“I’m an NIH-funded researcher, drowning in uncertainty.”
That was the headline of a powerful essay we published in February, a few weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump began his second term in office. The essay was written by an early-career faculty member who shared how hard it was to watch the changes that were taking shape at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), not knowing how they would affect her lab, research, and career. “Will my grants ever be reviewed? What can I research?” she asked.
As the year progressed, we published other anguished essays by researchers navigating changes to the U.S. political and funding landscape, as well as issues that can apply regardless of time or place—including essays that explored the advantages that come with being yourself at work, the similarities between bike riding and graduate school, and the downfall of focusing too much on prestige.
They were all published as part of Science’s ongoing Working Life series, which explores key lessons scientists have learned as they pursue their careers. Here, in chronological order, are the most read Working Life essays of the year.
As a professor at a teaching-focused university, Salahuddin Mohammed realized success isn’t solely about high-impact publications or prestigious grants.
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-12-22 11:36:352025-12-22 11:36:35Academic betrayal, tapping into silliness: Science’s top personal essays of 2025
A Dutch university has successfully closed the gender gap in Ph.D. students graduating with honors—with potential lessons for other institutions looking to correct gender imbalances in academia.
Outstanding Ph.D. students in the Netherlands and a handful of other countries can be awarded their degrees cum laude. But after the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) realized women were half as likely as men to receive this award, it quietly overhauled its policy, requiring thesis committees to recommend students for the award rather than their thesis advisers. Last week, TU/e released data in the Dutch newspaper Trouw showing the new policy has worked.
The results are “heartening to see,” says Kuheli Dutt, assistant dean of community engagement and student relations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose own work has revealed differences in letters of recommendation for men and women on the postdoc job market. Although the cum laude award is not widespread internationally, the results suggest the university was able to mitigate bias by introducing a process with more transparency and careful deliberation of candidates’ merits, she says—something other institutions could learn from.
The university realized its cum laude awards were a problem in 2018, when the Dutch newspaper NRC published an analysis of the gap at a range of Dutch universities. It showed that 7.7% of men Ph.D. students at TU/e were awarded cum laude, compared with 3.3% of women students. Processes to recommend students for the award differ between universities, and TU/e administrators noticed institutions with a smaller gap tended not to give this power solely to the student’s head adviser, who is usually a senior member of their department, says René van Donkelaar, dean of TU/e’s doctoral school.
So TU/e changed the procedure, asking each member of the thesis committee—made up of academics from other institutions—to note whether they thought a Ph.D. thesis was suitable for the award. The adviser as well as a university cum laude committee could then agree or disagree with the assessment.
TU/e’s data show an immediate swing in the awards. In 2018, 2.6% of women graduating with Ph.D.s received the award; in 2019, this shot up to 10.1%. Numbers for both men and women have varied in subsequent years, but are generally close to parity, with women receiving slightly more awards than men in some years.
“I think it’s an example other universities should follow,” says University of Manchester sociologist Jessica Gagnon, who researches diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math. Attempts to close diversity gaps often stall at the phase of data collection, she says, so it’s inspiring to see an institute putting in place corrective policies. “We’re stuck spinning our wheels at the first step of finding out there’s a problem.” But this is just a start, she adds; if advisers were playing such a significant role in the cum laude gap, it’s worth exploring whether students are being treated differently in other ways.
With declining funding for science in some countries—including the United States—competition will increase, says Julie Posselt, a higher education researcher at the University of Southern California. “And usually when competition increases, so does inequality.” That makes it crucial for institutions to find ways to address imbalances, she says. The results from TU/e suggest the question of who evaluates performance is critical—and shows it’s important to dissect existing processes to see what could be going wrong.
TU/e has changed several other gender-related policies, including the introduction of fellowships initially open only to women applicants in faculties with a severe gender imbalance. This makes it difficult to tease apart exactly what caused the cum laude gender gap to close, says Thijs Bol, a sociologist at the University of Amsterdam whose work has explored the causes of the gap. It’s possible that more women professors or a greater awareness of biases at the university played a role, he says.
TU/e published its data after the University of Twente (UTwente), also in the Netherlands, announced on 7 November it had culled the cum laude distinction altogether because there, too, men were twice as likely to receive it. “We thought it was a sad decision,” Van Donkelaar says, because excellent students deserve the recognition. But the distinction was inherently subjective, and the process of awarding it had “several other imperfections,” says UTwente spokesperson Laurens van der Velde. Bol agrees. Subjectivity leads to “perverse effects, particularly for minorities,” and it would be better for Dutch universities to follow UTwente’s example and ditch cum laude, he says. “I would rather invest that time in making better procedures for things we actually do need competition for, such as research funding and positions.”
