Lab culture

Throughout my scientific career, I (Dimitar) have experienced a variety of mentorship styles from my formal and informal mentors. In some cases, these have been wonderful experiences that have taught me how to do things well. In other cases, these have been difficult experiences that have taught me the wrong way to do things. I have also supervised students at all levels in the past, and I have often solicited feedback from them about how I can be a more effective mentor. These experiences inform the vision for the way I am running my own laboratory: my aim is to create a research environment where everyone is welcome, where discovery is fun, and where we can all learn and grow together. For a more philosophical description of my thoughts on mentorship and diversity, you can read these exerpts taken from the teaching and diversity statements that I submitted when I was applying for faculty positions.

Fulfilling this vision will be a bumpy process, and we will all face difficult moments. Ultimately, the success of each of us as individuals will depend on the lab as a whole being a supportive and inspiring place. This process begins with us all having clear expectations of each other and being account to one another. Below, I have attempted to formalize some of these expectations.

What lab members can expect of Dimitar

General expectations:
You should expect that I will create and maintain a safe and positive workplace environment. At the top, I will do my best to be courteous to you and all others in the lab and make sure that everyone is courteous to each other. If there are conflicts in the lab that need resolving, you can expect that I will not shy away from them and will actively mediate.

You should also expect that I will work with you to achieve success. Ultimately, my goal is to empower you to have the confidence to be independent scientists, but I do not expect you to be fully formed when you begin working in the lab. Many of the things that have led me to achieve my own modest success were learned from my mentors and peers. My hope is to be able to pass them along as well.

Finally, you can expect that I will laugh a lot and do my best to make the lab a fun place to work.

When joining the lab:
New lab members can expect substantial input and guidance on project selection, technical training, and other requirements for getting set up in the lab. If I am not able to provide these directly, I will do my best to point you in the direction of someone who can. Lab members can also expect assistance with writing grant proposals, attending training courses, and performing any other activities to equip you with the tools you will need to succeed.

While in the lab:
Once in the lab, members at all levels can expect to have regular meetings about the progress of their project. In these meetings, they can expect that I will be engaged, pay attention, and give feedback on present work, and give suggestions for next steps. I will also do my best to keep up with the literature for each project, although this may not always be possible due to time constraints. Lab members can also expect to have less frequent meetings to discuss career goals, how to reach these goals, and to give and receive general feedback.

As projections are coming to their completion, lab members should expect my support in pushing projects over the finish line and fighting for them to be published. You can expect that I will give you clear timelines for how long it will take me to give you comments on your manuscripts, and that I will get expert colleagues to also give comments before we submit. I will encourage all lab members to submit their projects to preprint servers upon submission of manuscripts (i.e. bioRxiv) but will leave the decision to do so to the individuals. As a general principle, I will do my best not to be the reason that your paper is held up. 

After leaving the lab:
Once lab members leave the lab, they can continue to expect my support in furthering their career by writing letters of recommendation, giving comments on grants, and being your advocate to the scientific community as a whole.

What Dimitar expects of lab members

My primary expectation of lab members is that they take their role seriously and are engaged with their work. This means that you come prepared to meetings about your own work, that you engage with the work of your co-workers, and that you put in the time to be a good scientist by reading papers and striving to get the most out of your projects.

On an individual level, the attributes that I value in a young scientist are: (1) smarts, (2) toughness, and (3) consistency. Here, smarts does not necessarily mean pure intelligence but rather the ability to be agile in the way that you work by reading, iterating, and making informed decisions about where to take the project. Toughness means that you have the ability to persevere when things go wrong, because they surely will. And consistency means that you can exhibit the endurance that it takes to first conceive a project, gather and analyze the data for the project, and write it up and publish it as a paper. These attributes can, to a large degree, be learned, and I hope to be able to instill them in members of the lab.