Working Scientist

Among the barriers faced by researchers who move abroad to develop their careers is a so-called “hidden curriculum,” says Sonali Majumdar, whose book, Thriving as an International Scientist, was published last year.Navigating these unwritten rules that cover social norms and cultural expectations, both in the lab and outside work, can feel particularly daunting to scientists who, like her, were born elsewhere, she adds. In addition, international scientists often have restrictive funding arrangements that tie them to a particular lab or Principal Investigator’s research focus, she says.US visa restrictions can often mean missing family events back home. Majumdar, for example, who gained a biochemistry and molecular biology PhD from the University of Georgia in Athena in 2014, could not return to India to attend her parents’ funerals. “It was probably the biggest sacrifice I’ve had to make in my life,” she says.  In the final episode of a six-part podcast series covering books about the scientific workplace, Majumdar, who is now assistant Dean for professional development at Princeton University in New Jersey, tells Holly Newson that having a “growth mindset” can help international scientists to thrive abroad.  This means not focusing on problems, but on possibilities and solutions, she says, supported by advisors, mentors, and sponsors. The US, she says, has a reputation as a melting pot of different cultures, a place to meet colleagues with a shared passion for science and solving problems. But in the last decade the climate for researchers who relocate there from abroad has become more difficult, she adds.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon May describes his 2025 book Jump! as a new approach to conquering procrastination. Unlike self-help manuals that urge readers to break tasks down into manageable chunks with clear deadlines, May digs into the philosophy of why we put things off. He also explores not only why we fear career failure but also (more mysteriously, he says) career success, and why boredom and regrets are a “phenomenal wake-up call” to be learnt from. The modern cult of work, May tells Holly Newson in the penultimate episode of this podcast series about books covering the scientific workplace, forces us onto a productivity treadmill that can sap our motivation. “If something becomes cold and alienating and simply production-oriented, it ceases to engage,” he says, highlighting some scenarios: “I need to get this out by Monday morning. My competitor in the next lab has produced three papers this year, and I’ve only produced one.” But how do you make an important personal or professional goal less important, less intimidating, and so more achievable? May, a visiting professor of philosophy at Kings College London, offers some strategies. This includes how he conquers his own procrastination as a book deadline looms, describing himself as someone who feels “paralyzed” by the importance of the project. May concludes with a warning about the “mirage of fulfilment”  felt by the 19th century Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Aged 50 and at the height of his fame, Tolstoy felt his life was meaningless. “One other thing to avoid is this sense that the destination is the key, that, once reached, will provide a sense of lasting fulfillment.” Instead, he argues, it’s the journey that counts.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joseph Jebelli believes burnout and overwork has reached pandemic levels, telling Holly Newson that it kills 750,000 people annually, with three out of five workers struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance.  His 2025 book, The Brain At Rest, proposes that regular bouts of doing nothing can change your life. Finding time to let your mind wander and take a daily 30-minute nap can make you more creative and efficient, he argues.  In the fourth episode of a six-part podcast series focused on books about the scientific workplace, Jebelli describes the "productivity guilt" he felt during his neuroscience PhD at University College London, where he studied the cell biology of neurodegenerative diseases, followed by a postdoc at the University of Washington, Seattle. "It's the guilt in which you equate your worth as a human being with your output, with how many hours you're in the lab. If it were up to me, there would be a napping room in all laboratories. We have to get it out of our heads that we’re switching off, shirking, or being irresponsible or reckless. We’re actually helping our brains produce our best work.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gertrude Nonterah helps researchers step off the academic hamster wheel and seek opportunities beyond their specialty. She does this by tapping into her personal experiences of losing a postdoctoral position when her lab leader’s funding ran out, followed by a role at a biotechnology company that ended after two months. Nonterah now works in medical communications and career counselling through The Bold PhD, a consultancy she set up in 2021, and a podcast, which she launched last year. Her 2025 book, Navigating the Pivot, promises strategies and insights to power career transitions from academia. In the third episode of a podcast series focused on books about the scientific workplace, Nonterah, who is based in San Diego, California, tells Holly Newson how to tailor a CV or resume for industry employers. Instead of focusing on publications, she urges industry job applicants to show evidence of problem-solving, a highly-prized skill in the sector. Another thing to include are examples of communicating their research to people beyond their academic specialty. Nonterah then emphasizes the importance of networking, describes strategies to counter imposter syndrome, and offers advice on how to talk about career setbacks.Finally, she talks about how to bounce back from being laid-off, based on her own experience. She tells Newson: “How do I turn this into my comeback? How do I turn this into a time where I rediscover myself, my skills, when I rebrand and reinvent myself.