Since 2019, the Institute of Biology and Chemistry of Proteins (IBCP) in Lyon, France, has retrofitted the building for greater energy efficiency, raised freezers’ temperatures 10°C, and reduced the need for autoclaving by 1 month’s worth of cycles per year. The institute increasingly orders consumables in bulk, recycles polystyrene packaging, and gets small lab equipment repaired rather than replaced. Every year it also organizes a contest for researchers to clean out their freezers so it doesn’t have to buy new ones. Thanks to these efforts and more, IBCP reduced its carbon footprint by about 13% between 2019 and 2023, though it has seen a recent spike because of new teams’ arrivals. And most of these changes have been spurred by a dozen volunteer scientists concerned about the environmental impact of their work.
These grassroots efforts are part of a larger movement across France. At its forefront is Labos 1point5, a collective of some 600 researchers who believe science should lead by example when it comes to reducing society’s carbon footprint. Pressure for change is also coming from above, with the French government in recent years requiring all universities and research organizations to prepare a road map for curbing their greenhouse gas emissions by 2% to 5% annually—and recognize researchers working on reducing science’s carbon footprint. “The whole system really needs to change,” says IBCP researcher and Labos 1point5 member Sandrine Vadon Le Goff.
As Labos 1point5 guides participating departments and laboratories toward greater carbon frugality, it’s creating a national experiment into what works—and the potential trade-offs. Any moves that might impact productivity, for example, can create pronounced tensions for those earlier in their careers, who face intense pressure to generate traditionally valued research outputs to establish themselves. “Young researchers are both particularly interested [in climate change action] and particularly vulnerable,” says André Estevez-Torres, a biophysicist–turned–sustainability scientist at the University of Lille who leads the Labos 1point5 research network. Amid practical on-the-ground measures, he adds, the real progress lies in the scientific community starting to think about and discuss these issues.
Among other efforts, the collective has developed a free online tool that any French researcher can use to compute their lab’s carbon footprint; they are currently working on an international version to be released in 2026. To date, more than half of France’s 2000 research departments have voluntarily used the tool for several years in a row, Estevez-Torres says. Harnessing these data, Estevez-Torres and his colleagues calculate that more than half of the carbon footprint of most French research laboratories comes from manufacturing, transport, and technical services associated with lab supplies and equipment—far above other common considerations such as traveling to conferences, commuting to work, and heating buildings.With a snapshot of their lab’s footprint in hand, researchers can use another tool provided by Labos 1point5 to simulate the impact of reduction scenarios. Almost 7 years into its existence, Labos 1point5 has prompted more than 800 simulations to be run across France, with the most tested measures being buying less material, extending the life span of computer hardware, and replacing airline flights to close locations with train journeys. A couple years ago, Labos 1point5 also launched a network and online platform for labs to share their implementation progress. To date, 90 laboratories have reported putting in place 346 emission-curbing initiatives including recycling plastic waste, defaulting to vegetarian buffets, and reducing travel.
Although in principle many researchers agree with reducing emissions, lab discussions can run into a host of practical and financial issues, as well as sensitive workforce and scientific considerations, and even philosophical and political ramifications. For example, replacing disposable plastic consumables with glassware begs the question of whether there will be funding to hire someone to wash it, Vadon Le Goff says. And although certain single-use consumables can be reused, many scientists worry adjusting long-standing protocols could affect results.
Lab and department heads can also be recalcitrant, fearing tensions among team members about which activities should be prioritized or restrictions in pursuing quality research, says population geneticist Audrey Sabbagh, an associate professor at Paris City University who joined Labos 1point5 in its early days. She advocates for a change in perspective. “Can we consider research that is not ethical from an environmental point of view to be excellent?” she asks. “It makes us rethink what quality research is.”
Future goals for Labos 1point5, which is preparing an application for a new, 5-year round of research funding next year, include shedding light on the structural and psychological roadblocks to labs taking bolder action. For example, labs could consider the broader societal impact of their research, intentionally slowing down the production pace of some research to spread its carbon footprint over several years or favoring research topics that contribute more directly to solving the current socioecological crises, says Mathieu Bouffard, a temporary lecturer in planetary science at Nantes University who created a group for young researchers within Labos 1point5.
Even without going that far, engaging in efforts to make science more sustainable can carry some risks for early-career researchers. Some institutions have created new positions in sustainable science, but opportunities remain few and far between. Bouffard investigates his field’s environmental impact in side projects, but he is unsure how valued his interdisciplinarity will ultimately be. “Will this work against me or in my favor? It’s not easy to say.” He also recognizes other trade-offs. “All the time that we are going to spend doing something else than research [such as climate advocacy] means getting less publications.”
For many of the scientists involved, the grassroots movement has helped reduce their discomfort with the environmental costs of pursuing their research by adopting greener practices, says Antoine Hardy, a sociologist at the Center for the Sociology of Innovation in Paris who studied the unfolding of the Labos 1point5 movement for his doctoral work. But the professional pressure is such that it can be difficult for early-career researchers to join Labos 1point5, he notes. Today, young researchers remain few among the collective and participating lab volunteers, despite more than 1300 signing an open letter supporting the group’s vision and some 4500 doctoral students participating in its online trainings.
