Transitioning a Computation Research Team Between Institutions

Context: Academic researchers look at transitioning institutions for a range of reasons – to immerse in a different research culture, to decrease distance of their team to vital research instrumentation, to follow their partner who is taking a new position, etc. A transition that is good in the long term can nonetheless cause a dip in publication output and even lead to the upheaval of well-functioning research group. 

To talk about such transitions, I reached out to Prof. Dilpuneet ‘DP’ Aidhy about his recent experience transitioning his research group between institutions. He is a material scientist who utilizes computational experimentation (molecular dynamics simulations) to understand defects in alloys and oxides. He has held positions outside of higher education, working both at IBM (Bangalore, India) and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a post-doctoral researcher. He established his academic group in 2015 as an assistant professor within the University of Wyoming mechanical engineering department. 

As you will read shortly, he did not agree with my assumption that transitioning institutions would be a time sink.  He was surprisingly blasé about it.

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Interview Summary:

Moving an academic team and your personal life seems like it would require a lot of energy. How was the process?

Because we are a computational group, our move was not that difficult. All we needed to ensure was that we transferred our data carefully. Additionally, we only needed to move a few laptops which was very easy. All it required was working with the IT department. While initially, I also wanted to move some computational cluster nodes, but I quickly realized that it was not the best approach. Rather, we simply got access to the computer cluster to continue our research (thank you, University of Wyoming!). Overall, we consider ourselves to be lucky. Things may not always be that easy, especially for faculty with experimental laboratories with heavy or sensitive equipment. One has to work with the previous and future institutions, which can be stressful. I have heard all sorts of stories. 

Personally, we were able to sell and buy the house quickly! There was also a lot of excitement due to the many new things to do. I had an open discussion with my students about the transition. Some of them graduated before the transition, one decided they did not want to move and finished their MS after I left, and one student was excited to join me and continue their PhD. 

How long did it take you to fully transition your research team between institutions? What did that look like from signing paperwork to your whole team being on campus?

Because our group is only computational, my largest concern was our data. We wanted to ensure that we did not lose any data and had access to it at least for a year on UW’s computer cluster. I made sure that we had three different copies of data all stored on different devices, both on cloud and personal hard drives. As an employee, often upon leaving an institution, the email and related credentials are terminated the very next day or within a week at most. We ensured that I worked with UW HPC’s team well in advance such that we had access to the date once we left UW. 

I am fortunate that all my prior and current students remain in regular contact. That helps with finishing up papers and continuing research initiatives between students. Most of our data was often categorized by each graduate student individually. Before making the move, I ensured all my students (current and prior) would either retain access to their data stored at my first institution or were able to obtain an exact copy of the data. This approach allowed my new students to ask any questions from the alumni. 

When considering transitioning academic appointment, where there any things that impacted your decision that you did not consider when accepting your first academic appointment? 

I knew what I needed during my first academic appointment – to get tenure in the allotted time. There was a lot of clarity on what that would take – publications, external funding, good teaching skills, and matriculating graduate students to graduation. 

Here at Clemson, I am more focused on amplifying the impact of my work. When I decided to move, I only considered institutions where I felt the environment would allow me to collaborate and work on cross-disciplinary challenges. Second, I only considered institutions with graduate level courses that aligned with my research field such that my students are fundamentally prepared for their research. Finally, you want to grow with a growing culture, where people are excited about the future. Clemson provided that home to us!

In addition, I was careful of the smaller details such as the flexibility of the start-up spending. I would think that experimental faculty would be also sensitive to their proximity to unique research equipment (say driving distance to a national laboratory user facility or ensuring a wide range of characterization equipment on their campus). 

Moving involves personal lives in addition to professional considerations. We also were looking for a place with warmer weather. 

Was there any difference in your research group structure at your first faculty appointment (2015) versus your second faculty appointment (2022)? 

During my first appointment (2015), I was a new assistant professor. The size of a research group was dictated by the startup funding for the first few years. But there were internal grants available which I managed to procure until the outside funding started to arrive. At a given time, my group consisted of three graduate students, one postdoc and a few undergraduate students. 