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learning to care less about how you come across in a conference talk, funding pitch or networking event frees you to communicate more naturally and confidently, says Susie Ashfield.In the second episode of a podcast series focused on six books about the scientific workplace, Ashfield, whose 2025 book, Just F**king Say It, includes real-life case studies of both good and bad communication, says scientist interviewees are often burdened by the “curse of knowledge.” This means they include too much detail instead of focusing on telling a simple story with a beginning, a middle and an end.Ashfield, an actor-turned-communications coach based in London, tells Holly Newson that presenters often fail to rehearse a science conference talk sufficiently. They also default to listing their academic achievements rather than focusing on the messages that their audience needs to hear. In the case of an investor pitch, this could mean focusing on a technology’s potential to save lives, not a detailed description of the underlying science, she argues.She also offers advice on how to approach networking, including tips on how to introduce yourself, keep conversations flowing, and how to politely move on to speak with other attendees. Finally, she offers advice on how to say no, handle difficult supervisors and pay negotiations.Explaining why she named her book Just F**king Say It, and why people should care less about how they come across, she tells Newson: “We are all desperately, concerned about what other people think of us. When we overthink how we walk into a room, we put levels of pressure on ourselves that just shouldn’t be there. The ethos is to just care less. Let it go. See what happens. Enjoy it.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of a podcast series focused on six books about the scientific workplace, Cordelia Fine tells Holly Newson why she wrote Patriarchy, Inc: What we Get Wrong About Gender Equality and Why Men Still Win at Work.Fine, a psychologist and workplace gender-equity researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia, offers a blueprint for a fairer society that does not single out women as “a problem to be fixed.​​​​​”Describing the gender pay gap as largely a “motherhood pay gap,” she outlines how employers can support staff who return to work after a career break, without fostering resentment among colleagues. She also explains why many workplace diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including unconscious bias training, are ineffective and can sometimes be offensive to the groups they aim to support.Fine also draws on historical examples of women being pushed out when men enter professions in larger numbers, and the effect this can have on the workplace culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his role as research director at NielsenIQ, a consumer intelligence company based in London,  Josh Balsters helps global brands drive product innovation.Balsters relies on expertise he gained in psychology and neuroscience, both during his PhD and as an assistant professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. But when he made the decision to quit full-time academia in 2020, Balsters struggled to tell his colleagues because he worried that he had let them down.“There’s a feeling...that you’ve taken up a space, taken an opportunity away from somebody else who would have wanted it more,” he says. “I felt much more comfortable talking to people who had done it, who had already left.” Ashley Ruba took a different tack. After completing her PhD in psychology at the University of Washington, Seattle, she spent three years as a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, before doubling her salary in an industry role.  After sharing her story on social media, Ruba was bombarded with messages from early career researchers who felt they couldn’t share their misgivings about remaining in academia with colleagues. “It seems like there’s a lot of shame, a lot of fear,” she tells Adam Levy in the final episode of Off Limits: an eight-part podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace. Previous episodes have covered religious faith, alcohol dependency, bereavement, fertility challenges, and coming out as a transgender scientist.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alison Behie was approaching 40 when she underwent multiple rounds of IVF, enduring the mental and physical turmoil of miscarriage and uncertainty along the way. How good is the academic workplace at supporting women like Behie, a biological anthropology researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra? “The primary feeling was just this guilt that I had prioritized trying to get where I was in my career over my family. That’s not a way anyone should ever feel,“ she says. Behie is joined by Karen Jones, whose research focus at the University of Reading, UK, includes women’s career advancement and gender equality in higher education. Jones says the precarity of research careers is often most pronounced at the point when many researchers are contemplating parenthood, telling Levy: “It’s not uncommon for people to be employed on one temporary contract after another possibly for several years. And this often coincides with the age at which people are making decisions about having a family.”  Finally, Wendy Dossett, a professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Chester, UK, describes the pressures facing women in academia to juggle career and family ambitions, saying: “I suffered a bit from the assumption that I must be a child-free career woman, when, in truth, I was a broken-hearted, childless woman.” Off Limits is a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the sixth episode of Off Limits, a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the academic workplace, three researchers describe their personal experiences of loss and how their respective institutions handled it, both practically and emotionally.Krista Harrison, a geriatrics researcher at University of California, San Francisco, recalls colleagues being very supportive when she suffered a spate of deaths in her family. But overall she needed advice, direction and resources and, ideally, a year off from having to think about writing grants. She set up a grief group and wrote articles calling for academia to shift norms and expectations around loss and bereavement leave.In 2023 a colleague of Katie Derington, a cardiovascular researcher at University of Colorado Anschutz in Aurora, died of a chronic illness after being hospitalized for around a month. At the time of her