Advocating for changes that your colleagues may not necessarily welcome can put you in a vulnerable position, says astrophysics postdoc and Labos 1point5 member Jack Berat. Apart from needing the approval of their supervisors to get involved, “we cannot commit to the transformation of the research group” when working on a short-term contract.
Equity is another consideration Labos 1point5 highlights to participating labs. For example, some labs have implemented carbon quotas for travel but exempted junior researchers, recognizing the importance of having in-person interactions as they are establishing their careers, Sabbagh says. “It is when we are young researchers that we most need to travel to engage in collaborations and make ourselves visible.”
Within individual labs, progress will likely require iterative experimentation. IBCP, for example, has started to run participative workshops so people can “present their problems and their obstacles,” says IBCP research engineer and Labos 1point5 member Virginie Gueguen-Chaignon. “It allows us to … arrive at imperfect proposals, and then we improve them little by little.”
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-12-19 10:39:272025-12-19 10:39:27To reduce science’s carbon footprint, researchers in France reinvent work practices
I expected the news to bring relief. Instead, when I learned that the mentor who had made unwanted sexual advances toward me 25 years ago had died, I found myself sifting through far more complicated feelings. There was sadness—not because his actions were excusable, but because for me he hadn’t always been the person who harmed me. At one time, I had trusted him and believed he was someone who saw potential in me. Even now, I can recognize the small ways he supported my early steps in science. Holding those truths alongside the memory of what he did has never been simple, and his death only brought that complexity into sharper focus.
I had joined his lab as an undergraduate intern, determined to prove I belonged there. Surrounded by tools I didn’t yet know how to use, I felt both thrilled and intimidated. What grounded me was the trust I felt as I was welcomed into that space—trust that I would be given the training I needed and space to grow. I didn’t realize how fragile that sense of trust could be until the night it broke.
On my 21st birthday, my mentor, who was decades my senior, invited me to his home to celebrate. I was encouraged by the gesture, taking it as one more sign that I was on the right path. When he handed me a cocktail and queued up Basic Instinct, I told myself this was informal mentoring, the kind I assumed others experienced but rarely discussed. But midway through the movie, he moved closer and put his hand on my thigh. I froze. People often imagine that these situations trigger immediate resistance, but paralysis is its own instinct, one that leaves you feeling betrayed by your own body.
When he leaned in and tried to climb on top of me, something finally snapped. I ran down the stairs, out the door, and into the night. I barely remember the walk home, only the pounding of my footsteps and frantic rhythm of my heartbeat.
Afterward, I said nothing. I told myself that speaking up might threaten his career, or mine, or both. I worried no one would believe me. I rationalized that perhaps my experience had been a misunderstanding, that it was an isolated moment, that speaking up would cause more trouble than good. But silence doesn’t erase harm. It simply buries it and the weight of keeping it buried becomes its own burden.
That burden intensified weeks later when he introduced me to the intern who would replace me, a young woman with the same eagerness and optimism I had. Seeing her shook something loose in me. I realized my silence, intended to protect myself, also shielded him from accountability. But even then, I told no one.
Years passed. I moved on to other labs, other institutions, other milestones. Outwardly, I was succeeding. But my silence traveled with me. It shaped how I approached mentors, how I navigated power dynamics, and how I hesitated before asking questions that might expose vulnerability. It also influenced choices I didn’t fully recognize at the time, like how I found myself gravitating toward advisers who were women, or men who felt safe—even if the research groups that excited me most were led by others. I told myself it was about fit, or personality, or timing, but underneath was a different calculation. The guilt persisted as well. I saw myself as someone who had failed to act.
In the meantime, as I moved into roles that involved mentoring students, I became acutely aware of the environments we create for trainees. I tried to be intentional about well-being, boundaries, and belonging, recognizing that mentorship is not simply about guiding someone toward a career, but about honoring the responsibility that comes with power. That meant checking in with students before problems arose, being transparent about expectations, celebrating their successes, and regularly inviting feedback. These practices are small, but they are deliberate, and they reflect a commitment to building the kind of scientific community I needed when I was young—one where safety is nurtured and trust is earned.
After all these years, I share my story in the hope that others, whether trainees or senior scientists, will reflect on moments when trust mattered in their own career journey, and on the responsibility we each hold in ensuring that the next generation enters a scientific world where safety is actively protected.
