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I've been meaning to learn more about filming/editing videos/audio in order to improve my recordings of scientific lectures and other teaching material. So, to give some direction to my learning, I made a short film about my thoughts on teaching. (continue reading)

I recently had the pleasure of writing a Nature Careers column on why it’s worth making computational methods easy to use. The editor reached out after watching one of my live-coding Youtube videos and asked if I would be willing to share my thoughts and experiences in creating these videos. The published column changed quite a bit to emphasize a set of more actionable, service-oriented take-aways. So I thought it'd be fun to share the original piece as I had written it with the original title On the digital frontier - exploring avenues for enhancing access to scientific resources. (continue reading)

I recently served on a student-organized diversity and inclusion panel at the EMBL Spectra of Life Symposium. While it’s still fresh in my memories, I wanted to write down some of the key points and takeaways from the panel discussion: 1. Why does diversity and inclusion matter? Because addressing the needs of the marginalized benefits the collective. 2. How can we best work to improve diversity and inclusion? Focus on systemic structures not individuals. 3. What can we do as students (and junior faculty)? We show up. We be visible. We exist. (continue reading)

Nearly two years ago, I started my journey as a tenure-track assistant professor. And within this past year, a number of my close friends, colleagues, collaborators, and former mentors have decided to leave academia to continue pursuing science outside of academia in industry. This has led to me really reflect on what are the truly unique value propositions academia? These are my thoughts from that reflection. (continue reading)

It's been roughly one year since my lab received its first grant. As I begin putting together the Research Performance Progress Report to highlight our progress so far, I also wanted to reflect on the timeframes for receiving this grants in the first place. As a new faculty, I didn't realize how long it would actually take for a grant to be reviewed and considered for funding. So below are the timelines for each grant I submitted and was able to track the timelines for from submission to its eventual award or lack thereof. I hope that these timelines will be helpful for new PIs starting out. (continue reading)

Over a year ago, I participated in a discussion panel for faculty to share insights on what it's like to be in academia. The attendees were mostly PhD students as well as some post-doctoral fellows who were interested in the academic trajectory. A senior male faculty member on the panel noticed and remarked on how there were so many young women in the audience. So the senior male faculty member sought to encourage these young women in the audience by telling them: Don't give up. In response to this platitude, I burst into a semi-coherent tirade that I have since composed into a more eloquent response. This is what I wish I would have said. This is what I will strive to say next time. (continue reading)

I recently participated in Rising Stars in Engineering in Health Workshop co-hosted by Johns Hopkins University BME and Columbia University BME. Here are some of my notes from the workshop on the top 5 tips for acing your academic interview along with some of my own thoughts on these tips from an interviewer's perspective. (continue reading)

I reflect on my last year of experience learning how to interview, recruit, manage, lead, and support students in conducting biomedical research and provide my top 10 recommended books on these topics. (continue reading)

I recently had the honor of giving the Keynote address at the Harvard Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (HGWISE) + Learn with Leaders Summer Research Workshop. I just wanted to provide here a partial transcript of the major points in my Keynote address. (continue reading)

Visibility in academia is both a contributor to and outcome of scholarly reputation. I reflect on my experiences that demonstrate how the resources for enhancing our visibility cannot be assumed to have been made available for all who should be entitled to access them. I conclude that the onus is falling on our shoulders to create our own visibility. So I provide some alternative resources for doing so. (continue reading)

It has been approximately a year since I started my journey as a tenure-track assistant professor in an engineering/life sciences department at an R1 university in the United States...in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. I just wanted to reflect on some of the things I've learned in case they may be useful for future students who embark on this same journey, or perhaps for me to look back on years later and cringe at how naive I used to be. (continue reading)

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Darrien Hunt, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain and countless other black lives have spurred an overdue conversation regarding systemic and institutionalized racism in America. As individuals in positions of leadership, as gatekeepers, as fellow human being, we must recognize our complacency in perpetuating institutionalized injustice. We must vow to do better. (continue reading)

A few weeks ago, I participated in my first PhD interview weekend as a new faculty member! I just wanted to share a few reflections on the whole PhD interview experience from a junior faculty perspective. (continue reading)

Co-first is when two or more individuals are noted as providing the same or equal first-author-level contribution to a published work. Such co-first authorships are becoming more common, particularly in the biomedical fields, where projects are becoming more and more ambitious, requiring more and more diverse skill sets as well as intense multi-year collaborative efforts to come to fruition. Unfortunately, publishers have been rather slow in properly recognizing such co-first authorships with readily visible annotations, particularly online. Here, I highlight the problem with examples, explain why we should care, and propose a simple solution. (continue reading)

I recently had the honor of being named the Nature Research Award winner for 2019. I just wanted to provide here a full transcript of my award acceptance speech as I had intended to deliver it. A set of videos, podcasts, news articles, and interviews will likely be available through Nature Research and The Estée Lauder Companies within the near future. (continue reading)

As I'm nearing the end of my academic training, I've been thinking a lot about the 'types' of PIs I've worked with, what 'types' of PIs I work well with, and what 'type' of PI I may want to be one day. So I made the following fun PI spectrum along with the benefits of each 'type' of PI, along with their pitfalls and whether working with such a 'type' of PI may be the right fit for a particular student. (continue reading)

Coming from a background of less economic privilege compared to what I have now, I some times wonder: what if my journey through academia took place a few years earlier, when my family and I were less economically well-off? In reflecting, here are a few of my experiences that highlight how academia, in my opinion based on my personal experiences in the academic life-sciences, has been structured for the economically privileged and institutionally discriminates against those who come from more disadvantaged economic backgrounds, and the ways we can bring about institutional change to ensure that the academic career-track is accessible to every qualified individual regardless of finances. (continue reading)

No one is born skilled. And mastry of any skill takes practice. One theory, the 10000 Hour Rule, claims that it takes approximately 10000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill. So let's take this 10000 Hour Rule as our premise and quantitatively assess its implications when it comes to being given a head start in life or, alternatively, being forced to play catch up. As a concrete example, I will tell the story of two fictional students, Jeffrey and Kamilla, while keeping track of the hours of deliberate practice each of them puts into mastering the skill of computer programming. (continue reading)