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I look at the beaver dam with trepidation. As an ecohydrologist who studies the engineering abilities of beavers, I’ve crossed hundreds of these structures with little hesitation. But now each step feels like braving a precipice. I move slowly, scanning the logs underfoot for stable ground, my students carrying the equipment I once shouldered. I’m conscious that at any moment the world can suddenly spin, leaving me reaching for the nearest willow branch just to stay upright. Vertigo has rewired how I move through wetlands, lecture halls, and life in general, making me hyperaware of balance—both physical and professional.

My vertigo roller coaster began with a strange incident 4 years ago. On my first day back on campus after the pandemic lockdowns, three masked men burst into my office as I met with a student on Zoom. It was straight out of a movie. The student kept talking, unaware of what was unfolding. After what seemed like an eternity, the man closest to me muttered “wrong person” and walked out. They didn’t physically hurt me, or—thankfully—the faculty member whom I later learned they intended to harm. But the intrusion unsettled me in ways I couldn’t shake.

I booked a massage to calm my frayed nerves. Instead, as my neck was being massaged, the room began to violently spin. As I later learned, the pressure dislodged tiny crystals in my inner ear that are crucial to balance. In a single moment, the ground shifted beneath me. And I didn’t know when—or whether—it would stop.

Afterward, days blurred into weeks as I stayed in bed, propped up to sleep upright, afraid to move my head lest I vomit uncontrollably. I abandoned all my duties except teaching, which I did on Zoom with my camera off, my mother-in-law advancing the slides and whispering occasional prompts as I spoke from memory. It was a dark time: harder than the pandemic, harder even than raising children. As the main income provider, I worried constantly about my family’s future if I didn’t recover.

Physiotherapy eventually helped stabilize my inner ear. Gradually the room steadied. But my journey wasn’t over. A year later, the vertigo returned, and then slowly faded over 10 months. Now, I live with the anxiety that at any moment, the floor might begin to shift again.

More than once, I’ve felt the spins come on midlecture, forcing me to grab the edge of the nearest table to steady myself. I’ve learned that vertigo demands constant mental energy just to keep upright. It’s work no one sees. And that’s part of what makes it hard to talk about.

I haven’t had any mishaps when I’ve been out in the field with my students studying beavers. But the fear is always there. So, too, is the shift in how I see myself as a scientist. Despite my love of fieldwork, I have had to accept that some seasons, I will do less of it. I’ve learned to build more flexibility into research plans, delegate in ways that help students grow, and focus on aspects of ecohydrology for which a steady gait isn’t crucial, like data analysis, writing, mentoring, and service.

My own vertigo has made me alert to signs of it in others. I notice the colleague who sits through standing ovations. The one who avoids certain terrain. The one who always takes the elevator. I see now that many of us are navigating invisible limitations while still showing up fully for our work.

These days I move with a kind of cautious attention I never needed before. But a slower pace has also opened up space for quiet gratitude. For months I couldn’t walk without assistance. I couldn’t look at a computer without vomiting. Now, I can be back in the field. I can travel. I can still do the work that makes me feel alive. My steps are slower, and the fear is still there—but so is the joy of taking them.

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The day the paper was published should have been a moment of pride. Instead, it felt like a quiet erasure. There it was: the data set I had helped shape, the computer scripts I had debugged and refined, the analytical framework I had spent months developing—all neatly embedded in a peer-reviewed journal article. But my name was absent. The feeling of exclusion was painful enough—but what stung more was that I had seen it coming, yet had felt powerless to stop it.

In 2020, during my doctoral studies at a major European university, a more senior Ph.D. student asked for help coding the analysis for his thesis. We had several in-depth discussions about the work, and he promised me co-authorship if the results were published. He even suggested the outcomes might fit into a chapter of my own dissertation, and that he would inform my supervisors once the work matured. I believed him.

Over the next year, I invested hours of focused effort into writing, modifying, and validating the scripts that underpinned the analysis. But crucially, the collaboration remained informal. Most conversations happened over voice calls. Any emails I sent went unacknowledged. There was no official record of our agreement or the work’s scope. In hindsight, I now see that this lack of documentation was not an accident—it was deliberate.

A few years later, I learned the research was being prepared for publication. But my enthusiasm quickly turned to dismay when I realized the student I had helped—who was lead author on the paper—had no intention of including me as a co-author. When I spoke up, he claimed responsibility for coding the analysis, and said there was no written proof that I had worked on it.

One co-author acknowledged my contribution and attempted to intervene. My supervisor supported me, too. But the student still refused to include me. Eventually, I decided my efforts were better focused on my current work, and I gave up fighting.

My name was nowhere on the published paper—not even in the acknowledgments.

The betrayal had real consequences. Believing the work would lead to a joint publication, I had spent valuable time on it during my own thesis writing, delaying my Ph.D. by at least 6 months. Even worse was the emotional toll: frustration, helplessness, and a deep sense of injustice.