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-12-18 14:06:162025-12-18 14:06:16After an academic mentor’s unwanted sexual advances, I stayed silent for decades. Now, I’m speaking out
For 20 years, my life has been go, go, go. As a postdoctoral researcher and then a faculty member, I often found myself answering that one last email from a student while helping my children with homework or replying to a text from the lab while attending my son’s band concert. I was accustomed to arriving at my office each day before 8 a.m., coffee in hand, ready to tackle a long to-do list. I rarely had a lunch break, and when I did, it was spent at my desk replying to emails. My days were blurred by meetings, lab work, and deadlines, yet I still felt behind. That relentless pace seemed like the only way to be both a scientist and a parent—until a fellowship abroad showed me a new approach to research and life.
After receiving tenure in 2022 I considered taking a sabbatical. But I had 15 people in my lab, a partner who is also in academia with his own lab, and two children in elementary school. I felt I could not step away for a year. Then I connected with researchers in Uruguay seeking a collaborator experienced in my area, tick transgenics, and I got a short-term Fulbright fellowship to explore the opportunity. I envisioned my 3-month stay as an intense period of lab work, data collection, and scientific discoveries. The 5-hour time difference would leave me with enough hours to catch up with my lab and family back home.
When I arrived, I was dismayed to learn that the shuttle to the institute ran on a schedule that limited our work hours to 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mornings started with shared maté and conversations about our weekends or evenings, followed later by an extended lunch break that was sacred. I felt impatient.
Yet my research progressed steadily. Outside of work, another kind of progress was unfolding. I was still working long hours because of my responsibilities as a lab head, graduate program director, and National Institutes of Health study section member, but the built-in breaks—which often included an evening snack or walk on the rambla—made all the difference. I still got my work done, and the slower rhythm also left space for deeper thinking, both in my experiments and in my life. I was learning the value of working with intention rather than urgency, and of leaving room for the parts of life that can’t be scheduled. A calmness set in. I found myself laughing more, sleeping better, and enjoying the life I have worked hard to build.
Midway through my fellowship my family arrived for an extended visit, and I took 3 weeks off for a once-in-a-lifetime journey. We wandered through bustling neighborhoods framed by the Andes, stood in silence under a desert sky heavy with stars, and felt the thunder of waterfalls drenching us in mist. I began to notice small things: my daughter’s fascination with seashells, my son’s growing ease with strangers and his first words of Spanish, the way my spouse and I laughed more instead of just discussing logistics.
When my fellowship ended 8 months ago, I returned with more than a set of data. I came back with a recalibrated sense of how I want to live and work. I no longer treat evenings and weekends as time to catch up on unfinished work; instead, I reserve them for my family and myself. Blocking my calendar so that no one can schedule a meeting during my off hours and letting my lab members know when I will be available has worked wonders. I’ve built small rituals into my routine—a morning walk, a lunch break away from the screen—and I keep a maté gourd on my desk as a reminder to pause and connect.
These modest changes have reshaped the texture of my days. I find myself more focused in the lab, more patient with my students, and more present with my family. Productivity, I’ve come to see, is not measured only by research papers and grants. It is also sustained by presence, rest, and the relationships that give meaning to the work.
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-12-11 14:14:492025-12-11 14:14:49I was a ‘go, go, go’ academic. A fellowship abroad transformed my approach
Experimental Error is a column about the quirky, comical, and sometimes bizarre world of scientific training and careers, written by scientist and comedian Adam Ruben. Barmaleeva/Shutterstock, adapted by C. Aycock/Science
Students often ask my advice to help them choose between pursuing a career in industry or academia. I think they expect me to hit on the standard comparisons: purity versus security, intellectual freedom versus monetary freedom, teaching versus never freaking having to teach again. But I always begin my answer somewhere else: by telling them that they’re asking a flawed question. Industry, I tell them, isn’t just one thing. And understanding the different types is crucial.
We often think of “industry” as Fortune 500 tech companies with fancy offices and, I don’t know, canapés or something. But there’s big industry, and there’s small industry. And the difference between them can be as vast as the difference between industry and academia.
For more than a decade, I worked at a small startup biotech company. We were nimble, scrappy, innovative, poor, and in a constant panic. Those qualities became the backbones of the company culture. Folks who came to us straight from academia seemed to understand what they had gotten themselves into. But scientists who had previously held a job in large industry quickly found themselves confused.
I remember packing a shipment of our experimental product to send to a clinical trial site. A new member of our quality assurance (QA) team, fresh from a job at a big company, oversaw the process, and once the shipment was ready to go, she asked, “And now we give it to the shipping team?” I shared a look with the other scientist who had helped pack the shipment, and we chuckled.
“Uh, no,” I said. “We’re also the shipping team.”
The new QA person was then shocked to see the same scientists who had performed research and development, analyzed clinical data, maintained inventory, and led parts of the manufacturing process walk the shipment down the hallway to the freight elevator. Then she was even more shocked when we transported it to the loading dock, wheeled it across the parking lot, and hoisted it into the back seat of my Saturn.