death she was co-author on a series of papers with Derington and other colleagues.Derington describes having to contact her colleague’s grieving widower to complete documentation related to the team’s soon-to-be-published article. This icky” experience also prompted her to write an article ​​​​​​​calling for academic publishers to show more compassion to bereaved authors.But how do you juggle mourning a colleague with a lengthy to-do list at work? Putting off an administrative task for a couple of months is okay, Derington says. There’s very, very few things in academia that are truly the fire is on the house.”Shannon Bros, an emeritus ecologist at San Jose State University in California, says support from counselling team colleagues would have helped when her department chair died of cancer. But seeing people having a good time on campus provided an epiphany. I looked around and went, ‘How many times have I walked anywhere and not seen people in pain? It changed me.​​​​​​​’” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wendy Dossett tells Adam Levy why the stigma of having an alcohol dependence in academia can be a huge barrier to seeking help. “We’re supposed to be the brightest and the best, moving the frontiers of knowledge forward,” says Dossett, who has been in recovery for 20 years. “We’re not supposed to be struggling with cognitive issues, mental health problems, damaging ourselves in the way that somebody with an alcohol addiction is doing.”   Dossett, now an emeritus professor of religious studies at the University of Chester, UK, says that as an early career researcher she saw alcohol as the fuel to her academic life, driving her creativity and making the social elements of academic life easier to navigate. When, in her 30s, a colleague suggested she might need help, Dosett says she felt a “mixture of horror and absolute gratitude that somebody had the courage and care for me.” She went on to research the spiritual elements of recovery from addiction, which she says is less talked about in academia than, say, depression and anxiety. Victoria Burns, a social work scholar at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, founded Recovery on Campus Alberta after telling her Dean that she had an alcohol dependence. He told her she was the first academic to disclose in his 26-year career, prompting her to research other Deans’ experiences of faculty disclosing addiction and recovery. This is the fifth episode of Off Limits, a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace, including religion, bereavement, activism and sizeism.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist who studies attitudes towards religion in academic workplaces, says that scientists often feel they cannot be open about their faith at work.  In the fourth episode of Off Limits, a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace, she tells Adam Levy: “I would love for academic scientists to recognize that religious scientists can be good scientists, to break down some of their own stereotypes, and to see religion as just one of those identities that sits along other sides, other identities, like one’s social class and background.”  Ecklund, who leads the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University in Houston, Texas, says that despite the reticence felt by many religious scientists, many of their colleagues are in fact quite open to their colleagues’ beliefs, based on her research. But some marginalized groups can face particular challenges. Maisha Islam, research culture lead at the University of Southampton, UK, shares her experiences of alienation as a British Bangladeshi Muslim woman. These range from a lack of accommodations to comments made by colleagues. “We almost put a target on our backs for having advocated for them in the first place. We are constantly pushing at closed doors,” she says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Theo Newbold featured in a 2022 careers article about sizeism in science which discussed some accommodations that could make a difference in the workplace. Some follow-up comments on the discussion platform Reddit questioned whether Newbold and other interviewees in the article were suited to a career in academia.Newbold, a PhD student in plant pathology and diversity, equity and inclusion advocate at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, says the feedback made her feel “as someone who doesn’t want to be perceived as the complaining fat person.”They are joined by Katharine Hubert, who was diagnosed by Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, shortly after starting a PhD at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2019. The two researchers discuss some of the workplace accommodations and attitudinal changes that could make academia a more welcoming environment.This is the third episode of Off Limits, a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace.Previous episodes feature activist academics who join campus protests and civil disobedience activities. Future episodes will include the experiences of religious scientists at work, and bereavement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In May 2024, Uli Beisel signed what she thought was a fairly innocuous petition. But it led to her face being printed in a national tabloid. This was after student demonstrators at the Free University of Berlin had occupied a lecture theatre in protest at the ongoing Israel assault on Gaza. The university called the police to clear the space.The open letter that Beisel and others signed didn’t take a position on the conflict, but instead called on university leadership to defend free speech and the right to peaceful process. But Uli — alongside several other of the 1000- plus signatories — was named and pictured in the Bild newspaper. There, she and others were labelled a “university perpetrator” complicit in “Israel hate”. Beisel, a human geography researcher at the institution, says the tone of some of the reporting made her fear for her safety on campus. She also worried about how colleagues and students would react. The university responded by offering legal advice and issued a statement that they valued our opinion, says Beisel. After the story appeared it was reported that Germany’s higher education ministry had looked into stripping some signatories of federal funding. In the second episode of Off Limits, a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace, Adam Levy investigates tensions that sometimes surface when academics become activists. Beisel is joined by climate scientist Peter Kalmus. Kalmus dates his activism back to 2006 when he was midway through a physics PhD at Columbia University, New York, and had just become a father for the first time.  