My story isn’t unique. Authorship discussions too often rely on informal agreements, and many early-career scientists are unaware of standard authorship criteria. Even when research groups do have formal guidelines about who should be a named author, they’re often not discussed until after a manuscript is already in draft, and students may be too hesitant to assert their rights in hierarchical lab cultures.

After my experience, my colleagues and I began to think about strategies to stop others being unjustly denied authorship. Eventually we came up with a set of procedures we now follow for every project in our lab to make sure all contributors receive fair recognition. We create a shared document outlining roles and authorship expectations right from the start, and agree on milestones when authorship will be further discussed, such as at key analysis phases or before manuscript drafting.

I also try to lead by example, discussing authorship openly with students and junior colleagues, and ensuring they receive the appropriate training in research ethics. I make sure they keep records of their contributions and read journals’ authorship guidelines, and that they are aware of institutional support they can turn to if they encounter problems, such as research integrity offices or ombuds.

We’ve been trialing this new approach for a few months now, and the feedback from other lab members has been really positive. I’d encourage everyone to consider doing something similar. Authorship is more than a line on a CV—it is an ethical necessity. Every cleaned data set, debugged script, and refined figure deserves acknowledgment. And every early-career researcher deserves the confidence that their work will not just be used—but respected.

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My hands trembled as I held a lukewarm cup of coffee, scanning the packed conference room. It was the end of my first year as a Ph.D. student, and the biggest meeting I’d attended so far. I stood alone, watching the crowd. I longed to join in, but every attempt felt like hitting an invisible wall. Conversations moved too fast to follow. After a few awkward nods and half-finished sentences, I gave up and retreated to a corner in silence. That evening, in my hotel room, I wondered: “Why did something so simple feel so hard? Is there even a place for me in academia?” It was a familiar feeling. But only much later, after an unexpected diagnosis, did I understand why I felt so out of sync, and start to imagine a different way forward.

I’d worked hard to get here. As an undergraduate, I lived like a hermit, studying nonstop to earn the grades I needed. I enjoyed solving problems and working through data. The intellectual side of academia suited me. But I struggled with the social side—the conferences, meetings, hallway conversations. In grad school, the demands only intensified: Networking was no longer optional, group discussions required quick responses, and visibility mattered. Nonetheless, I pushed on. For a while, small successes kept me going: positive feedback, publications, and even a prestigious fellowship. I figured I needed more practice, more exposure, more effort. But beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form.

By my third year, I hit a wall. Research still offered comfort, but the relentless social difficulties left me too depleted to focus. Success seemed to depend on skills I struggled to master. I spent hours frozen at my desk, overwhelmed with anxiety. Over time, exhaustion eroded my confidence and motivation, and I withdrew from colleagues, friends, even my research. I carried this weight alone, afraid that speaking up would confirm my worst fear: that I didn’t belong.

Eventually, the stress became unmanageable. I stepped away from my Ph.D. to seek professional help. That decision led to an 8-week hospitalization and a 6-month leave, a break in my academic journey that I could never have imagined. Initially, I saw it as a personal failure. But with time and space to reflect, my perspective began to shift and I realized how much energy I’d spent trying to navigate a world that didn’t quite fit me.

When a psychiatrist asked me whether I’d ever considered that I might be autistic, I was stunned. But as I started reading, it began to make sense: the social struggles, the sensory overload, the need for clear structure. A few months later, I received an official autism diagnosis. Finally, I had an explanation. Still, one question remained: Could I continue in academia? The thought of returning felt daunting. But I wasn’t ready to give up.

Instead, I began to make subtle yet meaningful adjustments. Many emerged through trial and error, guided by reading and learning from other neurodivergent researchers. I began to schedule recovery time after work and started to wear noise-canceling headphones to manage sensory input. To create structure and make progress tangible, I broke down larger tasks into smaller ones and tracked them visually with hand-drawn graphs. I abandoned behaviors, such as forcing myself to follow conventional work routines, that only increased my stress. Slowly, I discovered what helped, and built a rhythm that feels sustainable.

These adjustments haven’t solved everything. Now, in the fourth year of my Ph.D., I still leave some meetings feeling invisible, and old doubts occasionally resurface. However, I’ve learned to meet them with understanding rather than harsh self-judgment. My struggles aren’t signs of incompetence, they’re reminders that academia wasn’t designed for people wired like me.

The most significant change hasn’t been to my workload or environment, but to the connection with myself. The traits I once tried to suppress shape how I think, work, and move through the world. I’ve stopped believing I need to blend in to belong. Instead of trying to squeeze myself into a space, I’m gently reshaping it to fit me.