I was a molecular biologist, but some days, I was also a courier.
And I was on the sales team. And triaged CVs and interviewed job candidates. And helped our regulatory team prepare documents. And performed quality control assays. And edited publications. And ran the holiday gift exchange. And was, for a decent stretch of time, in charge of watering half of the office plants.
I say all of this not to boast about the breadth of my abilities (though I will say that those office plants absolutely thrived), but because everyone at the company wore that many hats. When something needs to get done, and you only have a few dozen employees, one of you needs to do it.
I still remember a day in 2012 when the CEO plopped a binder on my desk. It contained hundreds of pages about applying for a particular grant. “You’re in charge of this now,” he said. “It’s due in a month.” I didn’t even need to ask whether I was in charge of the grant instead of my normal duties. I already knew the answer.
That’s the horror, and the glory, of working for a small company. You get to experience so much more than one tiny role. You feel like you’re integral to the mission, and if you can solve a problem—whether using your brain or your Saturn—you can often just go for it.
On the other hand, you lack the security, and the established systems, of a large employer. Nothing is guaranteed, which means everything is on fire all the time. I remember arriving at work one day and telling my team we had five dire crises to tackle that day—and we never got to start because a few minutes later, someone ran in and demanded we drop everything and solve a sixth crisis.
It also means you have no shipping team, or anything team, so you have no experts to address certain issues, just whoever has bandwidth. We collaborated on that grant application with a few large institutions, and when they sent me their pages, it was clear they had been assembled by teams whose jobs, whose careers, were built around producing sleek, comprehensive, successful grant applications. We didn’t have that. We had … me. And we only had me on the side, in addition to my other work.
The night before the grant was due, two other volun-told employees—our attorney and our chief financial officer—brought the grant application to Kinko’s to print the required number of copies. But when I came in the next morning, a few crucial formatting errors were discovered, touching off a frenzied flurry of trying to reprint thousands of pages on every printer the company owned so we could somehow physically submit the application by 5 p.m. (You may wonder why the granting agency wouldn’t just accept a digital copy. So did we.)
With half an hour to go, we had printed 3.5 of the required 10 copies, and we started sending people down the highway in shifts. The first to arrive would turn in the three complete copies and try to persuade the granting agency to wait just a little bit longer while the remaining copies churned out of the printers. Then a second car, then a third, would scream down the highway in the hopes that the first was still holding the proverbial door open with their foot.
By the end of that day, we were exhausted from constant activity, and the granting agency did receive everything—albeit piecemeal, and with a caution from them that they may or may not accept the application.
Months later, we learned we were not awarded the grant. I probably would have felt worse about the outcome if, when I heard the news, I hadn’t been superbusy doing 50 other things.
That’s small industry. It’s a constant battle to achieve something important against the backdrop of dwindling resources, and some days you love that dynamic, and some days, not so much.
I’ve also had a brief taste of large industry, the summer I did an internship at a multithousand-worker pharma company. What were our main products, you ask? I have no idea. The company was so large that it didn’t even make sense to ask such questions. That would be like asking an academic scientist what sort of work the European History Department has been doing.
Every day I worked in my lab, with a small team, researching and developing our own project. And that was it. No one was going to plop a folder on my desk and declare, “Now you’re in charge of health insurance!” Working at a company with 50 employees is very different from working at a company with 50 buildings.
If you’re debating whether to pursue a career in industry, take the time to consider that the choice is more complicated than “yes” or “no.” Maybe you’d rather do a little bit of everything to contribute toward a well-defined mission, or maybe you’d rather work in a lab on an interesting project where no one will distract you with grant applications or plants to water.
Just don’t pursue a job in one, thinking it’s the other. And take the bus to work so no one makes you deliver anything.
It was 10 p.m. on a winter night in Boston and I was sitting in my department’s common lounge, staring at a blank Word document. My thesis proposal deadline loomed. I hadn’t written a word, despite weeks of thinking. Earlier that evening, when I met another Ph.D. student, Sachin, for our regular monthly dinner, he was equally stuck—buried under the weight of a fellowship application. So, we made a pact: After dinner, we would sit together, laptops open, phones away, no excuses. It was the spark I needed to finally start writing.
It often takes me weeks or even months to begin writing something, no matter what it is—a research proposal, a manuscript, even this essay. I tend to put it off, reasoning that at some point I will land in that perfect moment where my mind, body, and external environment are all in sync for thoughts to flow. But that moment doesn’t always arrive, and I end up putting together a hastily written piece only when the deadline becomes dangerously close.
Sachin and I both grew up in India, where competition is fierce and striving for excellence is prized, and we carried a perfectionist mindset into graduate school. There we faced new pressures: adjusting to a new academic system while navigating the limited fellowships and opportunities available to international students. Half-hearted proposals wouldn’t do. We didn’t want our first drafts to be “good enough”; we wanted them to be flawless. But the result was paralysis.
