And he keeps asking me this question,"What will I do if I do not get a Ph.D position in Theoretical Physics ?". And he wants an answer before he continues.

What should I answer him ?

Well, he has a point. You are not guaranteed to get a position (no one is), and you should have a backup plan.

Some possible solutions for a physicist are working as a software developer, a quant in finance, or teacher. You may also take a temporary job, hone your skills, and try again the next year. Another pre-emptive option, and what he probably has in mind, is to change to a field you are stronger in, and probably have a better chance of getting a position.

This said, if you really like this field, go for it and give it a shot. Just convince your potential supervisor that you are not delusional, you know the risks, and you are not overcomitting to a wild goose chase.


Can the decision to admit a PhD student be made by a single professor? Many professors say on their websites not to email them because they cannot make admission decisions alone, but rather it is the decision of a whole committee. However, my undergraduate advisor said there is nothing stopping a single professor from admitting a student if they see fit. Is this true? And if so, how often does it happen?

This varies greatly between departments.  In some cases (particularly European universities, I believe), Ph.D. students are admitted by individual professors.  There may be some basic requirements set by the department or university, but other than that it's up to the professor's judgment.

In other cases, decisions are 100% made by a committee.  For example, that's the case in my department.  Any professor can talk with the committee members and make a case for a particular candidate, but it would be unseemly to do this too often, and the committee can simply ignore these discussions if they choose to.  (In practice, they are willing to be convinced if someone makes a compelling case for why the student would be great, but they won't admit someone just because a potential advisor is in favor.)

  Many professors say on their websites not to email them because they cannot alone do not make the admission decisions, but rather it is the decision of a whole committee.

That's true in my case.  I can't evaluate most applications in isolation (unless someone is mediocre or obviously amazing, I won't know how they compare with the other applicants this year), and I'm not interested in lobbying the committee except in unusual cases where I have important information not available to them.  (If they know everything I do, then I don't want to offend them by suggesting that I don't think they are capable of doing a good job.)

  However, my undergraduate advisor said there is nothing stopping a single professor from admitting a student if they see fit. Is this true? And if so how often does it happen?

So the answer is that this is completely true in some departments, completely false in others, and may of course be in between in some cases.  How often it happens depends on the circumstances (what you are applying for and where).  If you are applying to U.S. math grad schools, for example, essentially all the decisions will be made by committees.  If you are applying for something else, then you'll have to look into that particular case.  But if you are seeing lots of statements on web pages saying that decisions are made by committee, that tells you something.


Question regarding recommendation letters for statistics graduate applications I am currently a math and statistics undergraduate who is applying to graduate programs in statistics this fall. Two of my professors have confirmed they will write letters of recommendations for me. They are both well respected probabilists in the math department. However I have heard it  strongly suggested to get at least one statistics faculty member to write a letter for me when applying to statistics, but I don't really know anyone noteworthy in my school's statistics faculty. I've been trying to get to know my professor who is teaching my theory of statistics course this term, but I still don't think he knows we well enough to write a strong letter for me.

However there is a third math professor who I believe would be willing to write me a letter. I've been in multiple of his classes (always coincidentally got relatively higher grades in his classes), met him at multiple conferences, we are on a first name basis etc. His work is mostly in dynamical systems and ergodic theory, the latter being a something of a sub-field in probability. The fact that he's an ergodic theorist is perhaps relevant since I've been told that strong skills in probability/analysis are highly valued in statistics programs now a days, and hence probabilists' recommendations are taken seriously. He's also been the math department head a couple times and has chaired the local mathematical sciences institute I think more than once.

Therefore I'm thinking of just getting my third recommendation from him, since we's a respected academic who could write me a strong letter. My question is how important do you think it is to get at least one reference from a statistician given that I'm applying to statistics? Do you think I should pick a more generic letter from my statistics prof or a stronger letter from a third math prof for my last letter?

Thanks!

It is more important that the letter writer can speak positively about your abilities and future prospects than it is what specific field they represent. Getting a letter from a statistics prof who doesn't know you wouldn't help much no matter their reputation. Go with letters from people who know and respect you and want to see you succeed.


My university requires unrestricted access to my personal laptop. What should I do? I am not sure that Academia is the right place to post this, as it would probably be better suited for Law.se.

I am a student in Italy. My university requires unrestricted access to my personal computer for an afternoon to install a certain software. I obviously have security concerns, so I have contacted the responsible for my course to know if I could be given the key to install such software personally. He has explicitly stated that there are no alternatives to the standard process of giving in my computer to the tech department for one afternoon.

On one side am reluctant to give unrestricted access to my computer for security reasons, as I have personal files stored on my machine; on the other side I need to have access to such software because it is required for a course in the future.

Is such a request even legal or a common request in academia? How can I avoid giving unrestricted access to my personal machine while still obtaining this software?

My university requires unrestricted access to my personal computer for an afternoon to install a certain software.

Your university has messed up. Are you really sure that it's the university requiring this? Maybe it's the isolated action of your professor, in agreement with their department IT (not the university one).

  He has explicitly stated that there are no alternatives to the standard process of giving in my computer to the tech department for one afternoon.

I've never, ever seen an academic software licence requiring such a procedure.

  On one side am reluctant to give unrestricted access to my computer for security reasons

You're rightly reluctant.

  How can I avoid giving unrestricted access to my personal machine while still obtaining this software?

First, contact your course mates to start a collective action. I suggest you to write an email, signed by all students, to the dean supervising the courses of your field, the head of the department to which your professor belongs to, and, if there is one, the head of the IT university service. Copy the email to the rector too. Express clearly your concerns and state that is totally unacceptable to require students to give access to their personal computers. If your university insists on this position, ask them a copy of the licence agreement.


Tense in summary chapter of a thesis I am currently writing a cumulative dissertation which is based on several published papers. I am supposed to shortly (one page) summarize each of the papers. These summaries come before the actual papers in the thesis.
Now for me the question about the correct tense in these summaries comes up. For example I have the following sentences

The results reveals that in all weeks the methods led to reduced costs of 10 %.
On average, method B needed 14:06 minutes.