Speaking in a personal capacity, Kalmus, who is now based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, described the arrival of his older son as “a kick in the pants,” making him “think more broadly about the world and what the world was going to be like when he was grown up.” In April 2022 Kalmus and three colleagues padlocked themselves to a JPMorganChase bank entrance in Los Angeles, California, in protest at fossil fuel financing. The two researchers discuss how institutions can better support scholars whose concern for human rights and the future of the planet, often informed by their own research, leads to activism. Kalmus concludes: “I think we’re here to try to make a better world for everyone. Being part of this struggle is in some ways really joyful and really meaningful. I definitely do not want to sit on the sidelines.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1997 Shannon Bros came out as a transgender woman to students and colleagues. “When I transitioned, everything stopped,” says Bros of her research career. “I had a huge friend base by that time. I was confident, you know, what I was doing. Everything collapsed overnight.”  Bros, an emeritus ecologist at San Jose State University in California, describes the personal pressures that led to the decision and the reservations she had at the time. "I had a perfect life. I had a fabulous marriage. I had kids. I have always been respected in my department. The last thing I wanted to do was transition.”  She describes the support she received, from female colleagues in particular, as she rebuilt relationships. “I spent a lot of energy saying, 'Don’t worry about pronouns, just get to know me again. I’m pretty much the same person.'” As a result, she adds, “I became the best teacher I’ve ever been. I became a fabulous advisor.”   Bros is joined by Kihana Wilson, a computational physics PhD student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Wilson describes the “invisibility/hypervisibility paradox” faced by Black queer female scholars like her, who work in predominantly white, male disciplines.   She adds: “My hope is that the way that we think about how science and academia should be organized, the ideas we have about who are true scientists, and how scientists should look and fit into academic spaces, evolves and expands.”  Off Limits is a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the academic workplace. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In June this year developmental biologist Ottoline Leyser stepped down as chief executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the country’s national research funding agency. In the final episode of a six-part Working Scientist podcast series about career planning, Leyser tells Julie Gould how the opportunity to lead UKRI came about, and how, for her, good career planning starts with reflecting on who you are what your values are. Leyser also finds the notion of work-life balance problematic, arguing that you cannot easily segregate the two from each other. “You’re not your job. You are who you are,” she says. “And you can build a really fulfilling career by following who you are, and keeping your eyes on the full range of opportunities available to you to be who you are. And it’s not going to be one thing. “In research careers, people get locked into this idea that there’s really only one pathway, and that’s the only way you can make use of your research skills and your research interests. And it’s so untrue.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the penultimate episode of this six-part podcast series about career planning in science, Julie Gould discusses some of the setbacks faced by junior researchers, including political upheaval, financial crises and a change in supervisor.Shortly after embarking on a PhD at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, Katja Loos’ supervisor relocated to the University of Bayreuth, taking his team with him. But weeks later he died of an aggressive cancer.Loos, who is now a polymer chemistry researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, describes how she worked through the various choices and challenges she faced as a result of her supervisor’s sudden death, and why she abandoned plans for an industry career.Funding struggles in Argentina led to paleontologist Mariana Viglino relocating to Germany. But before moving she describes how a very prescribed career path denied her the opportunity to think about her long-term plans.Tomasz Glowacki says abandoning a rigid career plan helped him to better navigate the various challenges he faced after completing a PhD in computer science at Poznan University of Technology, Poland, in 2013.Finally, Julia Yates, an organizational psychologist and careers coach at City St George’s, University of London, reassures early career researchers facing a sudden disruption to their careers. It’s fine, she says, to put career planning on hold. Sometimes paying bills and putting food on the table has to take priority. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the fourth episode of a six-part podcast series about science career planning, Julie Gould investigates "planned happenstance," a theory which encourages workers to embrace chance opportunities during their working lives.Holly Prescott, a careers guidance practitioner at the University of Birmingham, UK, suggests a slightly alternative approach, whereby a professional reflects on their experiences to decide what they would like more or less of in their current or future role.Listing the things you want to keep, lose or add in a job description, she argues, enables researchers to have happier working lives.In her view, the technique is preferable to devising a plan at the early career stage and then slavishly following it. This course of action, she says, does not account for new skills, technologies and life events that can open up fresh opportunities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.