We set out to make a change on that cold winter night. Having someone beside me changed everything. It was a means to ensure accountability. Seeing Sachin write forced me to put down my phone in embarrassment when I was tempted to scroll, and focus on work myself.
Our informal pact soon became a habit. We scheduled weekly 90-minute sessions, which gave us a distraction-free space to write something, however imperfect. The length was intentional: long enough to get into the zone, but short enough to fit it into our schedules.
We began each session by naming a small goal—write a paragraph, put together a figure caption, tackle a tricky transition, or complete some other well-defined task. That 5-minute planning ritual made the rest of the session surprisingly productive. Instead of worrying about writing an entire proposal, we only had to finish a tiny piece of it.
Those small wins built momentum and confidence. A few sentences grew into paragraphs, then into complete proposals—with enough time before the deadline to get feedback from mentors and colleagues. Writing never got easy, as I’d hoped, but it became less isolating and more productive.
Sachin and I had both seen our peers face similar challenges and wanted to bring this experience to a broader group. So, 2 years after we began our weekly meetups, we launched peer co-working sessions for second-year Ph.D. students in our department who were preparing their thesis proposals. Each week, a group gathered in a quiet seminar room with laptops, coffee, and pastries. We started with 5 minutes of goal setting, followed by 75 minutes of silent, focused writing, and ended with a short reflection period.
The room often felt tense and serious at first. But as people opened up during the reflection period, a sense of relief spread: None of us was alone. One student told us the sessions “took away the fear of the blank page.” Another mentioned they used the time to tackle the hardest tasks because they knew the peer support would keep them honest.
Over 2 years, dozens of students have now attended. What began as two overwhelmed students staring at blank screens has grown into a small community that makes writing less lonely. Our experience showed us that accountability, camaraderie, and a shared sense of purpose can lower the barriers that make writing so intimidating.
Graduate programs often focus on teaching students how to do research, but they rarely offer formal support for communicating it. Organizing and promoting peer writing groups like ours could change that. Because no one should have to write alone.
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-12-04 14:19:212025-12-04 14:19:21Academic writing was a struggle—until I formed a peer group with other graduate students
It was just after lunchtime service in a restaurant. The heat was stifling and the air smelled of grease and strong detergent. I was standing on a stepladder and scrubbing the extractor hood, which had been blackened by cooking fumes. Despite my gloves and protective gear, the chemicals had caused superficial burns on my hands, and my face stung as sweat trickled down it. In that moment, I realized I couldn’t keep doing these kinds of jobs for the rest of my life. I needed a career I was passionate about—and my biggest passion was fish.
I’d been obsessed with fishing since I was young, when my older brother would take me to the Sorgue and the other wild rivers of southern France to catch trout. Fishing was a way for us to be together and to communicate without words. At first, I learned the basics, such as how to cast a line and how to approach fish without frightening them. Over time I became fascinated with the trout’s behavior, learning to predict where they might feed depending on water conditions and the season, for instance. But I never even entertained the notion that I might be able to make a career out of this interest.
I grew up in a large working class family; my mother was a cleaner, my father a house painter. In high school, my teachers said I wouldn’t make it, not even in vocational training, and my school counselors gave up on me. So I left school at 19, disillusioned and without a diploma.
For several years, I was an anonymous worker, sanding floors in shopping malls in the middle of the night, degreasing restaurant hoods, cleaning pest-infested kitchens. I took pride in doing difficult, invisible jobs—but something still stirred in me whenever I went fishing.
I was 24 when I began to feel I needed a change. Even if it meant starting from scratch, I decided I would turn my hobby into a career. Somehow, against the odds, I would become a fish scientist.
After completing a science-based diploma for adults, I started a biology degree at university, sustaining myself with money I had saved while working. My first semester was brutal. I failed physics, biostatistics, even introductory ecology. But I was determined to pursue my dream, and gradually my grades improved.
Eventually I got into a master’s program in ecological engineering and biodiversity management. During the first week, my supervisor handed me a paper on brown trout in the Kerguelen Islands. I was overjoyed. “They’re paying me to read salmonid research!” I told my parents that night. They were speechless. For the first time, I felt like I’d truly made it.
I credit the hours I spent cleaning kitchens for giving me the discipline, patience, precision, and endurance to push on as I struggled through those first years of studying. But my working class roots have also been an obstacle. In Ph.D. interviews, I faced questions about my age and my family situation that seemed inappropriate. I’ve even been told not to talk about my background when speaking with other researchers in the lab, as if it might discredit my science—even though I have the same degrees as my colleagues. It is hard enough to enter science from a background like mine, without the added stigma. No one should be made to feel inferior or that they do not belong in science because of their origins.