Would you rather use the past tense or the present tense in these examples. Here it is said that I should only use the past to refer to something that has been mentioned before. Basically the results and simulations have not been mentioned before. But at the same time the linked page says that I should use the past tense for summaries and to refer to specific simulation runs (which is obviously the case in my examples).
I tend to use present because I have used the present tense for the whole thesis.
What would you advise me to do?

It's not really about if you have mentioned the work before (don't get confused by the instructions), but that the work itself was done before.  So stick with the past tense for the situation here.

In general*, the past tense is safer than present or future.  Probably 95%+ of the time you should be in past tense when writing a technical report.  And if debating, past or present (either might work), you are usually better off going with the past.  Only do the present or future if you know what you are doing as a writer and have a strong reason to change the tense.

*Caveat.


How to translate "profesor auxiliar" from Spanish to English? I am currently teaching computer-science courses in a Spanish-speaking country and I’m having trouble translating my academic rank into English.

Here in my country the position is called profesor auxiliar (auxiliary professor in a word-by-word translation) and it has this responsibilities:

You’re expected to have at least a master’s degree.
It is a part-time position. Several auxiliary professors teach one or two courses, and have also jobs in the industry.
There are no research responsibilities. The main job is to give lectures.

Initially I thought the best translation was simply professor, but I’ve been warned that the word implies much more on USA (like a PhD requirement and research duties). Is there an equivalent for this position in USA?

In the US, the usual title for such a position is Adjunct Professor.

See What are the roles and responsibilities of an adjunct faculty?


Do price and value of degrees correlate much? Many American colleges and universities have very high tuition fees, in particular at prestigious universities.  For example, Harvard University in 2014-2015 is US$43,938 for tuition and US$58,607 for tuition, room, board and fees combined.  Not coincidentally, the total US study debt is currently US$1.34 * 1012 and growing.

Many European universities have very low or no tuition fees, but their degrees are by no means worthless.  To consider an arbitrary ranking, consider the list of Nobel laureates by university affiliation: tuition fees in the top ranking institution range from $0 to $50,000+.  Personally, I am a post-doc at a reasonably well-known north-American university.  I paid several 1000€ for my Bachelor's degree, 0$ for my Master's degree, yet I work along people who have likely paid far more.   Have those co-workers wasted money?  Or, to formulate the question more precisely:

Among high-ranking research universities, do those with high tuition fees perform significantly better than those with low or no tuition fees?  Do their alumni fare better?  “Better” may be measured by: current research output (high-impact papers published), number of winners of the Nobel prize, Fields medal, and other highly prestigious awards; and for those not staying in academia, lifetime earnings of alumni, or other measures.  This should be possible to investigate

High cost and high quality are not related in the United States.

First, remember that there is a large fixed base cost of room and board, which amounts to around $10K-$15K, depending on location.  Just a quick glance at a few top schools will show that the cost of tuition beyond that is correlated primarily with state-run vs. private rather than quality:

Harvard: $43,938
MIT: $43,720
Berkeley: $12,972
University of Michigan: $13,977 (in-state)

Also, remember that many of the high-priced colleges do need-based rather than merit-based financial aid, so these numbers should be seen as a "ceiling" rather than an expected price: even a super-genius will pay based on what their parents make, rather than based on how smart they are.  That same Harvard article linked in the original post notes:

  During the 2012-2013 academic year, students from families with incomes below
   $65,000, and with assets typical for that income level, will generally pay nothing toward the cost of attending Harvard College.  Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0 to 10 percent of income, depending on individual circumstances.  Significant financial aid also is available for families above those income ranges.

Thus, even at a super-expensive place like Harvard, the cost of education is completely uncorrelated with its quality.


Decline fellowship offer after writing proposal together I am PhD student in my final months, and I know that I don't want to stay in academia forever. However, I wouldn't mind doing a postdoc for two or three years, because I really like the academic work.

I have written a postdoctoral fellowship proposal together with my potential future host. The host has agreed to fund 1 year from her own funds, while the fellowship pays for another year. A few days ago, I have been awarded this fellowship.

In the meantime, I have also applied for industry positions (as I wasn't sure whether I get the fellowship), have recently had an interview and just now I got a job offer ready to sign.

Now, I have to choose between the two, and I am inclined to take the industry position and to leave academia for good - because the company has been on my "wish list" for many years and I potentially might regret having declined the job offer in a few years.

However, I am not sure whether this is fair towards the professor, as she has invested a fair amount of time into the proposal. I have not told her anything about the fellowship outcome nor the job offer. Could I still decline the fellowship without bad feelings, or have I already committed myself into this postdoc?

somewhat related:
How to politely decline a postdoc job offer after signing the offer letter?
Please note, I have not signed anything yet, so I am asking from a moral rather than a legal perspective.

Life is too short to throw away several years of your career doing something you don’t want to do in order to protect someone from mild disappointment. It is nice of you to worry about the professor, but she is responsible for her decisions, and knew that the work she was putting into the fellowship application might not yield any return, either due to you not getting the fellowship or for other reasons. So in my opinion your moral obligation in this situation is no different from your legal obligation. By the way, the legal obligation would also be pretty minimal even if you had signed acceptance of the fellowship, considering that having a postdoc is not the same as being an indentured servant, and it is quite common for postdocs to decide on a change of career direction.

Good luck!


How lenient are conferences in accepting and reviewing lately submitted poster presentation abstracts? There is a conference that my advisor suggested that I attend and present at, but unfortunately as this was just suggested today, I missed the abstract submission deadline by about a week.

I know this is my fault, but I am just wondering how lenient conferences are wrt late registration. I emailed the organizer politely explaining the situation and asking if it would still be possible to register. If anyone is curious, this is for the SIAM annual meeting in Chicago.

I've never attended any sort of conference at this level before (but do have some experience with poster presentations), so I'm wondering should I even expect a reply, let alone a positive one? I think this would be a really great opportunity for me to present my research to people in the field, and I will most likely attend the conference even if I'm not able to present at the poster session.