As a new faculty, it is really helpful if they can can recruit a student during their first semester. That is usually uncommon for a couple of reasons: 

• your department may not have a pool of students for you to choose from, unless you have signed an offer letter a good few months before you start, and
• you will likely have no experience recruiting, which is a skill. 

At my second appointment (2022), one student transitioned with me and I hired two through my new institution within the first semester. Now we have a group of 4 graduate students, 1 postdoc and 2-3 undergraduate students.

Graduate students in your group will need to undertake both physical and emotional effort during the move. What did you do to help students or post docs with this process? What are some options the PI (principal investigator) should be aware of? (How did the research members of your team react to the news? Was it uniform and expected?)

This is an important aspect of transitioning between institutions. While the transfer is often exciting for the PI, it may not be for the students, especially domestic/local students who may have families and life nearby. One will often find that not all students are interested in transferring, and that happened to me as well. In such cases, the PI may want to work with the department chair to ensure that the students can find other advisors and complete their degree. Sadly, there are no better options.

For students who transition with the faculty member, it is a lot of emotional and physical effort. I think the PI should be considerate and flexible. The student who transferred with me has family and children. I covered their moving expenses and tried to be flexible about when he joined me at the new institution. I conveyed to him that it was fine to work remotely for an extended period, if needed. Of course, the offline practices of Covid work culture were still very much in practice, and were helpful.

What were some of the most important actions you took to maintain your research group culture (norms, expectations, etc.) while transitioning between institutions? 

One of the perks of being a faculty member is the opportunity to envision and implement your philosophy of learning. To do this, faculty really need to have clarity on what they expect from their students. And it has to be clearly communicated. 

Two norms that I try to implement are: a work/life balance for our team members and the expectation that the students must grow in their performance and independence with time. I want that my students are always excited about their work, and love come to the lab every day! That requires continuous encouragement and motivation from my side. It is an evolving process. We try to get to know each other personally, and are open emotionally to discuss life and some philosophy! Science is done in a calm mind and a friendly atmosphere is very helpful. It does not mean that we don’t have frustrating moments, but we try to overcome them while keeping the bigger goal in focus. 

I also try to establish a culture that encourages growth. I expect graduate students in their first and second years to make a lot of mistakes as they embrace research. With maturity, they should be making fewer mistakes and become independent. By their fifth year, I want my student to really transition into a colleague. Once that happens, it is time to graduate. 

At Clemson, to help communicate my expectations to my students, I started developing “policy” documents and manuals. These documents communicate how we operate. For example, we have developed manuals for best data practices, presentation etiquettes, research progress and expectations, recipe of research philosophy and approaches, professional development, etc.

The focus of academic research groups can evolve both when staying at an institution and when you move between institutions. When will a research team’s focus evolve and how do you know it is the right time for that evolution? 

Some faculty stay focused on a single topic for their entire careers, although that approach is receding quickly with the changing funding environments. Others, expand or transition to new areas. While my research team continues to focus on atomistic and microstructural modeling of solid-state materials including alloys and ceramics, we started to integrate machine learning sometime around 2018. Around that time, machine learning emerged as an important and a very useful tool to probe materials, especially high entropy alloys that are data heavy. To get my research team prepared, ewe quickly realized that my students needed to take mathematics/statistics, coding, and machine learning courses. This was a strategic change. Similarly, when we moved last year, we decided to build an open repository that hosts the data for not only our team but our research community. Not only it helps to share our data but also serves as a mechanism for community service. We are growing in this direction.

Getting and starting your first faculty appointment (tenure-track)

 

Overview:  Each fall, academic institutions start advertising open faculty positions and those interested in being faculty start to polish their application packets.  The process is time consuming- with institutions now often requiring letters of recommendation, diversity, and vision statements in addition to the standard C.V., research statement and teaching statements.  As a faculty member, my involvement varies each fall- jumping from participating in a search one year to mostly responding to requests for advice from colleagues about assembling a competitive portfolio.  In parallel to watching the application season begin, we typically watch large cohorts of new faculty arrive on campus to take their first full time position as a faculty member.  For those taking ‘regular’ faculty positions, they are balancing starting up their research groups, teaching, and writing while also navigating a new home.

As I watch the process start this fall, I am struck by the metarules for applying for faculty positions and how some of the most important advice can be quickly buried by the onslaught of ‘new’ that arriving faculty meet. New location, new home, new cultural norms.  I also have been trying to figure out what really is the most critical advice for those starting faculty positions and those applying for those positions.  

