Nature Careers Podcast |
Featured
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News |
This astronomy centre just achieved gender parity. Here’s how it happened
Education, female leadership and gender-balanced hiring policies were key.
- Gemma Conroy
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World View |
Yes to global standards for research — as long as they are truly global
Guidelines for research can level the playing field for scientists in low-resource settings — but diverse voices are needed to ensure that people worldwide can actually follow them.
- Maneesha S. Inamdar
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Career Column |
Why postdoctoral training needs a stronger focus on innovation
Innovation straddles policy, change management, budgeting, negotiating and influencing skills. Researchers need all these and more, says David Bogle.
- David Bogle
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Career Column |
Why postdocs need entrepreneurship training
Landing tenure is a pipe dream for most postdoctoral researchers. They need business skills to help them thrive outside academia.
- Muhammad Shehryar Khan
- & Jeffrey Casello
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Where I Work |
How to make petunias naturally orange
Biotechnologist Sara Abdou explores the genetics that regulate colour in ornamental flowers.
- Nikki Forrester
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Technology Feature |
Five ways in which rookie lab leaders can get up to speed
An array of spreadsheets, courses and online resources are available to support principal investigators leading their first research groups.
- Jyoti Madhusoodanan
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News |
The fight to end bullying in academia: UK researchers launch nationwide campaign
Representatives from several UK universities have set up a dedicated advocacy group to which targets of bullying can go for support.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Feature |
Open-access reformers launch next bold publishing plan
The group behind Plan S has already accelerated the open-access movement. Now it is proposing a more radical revolution for science publishing.
- Layal Liverpool
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Career Feature |
How to switch research fields successfully
Four researchers offer tips for excelling in interdisciplinary training.
- Andy Tay
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Career Column |
Why I use Notion to organize my PhD research
Maya Gosztyla describes the database tool as a ‘second brain’, helping her to coordinate her work.
- Maya Gosztyla
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Career Feature |
Falling behind: postdocs in their thirties tire of putting life on hold
Temporary contracts, low salaries and cost-of-living hikes force many researchers to put off parenthood and other big decisions.
- Linda Nordling
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Career Feature |
Campus surveillance: students and professors decry sensors in buildings
Privacy campaigners fear that the devices could be used for disciplinary purposes, and some universities have deactivated them after protests.
- Anne Gulland
- & Fayth Tan
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Where I Work |
Every day, I release balloons into the Antarctic sky
Electronic engineer Axel Bres predicts the weather from one of the world’s most isolated islands.
- Patricia Maia Noronha
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Career Feature |
How ChatGPT is transforming the postdoc experience
Around one in three respondents to Nature’s global postdoc survey are using AI chatbots to help to refine text, generate or edit code, wrangle the literature in their field and more.
- Linda Nordling
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Could new ‘narrative’ CVs transform research culture?
Funders are turning to a format that probes societal impact and acknowledges contributions from non-academic colleagues.
- Dom Byrne
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News |
Astronomy society revises harassment policy after outcry
The International Astronomical Union clarified changes to its code of conduct after researchers voiced concern that it protected harassers.
- Sarah Wild
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Career Q&A |
Facing racism in science, ‘I decided to prove them wrong’
Immunologist Dequina Nicholas shares why mentorship is crucial for first-generation scientists.
- Lesley Evans Ogden
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Comment |
‘I wrote my first piece of code at seven’: women share highs and lows in computer science for Ada Lovelace Day
Ada Lovelace was a visionary who first recognized the potential of computer programming. Almost two centuries on, six women in computer science and technology reflect on their experiences in the field.
- Janet Abbate
- , Shobhana Narasimhan
- & Verena Rieser
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Career Column |
Dear journals: stop hoarding our papers
Why single-submission policies need to die (and what to do in the meantime).
- Dritjon Gruda
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Career Feature |
Postdoc career optimism rebounds after COVID in global Nature survey
Postdoctoral researchers still feel as though they are academia’s drudge labourers, but have more confidence about job prospects in a post-pandemic world.
- Linda Nordling
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Nature Careers Podcast |
How to craft a research project with non-academic collaborators
If you’re working with indigeneous researchers, citizen scientists or local communities, find out about their expectations, including ones around payment and authorship.
- Dom Byrne
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Career Column |
How ‘retro’ meetings can enhance collaboration
Allowing team members time to reflect, celebrate successes and learn from mistakes is a tried-and-tested way to foster continuous improvement.
- Akshay Swaminathan
- & Lathan Liou
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Nature Careers Podcast |
“Couldn’t cut it as a scientist.” How lab managers and technicians are smashing outdated stereotypes
Support staff should speak up more about how their skills drive scientific discovery, says glassblower Terri Adams.
- Dom Byrne
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Spotlight |
Digging up ancient animals in Amazonia
Laurent Marivaux works to identify ancient mammals to understand evolutionary history in South America.
- Magali Reinert
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Career Column |
What’s the best chatbot for me? Researchers put LLMs through their paces
When it comes to large language models, there’s one for every occasion. Find the most appropriate match for you in our AI speed-dating feature.