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I’ve had a few funny science professors. I mean, they’re science professors, so the bar for “funny” isn’t exactly sky-high. But in the context of, say, an organic chemistry lecture, every wink, flippant remark, pop culture reference, or moment that the professor said a swear word became Showtime at the Apollo, and for a few seconds, the class would perk up. I may have forgotten most of the behavioral zoology I learned, but I’ll never forget the ornithology professor who told us how he learned to be careful asking at the front desk in a bookstore, “Do you have British Tits?”

I always wanted to be that funny science professor. When I eventually taught science courses myself, I’d try to work humor into my lectures and workshops. The laughter wasn’t necessarily the goal; it’s just that humor has the benefit of instant, unmistakable feedback. You can hear your students laugh. You can’t—unless someone gasps, slaps their forehead, and starts scribbling furiously—hear your students learn. So I’d walk away from each class feeling like the day’s success depended as strongly on whether the students laughed as on whether they learned.

At the same time, I found myself stuck in a state of half-guilt, wondering whether my efforts to be the affable science professor represented nothing more than a self-serving, self-gratifying way to feel beloved, and not just—or maybe even contrary to—an effective pedagogical technique. I’d especially question this choice when a student who seemed to be enjoying themselves in class would fail a quiz, or demonstrate in a paper a complete lack of understanding of a topic about which we’d just finished joking—and, I had incorrectly assumed, learning.

I haven’t taught science courses in a long time, but I started to think about this again when a new paper was published last month on the preprint server bioRxiv, titled, “Are they funny? Associations between instructors’ humor and student emotions in undergraduate lab courses.” After analyzing lectures from 48 courses and interviewing 462 students, the researchers concluded that “students who perceived their instructor to be humorous reported greater pleasant emotions and fewer unpleasant emotions.” Or, to present the same conclusion differently from the way it has to be written in an academic journal article, laughter—wait for it—feels nice.

The paper also concludes that humor is subjective, which I think we all know in a theoretical sense, but regularly forget in a practical sense. The researchers recorded hours of lectures, reviewed their transcripts, and noted the bits they thought were attempts at levity. But when they asked the students to rate the humor in the lectures, they found a significant gap between what the researchers, and the students, found funny.

Maybe that disconnect exists at least in part because the students had the simple advantage of being there. It’s not a stretch to say a transcript of a recording of a lecture strips out the crucial holistic feeling of sitting in the lecture hall. It also ignores the other pressures in the students’ minds, under the assumption that the joke itself is everything: A room full of undergraduates panicking about an upcoming exam, or pissed off about last night’s overlong problem set, might think lightheartedness comes off as oblivious.

Or maybe, most importantly, students might miss a joke if they’re busy trying to digest the science.

The study doesn’t ask, or attempt to answer, the question I wrestled with: It examines the relationship between humor and students’ emotions, but it stops short of associating these emotions with academic success, instead citing earlier work that associates “instructor immediacy behaviors” (e.g., making jokes) with “academic engagement.” If giving the students a pleasant classroom experience is the goal, it goes without saying that their teachers should strive to make them smile. The study I’d like to see, however, would ask whether the students learn more when they’re happy. Laughs per minute versus points per exam. A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender asks, “Why the long face? Is it because of divergent evolution that prioritized molar surface area to support the fibrous diet of herbivores? Explain in a short paragraph.”

For reasons that will never make sense to anyone, especially my wife who reads Marie Kondo, I still have my old college notebooks. I opened them recently, and while I reminisced—“Look at all the science I used to know and now have completely forgotten!”—I tried to find any correlation between the material I remember best and the professors I had found funniest. The result, of course, is that I remember as little about the professors as I do about the classes, because I’m old, and I took most of the notes while on 2 or 3 hours of sleep. What I did find, however, were lots of jokes—not in the notes, but in the margins.

Apparently my way to maintain a pleasant classroom experience was to self-medicate, drawing little cartoons, making wordplay, huh-huh-ing about science or math terms with inappropriate connotations (ah, the classic integral of e to the power of x). No one ever saw these; they were purely my way of keeping myself entertained—which means I must have derived a benefit from keeping my brain at a baseline level of entertainment. Or maybe I’m just easily distractable, and the reason I don’t remember the science isn’t because I’m old, it’s because I spent the lectures doodling jokes.

Luckily, I had the opportunity to repeat the published study, in a very limited way, with N = 1: my 11-year-old. He started to tell me about one of his science teachers who constantly made jokes, so I asked him, “Do you think that gives the students a more pleasant experience?”

He thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he answered, “because otherwise the teacher’s just yapping.”

The effectiveness of humor in pedagogy may be no more complicated than that: Students appreciate comedy in science class because, for just a moment, we instructors stop yapping. Maybe that’s the lesson here: Science is difficult, lectures can be boring, and even if we can’t turn every class into a headliner set, we can at least remember that our students would appreciate it if we add something, even a small something like a joke, to periodically pause our yap.

And if you’re looking for a way to reward yourself when the class is over, you can go home and try one more feature of comedy clubs: a two-drink minimum.

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