To get his opinion, I reached out to Prof. Dilpuneet ‘DP’ Aidhy about pursuing a tenure-track appointment.  I also took the opportunity to learn about some of his experience of starting his research group and identify the keys to making the best of those first few tenure track years. Prof. Aidhy earned his tenure at the University of Wyoming and is a material scientist who utilizes computational experimentation (molecular dynamics simulations) to understand defects in alloys and oxides. He has held positions outside of high education, working both at IBM (Bangalore, India) and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a post-doctoral researcher. He established his academic group in 2015 as an assistant professor within the University of Wyoming mechanical engineering department. 

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Interview Summary:

What lured you into pursuing a tenure track faculty position? 

As I was pursuing my doctorate, I was intrigued by the control my advisor had over his time, thoughts, and lifestyle. Even though I noticed the stress tied to obtaining funding for research, I appreciated that he could maintain sanity and be cheerful. In addition, I leant that tenure could provide protection to pursue important research that might not align directly with the more dynamic mission fluctuations seen in industry or perhaps national laboratories. Finally, it is a high-respected career and campus life is very dynamic! 

In parallel, I noticed the open-ended nature of the scientific research. Creating knowledge requires asking questions that have value. As a faculty member, I get to invest my time and emotions in shaping and contributing to students’ careers, which is rewarding. And of course, if one gets paid to talk about science, share ideas, crunch problems with the students, it is a privilege! Getting declined on funding/proposals, is obviously not so fun. But that’s life; you win some, you lose some! In our case, we win about 10% of the time!

Do you have any advice for students looking for an academic career?

I think there are few straightforward boxes that should be checked. Such as:

Create opportunities for yourself to be able to do good research in a well-known research group. This will help you to learn the nuts and bolts of being a well-rounded scientist, doing quality science, getting quality recommendation letters, and building network for future collaborations. Although pedigree matters to some extent, yet quality science and skill set are still the most important aspects of the CV based on which the applications are screened.

Publish in good journals. I often notice that a serious application for a tenure-track assistant professor position these days has about 20 published papers in well recognized journals, although it is not always a hard number. 

Make use of conferences: attend conferences, present your work well, and network with future potential employers. The last part is tricky because you don’t want to sound desperate while developing a relationship. However, doing your homework by knowing their scientific work is a good starting point to get a dialogue going, and hopefully leaving a mark.

Finally, learn to sell yourself. This involves good communication skills, i.e., be able to creatively communicate your ideas. Have a good understanding of not only your niche area but the links of the chain that connect your work to the broader impacts. How does your research advances science in your area, and how does it impact other scientific areas. A good analogy would be the number of symposia into which your conference talk can be presented and be relevant!  

Do you have any advice for faculty just entering a tenure track position? 

I think there are few things each faculty should do are: 

·       Get a mentor

I think not being aware of the unwritten rules of the game (academia or life in general) is often the Achilles’ heel. So, help yourself and get a mentor. Select a mentor to whom you can listen and whose advice you are willing to follow. 

·       Participate in a review panel

Learning to craft an articulate grant proposal that clearly conveys the transformative nature of your work is difficult! It became easier when I was able to review batches of proposals and listen to the comments from my colleagues.

·       Establish your research facility 

Get your lab going. Spend the money, buy the equipment, and find your first student. It can be hard to spend your startup funds when you do not have other funding on the horizon.  It can be uncomfortable to see the balances dwindling and be paralyzed by the what ifs.   Don’t worry about the rainy days—you will only be awarded funding if you have preliminary results. To get those results, you will need to purchase equipment and start taking measurements.  Another reason that first year faculty may have a hard time spending money is that they are kept busy by the urgent activities.  Set aside time on your calendar to set up your lab.  You need time to call vendors, sort through the university accounting system, etc.  