Edit and update: The organizing committee has agreed to give consideration to my abstract, and said they'd let me know by the end of next week re: acceptance/rejection.

Some conferences usually/always extend. Others don't. I suggest writing to the organisers and asking - the worst that can happen is that they say no, and they might say yes, even if an extension hasn't been formally announced!


Commercial product with the same functiality as my research project I’m writing my master’s thesis about visual automated testing, which will be summarized to paper.

In my theoretical study, I reference other people’s work, papers and study about this topic. Meanwhile, there are some new commercial products that have the same functionality as my research project and they provide a 30-day free trail.

Now my questions are:

Should I reference those commercial products too in my theoretical study or should I just ignore them?
If I reference them, do I have to add a comparison of results between those products and my implementation in my practical study?
There are no publications on the commercial product I found. So could I publish a paper on my work and if yes, should I ignore those methods?

You can totally reference non-free software in your work. The licence under which it is released has no impact on the technical and scientific merit of its algorithms and features. The only issue is that it is harder to know exactly what the system does if the code is not open, and that it will be harder (and probably more expensive) to reproduce any research based on it.

There are a lot of papers out there (often coming from private-sector reserachers rather than from academics, but still) which are exclusively focused on industrial products under proprietary licence. What is important is what is said about them, to which extent they are analysed, whether they are properly compared to other existing systems... Of course, it is easier to do that if you have inside knowledge of the product (i.e. you have participated to its design for instance), but it will remain difficult (not impossible) for the community to validate or refute your claims.

In a state of the art, if you know that a non-free system has a relevant feature, or solves a related problem, or contribute to the field, you just cannot ignore it, it would be a deep mistake, scientifically speaking (*). However, it might be useful to take precautions about the verifiability of the system's claim.

For what it's worth, the software development attached to my PhD thesis relied on a proprietary framework. It's not ideal in my opinion, but it doesn't invalidate the corresponding research, as long as the choice is duly motivated (for instance, no other framework provides feature X).

(*) "Listen to me: someone who doesn’t know the truth is just thick-headed. But someone who does know it and calls it a lie is a crook." (Berthold Brecht, Life of Galileo, scene 9 - you want to be a researcher? This play is a must read).


What's the best way to share my presentation slides online? I'm thinking of posting slides from some of my technical presentations online.  One option I've used in the past is just posting the PDFs.  But I've seen some sites that offer nice interfaces for others to view and share your slides without downloading them, such as

SpeakerDeck
Slideshare
Present.me

I am primarily interested in advertising my research to other researchers who might be interested in using it or collaborating.

Which site should I use, and why?  Or are raw PDFs the way to go?

In case it matters, I'm a computational mathematician and my slides are a mixture of text, equations, plots, short videos, and diagrams.

I typically post my slides on my website as pdfs.  On the title page of my slides, I have started adding a line that says something like "slides available on my preprint page", and sometimes I'll mention this at the start of my talk.  On my website, I have a page for all my slides and I also link to the relevant slides on my preprints page.  Personally, I prefer when speakers make their slides available as pdfs, because I like being able to download them and file them away, rather than needing to bookmark a website.  Similar to my preprints, I'm excited to have folks download my slides (so I don't see any reason to control their distribution).


Why are there so few visiting (research) associate professor position postings? The field is mathematics (including applied and computational mathematics).
While there are plenty of visiting assistant professor position on sites like MathJobs.org, I rarely see visiting associate professor positions, especially in USA. Is it because departments do not advertise these positions? Or that they just don't have such positions? In either case, how would one look for such a position?

At many research universities, "visiting assistant professor" actually means "postdoc with teaching duties". In other words, they are postdoc positions paid for by the department and financed at least in part through the revenues that come in through teaching.
The positions are not called "postdoc" because it is a "faculty position" so that the holder of the position is entitled to teach certain courses that only "faculty" can teach, and so that certain visa rules apply for candidates who come from abroad. The requirement for it to be a "faculty" position then prompted universities to call them "X professor". But because these are not tenure-track positions, one needs a different prefix in front of "professor" from the usual "assistant" entry-level position, and so universities chose "visiting assistant" to make it clear that the position is temporary. "Visiting" in this context is not meant to imply that that person has a position somewhere else and is only temporarily "visiting while traveling".
Given all of this, it is clear (hopefully) why there are no "visiting associate professor" positions.


Can you be working remotely on your PhD thesis of another country and then enroll and get a master/PhD in US at the same time? A friend of mine has finished his courses needed for his PhD. He's just working on his thesis now. He can do that remotely.

He's coming to the U.S. for his wife to study. During this time, can he enroll in a masters/PhD program at an American university?

Would this create any problems in the academic world or if later he applies for work and they an overlap on his years? Or this is something completely legit and legal?

I've already seen Master and PhD program at the same time but that doesn't answer this question.

To my knowledge, there aren't any laws prohibiting anyone from joining a graduate program for any reason. It might be a problem if there is a conflict in grant funding or with the confidentiality needs of a particular research program, but otherwise it should be fine. He should Just make sure he fulfill any obligations in the programs.

It would probably be best, just to avoid later questions, for your friend to be open with the new program about his relationship with the old one. But I don't think that is actually required.

I wonder, of course, why the OP thinks two degrees are necessary and whether there is time to be faithful to both, but that isn't a legal concern.


How to verify a proof prior to peer review in mathematics I think I have found that squared magic squares cannot be constructed which is an unsolved problem.
I have searched for months for any mistakes and I could not find any. I have sent this to Mr.Boyer who hosts the page yet I ended up not being able to regain contact with him after he stated he found an error in my paper. However, as I think I have been aware of the error (if clarification is needed, I will do so) and have resolved the error later in the paper, I doubt that it was, in fact, an error. However, I have no method of confirming this except by myself.

Hence, I think that the only method I have left is submitting to a peer-reviewed journal. Yet is there a method of verifying the proof prior to this? I have heard that the procedure of peer review may take years.

