Dr. Danica Roth

Thrilled to share that our new paper on river monitoring with distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is finally out! seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view/1…

The Environmental Seismology poster session is in full swing! Visit the 400+ block to see novel seismic applications in hazards, surface, cryospheric, atmospheric and all the other processes. #AGU23

Come see PhD student Mel Zhang’s poster on seismic monitoring of tree-sway in the critical zone! #AGU23

Lab group lunch at #AGU23 yesterday! They were joking about how infrequently I tweet (x?) these days, so we took a group photo… and then I forgot to post it. Better late than never!

Hello to all the people who used to be bold, yet academia made you afraid. May you find your voice again one day.

Just over a week left to submit to your #AGU23 abstracts! Join us for an integrated hillslope session with invited speakers @DavidGLitwin and @LeonardSklar, co-convened with @GeomorphWill, @thdoane and Seulgi Moon. agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/preli…

✨Postdoc opportunity✨ in post-fire sediment transport processes related to hazards, bioturbation, water quality and geomorphic response to climate change! Deadline June 30. Please share! 🔥🪨🌱🐿️💦⛰️ jobs.mines.edu/cw/en-us/job/4… @nonschistyjobs @earth_jobs #academicjobs #postdoc

Good demo of catchment size and infiltration impacts on surface flow… Also, in other news: June seems to be broken in Colorado.

Scientific colour maps 8.0 fabiocrameri.ch/colourmaps #useBatlow #ScientificVisualisation #visualisation #Science #ColourPalette #DataVis #GraphicDesign #OpenSource #Accessibility #Colour #AcademicCommunityContribution #ACC 1/n

@RiverChem @nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 Agreed—it’s hard to compare objectively given everything that’s happened in the last few years. I honestly don’t know what a “normal” TT experience would even look like. I know we’re not the only ones though!

@danicalir @nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 That certainly speaks to my experience - being an assistant prof, especially through the pandemic, has been orders of magnitude more stressful than being a postdoc was (of course, being a post-doc now could be more stressful than it was even 6-9 years ago...)

Me: talk about existential dread being a postdoc. People: it doesn't end after you become a PI. Me: Thanks. But think about it this way. Postdocs want to be PI, but no PI wants to come back and be postdoc again. Obvious one is better than the other. LMAO. 🤷‍♀️

@DrAcePugh @nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 I agree that a postdoc is less certain. But I think this is giving tenure requirements far too much credit. Lack of clear tenure requirements (publishing, teaching, mentoring etc) is common, and mentors are rare. The stresses are different—but it also isn’t a zero sum game 🤷🏻‍♀️

@danicalir @nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 That's a different type of stress. You're working to advance where you know the path forward and the next steps. Postdoc doesn't even have that.

@nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 I should also add that I was miserable as a postdoc, especially early on—leaving your entire support network behind and juggling research with uncertain job applications is a very real struggle. It’s only in retrospect that I’ve come to appreciate all the freedom I had then.

@nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 I agree on the timeline/probability for job security, but anecdotally, I do think many of the tenure track profs I know (especially women/WoC) are far more stressed now than we were as postdocs. I certainly am. Definitely some sampling bias though, especially with the pandemic!

@nanditabasu2 @ChenxinLi2 The tenure track is not job security… it’s just a (slightly, depending on field) longer period of time with more responsibilities + less free time and if you blow it you’re right back on the job market. There’s certainly privilege, but it’s not based on job security.

@ChenxinLi2 Yes. The “I want to be a postdoc” statements come from a space of privilege and not acknowledging the job security a PI has that a postdoc doesn’t.

@Andrew_Akbashev @MarmolE6 For former students on an academic track, 4-5 years isn’t generally enough time to gain tenure or tenure equivalent status and be (relatively) safe from retaliation.

Point 1 says “former”. It can students who left 4-5 years ago. It can be a random selection and completely anonymous, organized by the funding agency. It doesn’t have to be a letter. It could be a questionnaire with scores that you can give your former advisor. Of course it is important to protect victims! It’s obvious.

This is why: 1. Funding decisions for PIs must take into account recommendation letters from former PhD graduates and postdocs. Because funding is used to pay for more students and postdocs, it should be allocated only if the PI knows how to manage people correctly. 2. Universities should hire senior professors only after collecting 5-10 recomm. letters from their former graduates, randomly selected. 3. Students should get university-level (or country-level) training in how to select advisors and avoid toxic PIs. 4. Universities should create internal funds and programs for the students who need to switch groups or get financial security while they’re trying to find a new employer. It should be mandatory if the university wants to receive funding from the government (that comes from taxes). 5. Private funders should stop funding “hot research topics” as much as they do these days. Instead, if they start helping students who are already in crisis (by offering fellowships or other support), they will make A LOT bigger impact on the academic community and entire society. 6. In any department, fellow professors should HELP students who got into toxic groups and need support. Not avoid them. 7. At department meetings, the topics of toxicity and mismanagement must be discussed as often as possible. Believe me, your students don’t care about the “strategic plans for the department”, “teaching rotations”, etc that you keep discussing there. All they care about is wellbeing. Everything else comes second. Ensure you are raising awareness and making the right emphasis on what is truly important for the students. 8. Finally, reduce tenure requirements. A lot of issues stem from the load the young PIs have to withstand. Reduce the load on PIs and you will reduce the load on students and postdocs. Don’t ignore mismanagement. Don’t ignore toxicity. Even if it doesn’t happen in your lab. @AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter #phdchat

@jscheingross Woah. Have you run into any problems with the Google Docs integration? If that works smoothly we might have a winner... I have to restore an old version of my current word doc once a week because one of my students opens it in google drive and breaks all the mendeley citations.

I'm actually impressed at how spectacularly unusable the new version of Mendeley is. Has anyone compared Zotero and Paperpile? Endnote sounds like an equal headache. Any other recommendations?

@derek_schutt Oh I hadn't heard of that one before, but I'm on a mac too. Thanks!

@danicalir I use Bookends, but I have a mac, which may not be your preferred OS. I'm pretty happy with it.