- Elizabeth M. Humphries
- , Carrie Wright
- & Jeffrey T. Leek
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Career Guide |
Boomerang academics: why we left academia for industry, but then came back
A move from one sector to another isn’t a one-way street. Researchers who have pivoted between the two explain why.
- Christine Ro
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Culture clashes: unpicking the power dynamics between research managers and academics
Some researchers thank admin colleagues with chocolates or wine. But deadline pressures, and the need to generate research income, can sometimes result in bullying.
- Dom Byrne
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Career Q&A |
My double life as a cell biologist and crime writer
Achieving tenure enabled Frances Brodsky to focus on her research, write three novels and launch a journal.
- Miles Lizak
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Career Column |
How early-career researchers can learn to trust negative data: five simple steps
It took PhD student Jelle van der Hilst some time to realize that getting data is easy; working out whether they’re useful is harder.
- Jelle van der Hilst
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Career Column |
Why Juneteenth matters for science
In the light of US court rulings on racism in science and affirmative action in higher education, commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans is ever more important.
- Antentor O. Hinton
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Nature Careers Podcast |
“Just get the admin to do it.” Why research managers are feeling misunderstood
Science benefits when there is mutual respect between academics and research managers. Team Science, a six-part series, begins by examining a key workplace relationship.
- Dom Byrne
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Career Column |
A funding adviser’s guide to writing a great grant application
Mireille Consalvey draws on years of experience to present a 13-step checklist for success.
- Mireille Consalvey
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Nature Careers Podcast |
A funder's guide to tackling setbacks and winning grants
European Research Council president Maria Leptin speaks about her career experience and how to handle disappointment in science.
- Julie Gould
- & Jack Leeming
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Career Column |
How we set our lab on an environmentally sustainable path
Leading a drive to lower your lab’s carbon footprint alongside your PhD research is tough. Start by celebrating small successes, says Caroline Giuglaris.
- Caroline Giuglaris
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News |
University mourns nanoscientist killed on UNC campus
Zijie Yan led a laboratory at the University of North Carolina that studied light–matter interactions on the nanometre scale.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Career Feature |
Waiting on tables, mending puppets: the first jobs that shaped researchers’ careers
Many scientists credit teenage jobs and university or summer side roles for imparting important transferable skills and valuable life experiences.
- Jop de Vrieze
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Career Feature |
‘Gagged and blindsided’: how an allegation of research misconduct affected our lab
Bioengineer Ram Sasisekharan describes the impact of a four-year investigation by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which ultimately cleared him.
- Anne Gulland
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Spotlight |
How virtual reality is helping to boost scientific engagement in rural Africa
Immunologist Patience Kiyuka explains her use of the latest technologies to show young people what it is like to be a researcher and what science can do for society.
- Rachael Pells
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Spotlight |
Why scientists are delving into the virtual world
Virtual-reality software and headsets are increasingly being used by researchers to form deeper collaborations or work remotely.
- Rachael Pells
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Career Feature |
Failed PhD: how scientists have bounced back from doctoral setbacks
In a scientific culture that eschews admitting failure, some researchers are staring it in the face — and finding success.
- Carrie Arnold
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Career Column |
How a lupus diagnosis taught me that resilience in science is a double-edged sword
The ability to persevere through hardship is celebrated in research, but a ‘one size fits all’ approach can perpetuate inequalities, says Caitlin Aamodt.
- Caitlin Aamodt
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Career Column |
I’m a climate scientist. Here’s how I’m handling climate grief
Researchers must find personal ways to cope with impending losses — one way is by taking small solutions-oriented actions, says Kimberley R. Miner.
- Kimberley R. Miner
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Career Column |
How I used weaponized laziness to build better collaborations
Work smarter, not harder, by building tools to streamline your workflow, says Beth Cimini.
- Beth Cimini
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Career Column |
Why two scientist-mums made a database of parental-leave policies
By scouring websites and pestering university human-resources departments, Amanda Gorton and Tess Grainger are tracking the vast differences in leave entitlements across North America.
- Amanda J. Gorton
- & Tess Grainger
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Career Column |
How remote conferencing broadened my horizons and opened career paths
Online meetings can help you to widen your global scientific network and raise your profile, says Svetlana Ugarcina Perovic.
- Svetlana Ugarcina Perovic
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Nature Podcast |
How to get more women in science, with Athene Donald
The experimental physicist joins us to talk about her book Not just for the boys, why we need more women in science.
- Benjamin Thompson
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Book Review |
Anna Atkins: pioneering botanical photographer who captured algae and ferns in ghostly blue images
A compilation of 550 original plates reveals the dedicated work of the nineteenth-century woman who was the first to publish a book with cyanotypes of specimens.
- Georgina Ferry
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Career Column |
Bias in science: how to fight the good fight
Good luck trying to dismantle entrenched structures and processes, says Athene Donald — but don’t give up, support is out there.
- Athene Donald