I am only a high-school student thus I do not have any connections to mathematicians.

Ask your teachers. They know you well, probably know math better than you, and are your closest connection to the academic world. That means they're the most likely to be willing to look through your proof, capable of finding an error you didn't spot, and if they can't find anything wrong, they'll know who to approach next (e.g. their professors from when they did their degrees).

You could conceivably approach math professors at your local university directly, but you risk coming across as a crank and being ignored. If you're able to get your math teacher to vouch for your proof, that would lend strength to your claim.


Why do conferences have such short page limits? These days, most of the conferences I attend provide their proceedings on a USB stick, or online only. Yet at the same time they have a strict page limit, which is usually set to something between 4 and 8 pages. I'm curious about the rationale for such a small limit. This is probably something that varies between fields, although I've experienced it in more than one field myself (subfields of artificial intelligence and physics). It doesn't seem particularly limited to big conferences.

I realise that super-long papers would hard on the reviewers, who have to do a lot of work for a large conference. But on the other hand, a very short paper will have to leave out a lot of background and important information, which at best will make it difficult to read, and at worst will make it impossible to judge on its merits. It's also a lot more effort to write a four-page paper than a 10-page one, unless you happen to be presenting a single experimental result using an established methodology (which is rarely if ever the case in artificial intelligence and related fields).

Looking at conference proceedings from the 1950s through to the early 1980s, it seems that proceedings papers were generally much longer. As an extreme example, I know of one that's over 100 pages (it's quite a famous paper and the length seems worth it), but up to 20 pages doesn't seem uncommon. In the '90s the standard seems to have been 10 pages, at least in subfields of computer science. Although there's obviously selection bias involved, these old papers don't seem particularly longer than they need to be, and their length allows them to make rather deeper points than could be made in a modern 4-page paper.

I'd like to know the reasoning behind short page limits at conferences. Is there a school of thought that says these extreme limits lead to better-quality papers, and/or less work for the reviewers? Or is it just a holdover from the recent past, when big conferences were expected to provide a paper proceedings to every participant, who would then have to carry the whole thing home?

There are a number of inter-related reasons for short (and shorter) conference paper lengths:

The 10-12 page limit is typically so that reviewers don't have to review an inordinately long document.
Final versions are also limited in length because the fact that proceedings are now mostly electronic doesn't mean that the cost of publication is independent of paper length. Editing costs are per-page (one can of course argue that professional editing does little for a conference paper, but nevertheless that's how it's priced).
in order to make sure "what you review is what you get", one generally enforces the page limit at submission time as well
finally, the 4-page limit I suspect is so that a fleshed out version of the work can be published in a journal without questions about the level of original content over and above what was presented at the conference. In this sense, the 4 (or 2 page) conference version is merely a short advertisement.


Background in a research proposal in a project proposal, I am asked to write a section where it I will describe the background. I am not sure this means my research background so far and connection with the proposed project, or general background of the field of research. It is for a postdoctoral position.

Thanks

It probably means the background relating to your proposed work. You need to explain what's been done in the field and how it's been done. Ideally you'll also show how your work will build off of previous work and advance the field.

The point of this is twofold. First, to put your work in context for the readers of the proposal. Second, to show that you've done your due-diligence in understanding the field and won't be wasting the money in pointless or already explored directions.


What should PhD students do if they submit a paper to two journals and a reviewer notices concurrent submission? I am in a desperate situation. I made a mistake and committed academic misconduct.

I have submitted my article to two journals in parallel, let's say in j1 and j2. Once I received acceptance from journal j1 I wrote a withdraw email to j2.

However, after the article came online it was found by the reviewer of j2 that the withdrawal article was actually a parallel submission.

I am 3rd year PhD student and my professor was unaware of this act. How can I handle this situation?

Should I write an apology email to j2? If j2 accept the apology, will j1 keep the article or still it will be retracted?

What is the best way to come out of the situation?

*I am reviewer of both journals as well.

If you are a seasoned reviewer you should know the rules, so falling back on being an inexperienced graduate student probably won't hold water. So clearly this was less a 'mistake' and more of a 'gamble'.  You should pull the article from both venues and state -unequivocally- that your advisor had no knowledge.

You didn't mention if your advisor was a co-author on the submission, but if he/she was, the infraction is even worse, because not only have you submitted without consent, you risked damaging their reputation with the journals as well.

The best path forward is to own your mistake wholly and apologize. On the positive side, it's not like you committed the mortal sin of fabricating data or plagiarizing - you violated a rule (and likely the terms and conditions of the journal). Probably not grounds for dismissal but you might be on a leash for a while.

Don't do it again!  The rule is in place for several reasons, not the least of which is respecting reviewers' time and effort (reviewers' time is precious and usually pro-bono. We can't have every journal reviewing the same work).


What data about grades should I tell the class? Make public? I have had a few professors who announced to the class the mean and median scores for each exam, but I haven't seen anyone go further than this (e.g., announce this information for homework too, give a histogram of all the scores, etc.). Also, this information has always been kept semi-private, in the sense that it is announced verbally in class, without an explicit instruction not to share it, but still making it unlikely that the information would spread beyond the class.

I'm wondering what to take into consideration when deciding what sort of information to provide, and how. Would it be acceptable to put the mean and median scores for each exam on my (publicly available) website, for example? Or is that violating the privacy of my students in some way? Might they be ashamed, as a group, if they've all done extraordinarily badly? But as their teacher, I would have to also be ashamed if that were the case - so perhaps deciding to publicize how my students are doing ought to be considered as a sign of confidence that my teaching will make them do well.

I'm sure there are other issues I'm not thinking of regarding this. Your experiences (either as a student or as a teacher) with classes that gave this sort of information, and any other thoughts, would be welcome.

Edit: I'd be teaching an undergraduate math class. But regardless of my personal situation, I'd like to hear whether you think the field of study, or the level of the course, affect the answer to the question.

Revealing information about grades is normally directed by some combination of university policy and government regulations (if one is teaching at a public institution of higher learning).