I’m now in the middle of a Ph.D. studying how climate change is affecting arctic char, a cold-water salmonid. I’ve hiked to more than a dozen alpine lakes, sometimes carrying 30 kilograms of gear. I’m living a dream, but I also know it took a lot of hard work to get here. Every day, I still feel the same desire to learn and improve.
The last time I visited an alpine lake, my brother joined me to help. We spent 2 days by the water, just like when we were kids. But this time, he saw me leading the work, managing the team, and taking responsibility. I had come full circle. Life had brought me back to where it all began, this time as a scientist, with a passion that had become my profession.
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-11-27 14:31:372025-11-27 14:31:37I dropped out of high school. Now, I’m living my dream as a fish scientist
For years, little rainbow stickers adorned the doors of offices and laboratories at the University of Alabama (UA). The emblems indicated the space was a Safe Zone, run by a professor who had been trained that year to support students experiencing discrimination, harassment, or other challenges because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
“That kind of [looks like] a minor thing, but I don’t actually view it as one,” says the biologist, who requested anonymity because of worries about politicization. They see it as a larger message about whom schools are meant to serve. “Normally, I wouldn’t have thought twice about [helping] students in need.” But now, the “prevailing mindset is: Don’t cause a problem.”
As academic researchers around the country reel from President Donald Trump’s administration’s attacks on universities, researchers in Republican-led states like Alabama are being hit with a one-two punch, navigating both federal pressures and state actions. A number of these actions extend beyond academics into the culture and inclusivity of schools, affecting many researchers who feel out of step with local politics. Scientists across these red states tell Science they are fearful, disheartened, and less able to focus on their research. All have had to balance personal and professional risks with staying true to their values and identities. Some are fighting back in small ways; others are looking to leave.
“I didn’t think it would get this scary this fast,” says a gender-minority postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University (OSU) who requested anonymity because of uncertainty about political speech protections at the university. In March, Ohio passed a new law that applies to public universities and community colleges and bans faculty strikes and DEI, including in the form of women’s centers and diversity scholarships. It also restricts classroom discussions of topics such as abortion, electoral politics, and climate policies. Fear for their job has led the postdoc to withdraw from efforts to make science more accessible to gender minorities. “Being afraid now for my ability to make rent, my ability to stay employed, my ability to do work as my full self has been really eating at me.”
Researchers have similar fears in Florida. A 2023 state bill banned DEI, and the Association for Women in Science disbanded its southeast chapter earlier this year, says a neuroscience postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida (UF) who requested anonymity to avoid employment consequences for herself and others. “There’s a lot of uncertainty about what can be said, what can’t be said, and what retribution could be.”
Being a scientist in Florida “feels a little bit like being a political football,” says Sarah, a UF postdoctoral ecologist who asked that her last name be withheld for fear of retribution. Trump’s second term has emboldened the state government, which was already targeting higher education, she says, including by removing general education courses and prohibiting collaborations with “countries of concern.” “There’s been real concerns about intellectual freedom.”
University administrations are caught in the middle. “Not only is the university administration not standing up [to the Florida state government], but it’s complicit by design,” Sarah says. Others acknowledge the pressures on university leaders. “I’d like to think that the administration is doing the best they can,” the UA biologist says. “We’re, as faculty, just cognizant of the sensitive nature of their positions … their hands are tied as well.” And University of Utah neurophysiologist Karen Wilcox, who has worked there for more than 25 years, says her administration has been “very communicative” about how the university is coping with the record cuts in federal research programs.
Still, Wilcox says, “[To] my worldview, there’s been a lot of unsettling things that have been happening.” In 2024, the Utah State Legislature passed a bill banning DEI offices and trainings, followed by a bill this year prohibiting the display of pride and Juneteenth flags on government property, including public colleges and universities. She worries these decisions could offer “a little bit of a preview of what changes might be coming down the pike” nationally.
Perhaps counterintuitively, working in a red state may help insulate scientists from some of those changes. The states’ conservative policies keep them “out of the glaring eye of the [Trump] administration,” says Mike Boylan-Kolchin, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Kevin Liévano-Romero, a parasitology Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln originally from Colombia, says that effect has eased some of his anxiety about immigration enforcement. Although simply following the national news “definitely adds a layer of tension or stress to my daily work,” he says, “I think we feel protected in Nebraska” compared with places with large Immigration and Customs Enforcement presences. However, he and other international students still avoid campus cultural events such as festivals and performances for fear of immigration enforcement, even though they have valid academic visas.
Nearly every person interviewed for this story knew someone who had moved to escape the new state policies. Wilcox plans to retire in Oregon, a blue state, partly because her transgender daughter-in-law does not feel safe visiting her in Utah. “If I were younger, and were trying to figure out the next 15 years in my career, certainly I would be looking elsewhere,” she says. As the postdoctoral neuroscientist in Florida looks for faculty positions, she is avoiding “states that have extreme limitations on reproductive rights access,” as well as places where her husband, a Black man, might not feel safe.