·       Set aside time to recruit the right student(s)

Put more focus on recruiting the right students in that first semester. Great students can help you develop the preliminary data for competitive grants. My advice would be to think about the challenges that you would have in the next 2-3 years and then figure out what type of skillset you need from those first couple of students. For example, if you are going to invest time in setting up your lab equipment, you may want to hire someone who has that ‘handyman’ and ‘get-it-done’ experience. For computational faculty, a student with strong coding skills to get all the codes running on the computational cluster is important. In these two cases, what may not be a good choice is a brilliant science student but without those critical skills that you so need. So, I think the approach would be - horses for courses!

·       Collocate your research team members

As your negotiation stage with your department head, ask for a common office for graduate students on your team. I strongly believe that most of the learning for graduate students is peer-learning, especially in coding, running simulations, data management, research group philosophy and culture, and tool development. To get that, they should be sharing space. If you can get it, your team will have a head start. 

·       Learn about your department, college and program managers

Your colleagues have seen it all. Some would be exceptional in obtaining funding, others in administrative duties. Get involved with both of them so that you learn about the art of writing the proposals. Similarly, learn about the expectations of getting the tenure. In the College, identify your potential collaborators, and the available equipment. Finally, learn about all the help that is available for student recruitment, writing proposals, etc.

For proposal and funding, draft 1-page whitepapers on your 2-3 potential ideas. Send to your program managers and get engaged. Their feedback will be very important to establish your program.  

·       Involve in your professional society and committees

Get involved in your committees. This is critical for your professional development and visibility. Propose symposium and take opportunities to organize them. Send invitations to experts and invite them for presentations.   

·       Develop a culture

Develop a working style. Allocate specific hours for specific activities. Take a thoughtful and crafty approach to establish your style rather than a brut-force approach. Be open to new ideas, and restrain from a negative/complaining attitude. 

“Publish or perish.” That phrase can make new faculty anxious. Any advice for new tenure track faculty? 

This is the harsh truth of academia. You have to be able to communicate your ideas and they have to be acceptable to your peers. My strategy is generally two-pronged: to push for deeper science within your research, and have a couple of budding ideas that can get low-hanging fruit/papers. For example, for UG and first year G students, focusing on a paper that is heavy on generating data can be an easier way to give shape to the results that the young students can easily accumulate by doing the same simulation on different materials. 

Second, develop a mentoring chain, i.e., connect young students with senior students so that they are trained for the future. This helps develop co-author papers for all students. 

Third, diversify the skillset of your students in the first two years. This will help them attack the same problem from different angles, which can also help with more papers. 

Fourth, think in terms of papers, and develop your approach to writing a paper. Sometimes, even before doing the first simulation, I have the title, hypothesis, abstract and a set of simulations all laid out. I test my hypothesis with specific simulations, and if it works, I have the results to write the paper quickly. This is a very organic and streamlined way to get the work done. The deeper science paper in contrast is done with continuously asking new questions on the present results. In this case, ‘what next’ is always the standing question. In any case, strictly stay away from a fishing expedition, where there is no clarity of the goal, hypothesis, or the approach. 

Finally, learn to write quickly. Here is a suggestion: have the finalized figures and captions on the word document. Go for a walk and develop the complete story. Return and then rehearse! The figures should be able to the tell the story completely. Find out the missing pieces, do those specific experiments or simulations. Then, run it through your reliable colleague. If approved, write the paper! Set it aside for a week, and then return with fresh ideas. If the draft still appears convincing, go ahead, and submit. Of course, there would be additional steps involved if it is a collaborative paper.

You started a lab before and after COVID.  Did you notice a change after COVID when remote work became more prevalent?  

Yes. The downside of Covid for every mentor was the lack of the mentee training. I learnt it the hard way and I had to work backwards with a student. Not being in the lab among the senior students was a major bottleneck for the young students. 

After Covid, there are many upsides. We have all learnt about the virtual proximity. We are all there, easily available. We have also picked up a few technical skills. For example, preparing a video of the presentation, or a tutorial is now easy. I strictly ask my students to record a presentation once the paper is written. Similarly, I ask them to develop a video tutorial on a new code they might have written. Finally, this has helped teaching immensely. We can continue to teach in the classroom, while the students can have access to the pre-prepared video lectures that are available throughout the semester to them.

Any last comments you want to share?

Read some philosophy, self-help, and science history books (a biography of Marie Curie by her daughter Eve Curie has all in one). And enjoy your work and science that you do. Not everybody gets to create knowledge. Take pride in that!