Where I teach, for instance, all grades for written exams are officially published, but semi-anonymized by replacing the students' names with their student ID numbers. In addition, the aggregate statistics are also published, along with the rubric for converting "raw" scores into final grades.

My general belief, however, is that grades are an "internal" matter, that should not generally be publicized beyond the extent required by regulations. There is no need for everyone in the world to see the grade distribution.


What do departments/universities do about unethical behavior by faculty? I see questions on this site that describe  extremely unethical behavior by professors (e.g., not giving a student authorship when it is obviously warranted). I've also seen some  behavior of this kind firsthand (not by my own advisor, thankfully), and realize that many of the perpetrators are "repeat offenders."

Often the object of the unethical behavior is a student/advisee, for whom it may  not be personally beneficial to lodge a formal complaint. (The student, understandably, does not want to do anything that will jeopardize graduation, reference letters, etc.)

Given that many students won't go on the record about unethical behavior by a professor or advisor, how do academic departments and universities find out about these incidents? (Do they?) What do they do to prevent the offenders from doing it again?

I am not asking about actual university regulations, since I am specifically interested in cases where no formal complaint is made. Rather, I am asking what practical action one could take (e.g.as a faculty member of the same department, a dept chair, a dean of some kind) to

Become aware of the incidents (dept gossip is the only way I know about, is there a better way?)
Officially or unofficially try to stop it from happening again

For example, I know that in my own department, I will warn prospective students of an unethical advisor. I am a student though; I imagine this would be  inappropriate for a faculty member.

The main problem as I have experienced it is hearsay vs. facts. By hearsay, I mean rumours or coffee-table talk and the like. The university and departments can do a lot but not on hearsay. I know of one case where all PhD students finish and then distance themselves for life to the advisor. If one of them had made a formal complaint, things would have been easy but no-one has. In this case the department has behind the scenes "decided" not to grant the person any more graduate students. I am sure many who read this can see that it is highly unsatisfactory "punishment" since it is all happening behind the scenes, but without official complaints there are no other ways to go.

To widen the perspective a little. When it comes to discrimination due to sex and  ethnicity the situation is different, there not much is needed for action. A person can be unfairly branded by almost anything regardless if any evidence exist (such as a student unsatisfied with grades and eager for revenge accuses someone for -ism). In such cases, we, rightly, have the approach no smoke without a fire. Unfortunately the other types of misbehaviours are not generally acknowledged as problems of similar dignity and so a wealth of hard evidence is required and lost of benefit of doubt exists in the process.

So although much can be done, many cases go on for long periods due to lack of hard facts. Sometimes problems are taken care of behind the scenes but these cases can drag on for very long periods. The fact that they are handled behind the scenes does not carry legal certainty and can be a problem by themselves. So clearly problems exist but the processes of "pressing charges" are unclear and uncertain. So to cap off, it is a legally tricky situation where anything but an open process carries unsatisfactory issues.


How to write a reminder mail to a Professor asking about the application? I have applied to a advertised post for a Postdoctoral position in U.S.A. It's been a month and a half since I have sent the application documents via e-mail to the professor. I haven't received any reply yet. How should I from my reminding e-mail, without offending the professor?

Professors forget to reply to emails all the time. (I think they get trained in email forgetfulness as part of the tenure process) As long as you aren't demanding or insulting, you should be fine. I'd suggest sending something like this:

  Dear Prof. Awesome,

  I haven't heard from you since I sent in my Postdoc application on January 3rd. I wanted check on the status of the application and see if there were any other documents you need.

  Thank you for your time,

  Kunal R Shah


How much time should I allow for math postdoc candidates to accept or decline my offer? For the first time in my life, I received a research grant that allows me to hire postdocs. The hiring procedure is very flexible, and I have complete control over the process, without any involvement from my university or the grant agency.

My question is - how much time is it customary to give to potential postdocs to decide if they accept my offer?

I am especially interested in feedback from pure mathematics.

Supposing this question is not hypothetical, and you are at one of these U.S. departments (assuming you need respect the agreement), you do not have too much choice in the matter. The departments at that page have agreed not to require responses to postdoctoral job offers before Monday, February 3, 2020.

Otherwise you could place it before January 24th (the deadline for decisions on the NSF postdoc), in hopes of snagging someone who might get a more attractive offer later, or afterwards, to avoid having someone else renege on your offer.

This all depends on where you are located, and what the status is of your potential candidates (the agreement above applies only to candidates within two years of their Ph. D.).


Why does editor reject when reviewers recommend acceptance? I have recently received a response for a paper submission. The paper expanded on a conference presentation, and it was submitted to the journal special issue related to that conference.

All three reviewers recommended acceptance (one "definite accept", two with "minor changes") but the editors chose to reject the paper "in light of the reviews" without any additional reason.

Why might the editors have chosen to do this? Is it OK to ask them for an explanation of their reasoning, or even to ask them to reconsider?

First, a note: the editor (or editors, or editorial committee) is solely responsible for the decision to publish or reject a submitted manuscript. Reviewers are often (not always) called in and their reports provide help to the editor in evaluating the manuscript. But, at the end of the day, it is the editor who makes the call, so the situation you describe is possible and not necessarily unethical.

It is, however, very unusual, both for the editor not to follow the unanimous recommendation of the reviewers, and even more so not to explain their rejection any further. You can definitely (and, in my opinion, should) contact the editor to:

express your surprise at the rejection, given the contents of the reviews;
ask whether it may have been an administrative error (with the nice streamlined web-based editor interface, a simple misplaced click might have lead to the current situation);
if the decision is deliberate, ask the editor if he may expand on the reason behind the rejection.

Of course, be professional and polite.