Some faculty have left because they require larger labs and more state funding than theirs can offer, says Bharat Ratra, a cosmologist at Kansas State University. But a Kansas house bill raised earlier this year also threatened the job security of tenured faculty. Meanwhile, Boylan-Kolchin says applicant pools for faculty and graduate student positions are skewing more male and less international. “I think that restrictive abortion policies and access to health care have played a big role,” he says. He also notes that a state bill passed this summer has eroded the power of university faculty by abolishing existing faculty senates. These bodies, which typically advise university administration on academic policies, must now allow the university president to appoint all of their officers and up to half of their members. “We’re seeing more consolidation of power,” he says.
Amid their worries, researchers have also found ways to uphold their values. Wilcox, in response to the flag-banning law, wears a lanyard decorated with rainbows. Ratra volunteers for the Nature Conservancy and donates money to politicians he supports. Sarah has joined a local political activism group. And Liévano-Romero volunteers as a Spanish translator at a health clinic, where staff provide students with advice on what to say if approached by immigration officials.
For the OSU researcher, simply continuing to note their preferred pronouns in their email signature and when meeting new people is an act of resistance, as is decorating their office with art featuring rainbows. They hope these steps “can express to folks who need it that I haven’t abandoned them—and express to me that I haven’t abandoned myself.”
“Come in,” I said to the scientists at my doorstep, ushering them toward the kitchen. Our colorful tunics—not our typical work wear—rustled as we mixed that month’s cocktail, a wintery take on an Aperol spritz. We bantered and laughed; one attendee asked which walkout song we would choose if we were professional mixed martial arts fighters. It was what I needed, and not just for relief after a long week in the lab. I’ve learned that levity helps me be a better scientist, mentor, and colleague. It is also what keeps me going during hard times—a lesson that was reinforced the very next month.
For much of my career, my fellow scientists only saw what I call my “resting science face,” which conveys the part of me that’s driven to spend hours obsessing over a conference talk or stay up all night putting the final touches on a grant. They didn’t see the side of me that loves alien kidnapping skits on Saturday Night Live. As a woman and mother, I felt I needed to prove I was serious about the job, lest others view me as too distracted by my personal life to excel.
My serious face worked. I landed a job at a great university, recruited brilliant graduate students, and won tenure. But I felt I had to split myself in two—the serious scientist in public, the goofball in private. Only later did I realize how much stronger my science, and my relationships, could have been if I’d let both sides show sooner.
The first crack in my public persona came in 2024 when, on a whim, I participated in a local live storytelling show. I took a risk and described an embarrassing moment from a solo trip to Thailand. To my surprise, when people laughed it didn’t feel bad or shameful. It felt like a hug.
The experience made me think I could start to experiment with being silly at work, too. So, when Halloween came around, I delivered a lecture dressed in a fuzzy pink axolotl costume. I began kicking off lab meetings by asking my graduate students what brings them joy or makes them laugh. And I started the monthly get together with colleagues. The idea was to get out of our usual professional mode by enjoying fancy cocktails and lighthearted conversation. Donning outlandish garments helped set the mood.
To my surprise, I found that injecting fun and humor into my work life didn’t make me less effective or credible. Students seemed to find me more approachable. Humor also helped me open up with colleagues, which in turn led others to be more authentic and vulnerable with me, a key part of building trust. After one of my closest international collaborators and I discovered a shared love of humor, we began affectionately poking fun at each other. That brought us closer and made it easier for us to handle challenging issues.
But perhaps most importantly, humor has helped me be resilient. Not long after the gathering at my house last winter, my grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was abruptly terminated as part of the federal government’s science cuts. After the shock and immediate grief wore off, I turned to my goofy side, writing several pieces of satire, making joke T-shirts, and letting colleagues distract me with discussions about the set design choices in Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 Baby Got Back music video.
That’s not to say I was living in denial. I knew I needed to find new ways to pursue my goals in an increasingly complex funding environment. But that pressure could easily feel overwhelming. Making jokes and sharing laughter helped me stay present. It also served as a reminder of how much joy I get from interacting with the people I work with, whatever the circumstances.
In the end, I have come to realize that being authentic at work is not a weakness, but rather a strength. For other scientists, that may mean talking more about their hobbies or families, or showing off their other talents—whatever brings them joy and helps them connect with others. For me, that’s humor.
So that’s why, even as I reimagine my research plans, I’ll be putting on a colorful outfit, calling up some friends, and cracking jokes. Now, more than ever, it’s time to laugh.
http://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.png00Vincent Barbierhttp://postdocinusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Logo-PostdocInUSA-300x165.pngVincent Barbier2025-11-20 14:41:162025-11-20 14:41:16Embracing my silly side makes me a better scientist. I wish I’d done it sooner
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