If after contacting the editor you are not satisfied with the answer, the only way forward is to appeal the decision to the editor-in-chief or the full editorial board. Details on how to do so should be found on the journal's website. This should not be done lightly, but if you do not get a decent reply from the editor, it seems warranted by the facts of your case. You may, however, want to consider sending the manuscript to another journal, as it will take much less effort than the appeal…


What is the modus operandi to get a postdoctoral position at a foreign university? In the field of Materials and Chemical Engineering, what exactly is to be done in order to secure a postdoc position (or even face an interview) at an overseas university especially when you have got no connections of your own or your PhD advisor?
So far, I have tried (1) cold emailing the professors to which I barely got any response, (2) applied for postdoc openings announced at different platforms like LinkedIn, jobs.ac.uk, etc. but unsuccessful in both of them.
To further add to my pain, my PhD adviser has barely got any connections, she has an expertise in Theory and Modelling while I have done research on interdisciplinary experimental and theoretical studies on materials. Although, I have good publication record to my name with seven papers in internationally peer reviewed journals and other skills as well. A few professors have replied to my email that I have a good CV and strong credentials but they don't have funding for me.
I want to know what is the right way to connect with the professors that I want to work with and how to approach them in a right way through an email. (Since I don't have funds, I can't afford to connect with them through a conference or in person!)
Please help!!
CV attached

This is what I have done in mathematics. I have applied in Europe mostly.

Go to conferences relevant to your subject and get to know people. Give presentations. Ask around for jobs.
Find senior researches active in your area; start, for example, from a bibliography of a recently published article and search online for the names. Are there open positions at their departments?
Take one country at a time, or, in case of a large country, even less. Wikipedia might very well have a list of universities in that country. Go through them, one-by-one, and see if they have research (projects, researchers) relevant to what you are doing. Keep track of particularly relevant universities and check them periodically for new open positions, or set up some kind of alert or RSS feed if possible.
If there are any country-specific job databases, follow those, too, and use alerts or check periodically.
When writing the application, include a few words about how your current skills are relevant for the department or what you would be working on. This shows that you know where you are applying to, but also requires you to have done the work.
If you have contacts who are also applying for jobs, ask them if they know of any that would be suitable for you. They might not want to have you as a competitor, and it might not be polite to ask, so this is best with people who have somewhat different career stage or research interests. Also share jobs relevant to them with them, possibly excluding the ones you are applying for.
Your advisor seems to have published with a number of people. Maybe some of them are possible contacts?


What tricks can I use to add value to my poster? Going round conference poster sessions, I notice the occasional poster where the presenter has used a bit of creativity to help with their communication/networking, perhaps related to linking in some way to online information, or giving people something to take away that will help them to remember the person or information. What methods have you used or come across that add value to a poster in that sort of way?

I'm interested in things outside of the basic content of the poster - by "basic content" I mean the text and images that communicate your research (there are some good answers to this question that cover that kind of thing).

Trying to avoid basic content organization that is already mentioned by this question.

From the added values point of view, I have seen/would have appreciated:

option to take a print-out with an abstract, arXiv/full paper that the poster is based on
have business cards ready/available to be freely taken (you might have to be creative on how to attach/arrange things around your poster/poster board depending on conference organization)
QR code in the poster with a link to a relevant website (source code, open data, etc). I tend to take pictures of posters that I am interested in. And I like QR codes.
have a note (somewhere visible) that you will be available (and be there!) in the coffee shop of the conference location at a specified time if somebody wishes to discuss the research. Reason: sometimes you are presenting research that attracts a lot of people, so you are always busy talking and presenting. So, not everyone gets a chance to talk to you – and their time near the poster is also limited, so they might not come by around the second time - only to find you busy with another person questioning you on some irrelevant topic.
If you are presenting something for which "you can print a simplified 3-D model", not necessarily up-to-scale - that is always fun.

I do not mention the "freebies" that you can giveaway without creating obstruction since they might attract people to your poster but probably will not add value. However, certainly, have them if you can :) I would not complain. Nobody would complain.


Research Funding distribution across discliplines Just curious: how does research funding distributions across different disciplines in EU and US? I would like to see a more detailed chart where different physical sciences and biological sciences are listed. Thanks!

In the UK, the EPSRC (Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council) has a handy visualisation on their website to see the current funding distribution within their remit.

A similar visualisation has been created for the BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) - also UK. Although this only appears to be for projects active in 2012.

UberResearch compiles data on research funding, however, their service is not freely available. They do have some samples, which my be interesting. They appear to have data from the UK, US and EU. I've never used this service so cannot comment on its usefulness.

Most of the public funding bodies provide data on funded projects on their websites. However, it would require a lot of processing to make visualisations of it.


Should I mention professors in a Masters application? I am wondering if I am supposed to mention in my statement of purpose/research objective/reason for the masters program that I like the research of Prof X.

Lets assume for example a Master in Computational Science Engineering. The area is relatively specific: stochastic, machine learning and a bit of other stuff. Should I still mention a professor and his work, or does it not matter at all for the application?

However, if I would apply for a "regular" masters program where I have to choose a department that I prefer, should I mention a professor and some of his work in this case?

You can certainly mention a professor and his/her research in your statement of purpose as long as it is genuine.  This can show that you are a) familiar with the school/the department and its faculty and b) you have a good understanding of the field and your interests within it.  There is certainly nothing wrong with saying 'One of the reasons that I chose this school is because Prof. X's work on XYZ is very interesting, and I would love the opportunity to learn from him/her and his/her work.'  Don't, however, try to name-drop for the sake of it.

You should also make sure that you do a little research to make sure that that professor is actually still going to be doing work during your time at that school.  It looks kind of bad if you say 'I really want to work with Prof. A,' but Prof A is going to be on sabbatical or something like that.  This kind of information is not always readily available.

In short, don't be afraid of mentioning a prof if you really mean it and are really excited, but don't look up someone from each school you are applying to for the sake of putting a name in your paper.


How can I prove my publication list is mine? In some of the questions regarding author name, it is mentioned that people can use whatever they like, however, they must be consistent across their publications.

When it comes to being hired by a university for a tenure track position or by another principal investigator as a researcher, how can someone prove that they are the author of papers when their author name does not exactly match the one on their ID card? How can a principal investigator be sure that the publication list does actually belong to the person claiming them?

When it comes to hiring a faculty member, you can expect that members of the search committee will look at a candidate's papers.  Since the published paper typically shows the affiliation of the author and the past affiliations of a candidate will appear on the CV, it would generally be obvious if a paper was authored by someone other than the candidate with the same or similar name.

Of course, a candidate could lie about his/her past affiliations, but we have letters of recommendation and reference phone calls to ensure that doesn't happen.


Should I include information about my mental health in my masters personal statements? I graduated in 2016 with a 2:2, which I feel was lower than what I could have achieved.

I had had some minor issues before starting university, however I had an amazing support system and managed to get these in check. I completed my first year with only the normal issues (homesickness at first and adjusting to living away from home) until just before the end. I failed the last two exams of the year, partly due to the same issues that reoccurred later.

I had been struggling with one of my elective modules and after talking with my tutor, he recommended not worrying about it as I could fail 20 credits and as a 10 credit module, it would not affect my grade. However, the day of I woke up and completely panicked, zoning in and out all morning. I walked to the exam, and blanked and ended up in my department building instead of the exam hall, which was 20 minutes away and I had to run down a very steep hill to make it to the exam. But I made it and sat the exam.

I injured my knee while running. The problem with this is that my main coping method is exercise and I was on crutches. I then managed to completely space out for the last exam of the year. Meaning I failed both these modules, which was my 20 credit allowance. Despite this I averaged a high 2:1 for the year.

I went into my second year, with added roles and responsibilities. I had lived in catered accommodation in first year and moved to self catered in my second year. I became the social secretary of the physics society and started another sport (total of three) I had been a super human in my first year and wanted to do more. This turned out to be a bad idea, as my mental health started to decline, and my grades took a hit.

I then tried to pull them back up in my third year, but poor living conditions caused a physical health decline, which then exacerbated the mental health problems to a point where some days I couldn't get out of bed.

The main problem being that in my third year I was living with some really shitty people and they were really scathing of mental health issues, meaning I didn't seek the help I needed and am now getting and didn't apply for special circumstance. Hindsight really is 20:20.

I have taken time out of my career to get this sorted and to make sure that I am taking the right path for me. I have now ruled it down to three possible paths and want to apply to see what I can do.

I just want to know whether I should mention these issues and the steps I've taken in my time off to overcome these, on my personal statement. I don't seem to get anywhere else to put this and none of my previous lecturers know about this to mention on any references.

You should not. But if you write it in the way you wrote the question explanation (rich in useless details) nobody would consider it. Another aspect you need to work on: given the text, the only thing important to you are/were the grades, not career development and knowledge. The major reason you attend classes is to acquire knowledge and wisdom, with grades being a metric of how this acquisition went. If you go for grades without actually acquiring knowledge, your career will get very dull.

The statement is about your passion to the field (which is ... ?), about how you want to teach, sing, dance, engineer, heal, fight, prosecute or whatever the degree is about, how enthusiastic you are about it. While pushing this concept can be enforced by your past, the statement shouldn't be a judgement of what you did in the past.

We all have ups and downs. Finding the one responsible for downs (like the shitty people from the junior year for example) is an evidence of lack of personal responsibility. You had your down, you overcame it, that's good for you, but it was because of you, not because of other people.


How to politely decline the university medal? I have studied in an Australian university and throughout my university studies, I declined all prizes awarded to me. It is not that I have had something against my university but it is due to my own ethical values. I believe that a true scholar should have no interest in fame and prizes and that is exactly the reason I declined all the prizes given to me so far (I want to remain a true scholar).

It's not that I see myself superior to others in any way; indeed, I always claimed to be the dumbest student in my university. If it takes someone 10 minutes to understand a math theorem, it would take me at least 3 hours to understand it properly.  Some people unfortunately misinterpret my statement:

  I believe that a true scholar should have no interest in fame and
  prizes and that is exactly the reason I declined all the prizes given
  to me so far (I want to remain a true scholar).

I did not mean in any way, that someone who accepts prizes is not a true scholar and if that is the message conveyed by my statement, then I apologize from the bottom of my heart. This statement only applies to me; if I accept prizes, then I think that I am better than others and because of this I decline prizes because I want to remain a true scholar. I do not want to feel superior to others. This will make me not work hard. Some people said that I am following Perelman's footsteps. I honestly do not even consider myself a successful student; how could I dare to compare myself to Perelman. I am only an ordinary dumb student.

I just received an email from the university that this July (my graduation ceremony), they will award the university medal to me. I am going to decline the university medal but I am not sure what is the best way to do this politely so that the academics at my university will not be offended.

Update: After discussing this with the dean of my faculty, I agreed to accept the university medal. It will be annotated in my academic transcript, record, and testamur. This helps my Phd admission chances in the top 10 universities (something I was told by academics at my university).

The problem is as @WetlabWalter says: the medal is not just for you - it is for everybody that supported you and, in fact, indirectly for your class, and lecturers.

You have a good reason (for yourself) to decline it, which is commendable.

But you might offend those who recommended you, those who taught you (who would be indirectly honoured) and possibly your classmates.

If on weighing your principles against this you still stand by your decision to decline the prize, send a letter as long beforehand as you can, explaining your position and emphasise your history of declining prizes (to indicate that they are not the only one on the receiving end of the rejection).

Don't decline on the event itself, this will be a major embarrassment.

Finally, if you develop a reputation for declining prizes, grant managers may decide that they'd rather not put glamourous, funded programs your way, so be prepared for limitations of funding in the future. For anybody as brilliant as a Grothendieck or Perelman, that should not be a problem, but if that's not the case, take that into account.

PostScriptum: The balance of prize distribution is very fine. A prize is supposed to honour the recipient. But if the recipient is absolutely outstanding, the recipient would add as much glamour to the prize as the other way around. Therefore, a rejection penalises also the prize-giver.

Why are prizes at all relevant? You have a point in that a true scholar should not be motivated by prizes and honours. However, in today's very crowded fields, a prize is like a flag that demonstrates "this is how things should be done". It sets a signal of example for others. By rejecting the prize you send the message that you do not care to be an example; which is entirely your right - but you must be aware of that.

Interestingly, Sartre was one of the few people declining the Nobel prize (literature). It was claimed that, some years later, he decided that he'd rather be in need of the prize money and asked whether he could get it retrospectively (after this story, he couldn't). Whether this anecdote is true or false, it makes clear you have to think hard whether there could be a constellation whether you could regret your decision - it doesn't have to be for the money, of course.


Is there any way to get accepted in PhD program without masters? I am applying for a PhD position for last few months but all the Professors say they need a masters whereas I have quite good lab experiences than a masters student even. I am very much depressed nowadays. What should I do now? If the professors do not trust the skills written in the CV, they can give a conditional offer; but they don't.

In most European countries following the Bologna process, a master's degree is a "hard" prerequisite for being accepted into a PhD program. There is no easy way around this, in large part because the PhD typically encompasses only the research phase of a standard US PhD program. By skipping or omitting the master's degree, one would have a "weaker" degree than someone who completed the master's.

Your best bet would be to find a PhD program which offers a master's program as "preadmission" to the PhD program. Not all doctoral programs offer such master's degrees, but many programs designed to attract international students will.


Why are our responsibilities and duties centralized instead of more evenly distributed? I understand that academia is a very competitive place where motivated people are always trying to get ahead of the others. What I have noticed is that few famous/known/recognized people tend to commit to more and more duties, some of them unpaid, to the point that they have very limited time to perform  some of these duties.

For example head of departments are also main editors of famous journals, may be a member of an international panel, on top of all the other duties. Then what I read and hear is that we are overworked, but it seems that many duties which bring prestige but involve a fair amount of work are centralized.

Because people tend to say "yes" then why is not all this work more evenly distributed? It seems that this would benefit more people and make the system less cluttered. I am referring for example to journal editors, or having 50 phd/post-docs and not being able to properly supervise any of them, etc.

One way to answer this question is to borrow a concept from economics known as the Pareto Principle. This principle, slightly reworded, states that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. This concept plays out in many different fields beyond your question in relation to academics. The talented people tend to do produce way more than the average and not so talented.This gives the appearance of centralization when it is really just the 20% producing 80% of the results


Rejection from a legitimate journal, with reviewers recommending me to try a Beall's list journal Recently I received a rejection by the editor of SCI Expanded journal (which I consider to be a legitimate journal):

The reviewer's comments (just a few days after I submitted the manuscript):

  Sorry, this paper lacks novelty, is not well written, and will not be considered due to overwhelming submissions to X journal (SCI Expanded journal).
  Suggest to try: (gives me a URL to a journal listed in Beall's List of predatory journals).

(I have removed the names of the journals above. I have personally checked https://beallslist.net/ and confirmed that the suggested journal falls inside the Original Beall's List. The suggested journal comes with a publication fee of 1500 euros for each article.)

I am quite new to academia. Is the above considered normal practice for a reputable journal listed in the Science Citation Index (Expanded)?

Any advice of what I can do?

Update:

I found that a member of the editorial board of the SCI Expanded journal, is also in the editorial board of the Beall's list journal.

I am quite new to academia, is the above considered normal practice

No. This is abnormal and unacceptable for a reviewer or editor to suggest this.

  Any advice of what I can do?

If the journal you submitted to really is legitimate, contact the editor and escalate this. Simply point out that the review you received pointed you to a predatory journal, and ask if the editor can reach out to the reviewer to see if this was a mistake.

  Update: I found that a member of the editorial board of the SCIE journal, is also in the editorial board of the Beall's list journal.

This is a red flag, and the review you received is another red flag. These red flags suggest that the journal you submitted to is not reputable. I would check with online journal ratings, impact factor, etc. to make sure you are not already submitting to a very low-quality journal (even if it is not predatory).


Inappropriate reference requests from Journal reviewers A journal article I submitted to a highly reputable journal has been returned with a number of revisions requested, most of which are useful and helpful and will improve the quality of the article. However, two of the three reviewers have also suggested articles that should be added as references to my paper. These articles are not appropriate to reference in the paper; I have tried at length to find relevance but cannot. I assume that the reviewers are authors of these papers and wish to increase their citations.
The email from the (unnamed) journal editor asking for revisions is pro forma and includes a line asking for any inappropriate requests for citations to be referred to the editor.
Analysis of the authorship of the requested articles suggests that the two reviewers in question are affiliated with the same institution. Two members of the editorial board of the journal are at the same institution, so it is at least possible and perhaps likely that the editor shares an affiliation with the 2 reviewers.

My supervisor (and co-author) suggests I try and find the suggested paper that is least inappropriate and reference it in our article ‒ "throw them a bone."

I feel that we should address the other revision requests comprehensively but decline to reference the articles, giving our reasons.

Ethics vs Pragmatism, yes, but I also want to get the article published and this may not be the hill to die on. Will my approach mean rejection? Do I have any recourse if it does? Should I call this out to the Editor in Chief?

I'm interested in other people's experiences.

If you think you see this often, imagine how much more often journal editors see it.

So sticking to ethics is fine. Journal editors see this often enough to know when to reject a review because of it. You are not generally under threat of rejection if you decline to cite a reference. The worst that can happen is that the reviewer rejects your article, but since they've already recommended revision the first time, the editor is more equipped to discern if the rejection is unfair. Remember that if the reviewer says "reject because they didn't cite XYZ", the editor (who is able to see the reviewer's identity) is very much able to see if XYZ is also written by the reviewer. In your case you even have an editor who said to refer any inappropriate citation requests to them.

A word of caution: there's no guarantee that the requested citations are articles by the reviewers. There's a lot of diversity in what reviews look like, and it's possible the reviewer did not write those articles. Don't leap to conclusions. Stick to the facts ("we do not think these articles are relevant") and don't allege collusion (such as how the reviewers & editors are from the same institution - you simply don't know).