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Section 2 Expectations in the lab group

Our collective goal is to create a productive and supportive research environment for every lab member. A key component of such an environment is clear and effective communication. In this section, we describe a number of expectations for the lab group and provide instructions and resources for joining and working with the team. It is important to say that while these are expectations of the lab members, the members also have expectations of each other and of the more senior members of the group. During the onboarding process, Professor Pauls will work with the new member to articulate these additional expectations.

Subsection 2.1 Joining the lab

We are almost always looking for more students to join our lab group. There are lots of ongoing projects and there is likely a place for you! Our work studies the interplay between the dynamics and structure of complex networks with applications to neuroscience.

Students often ask what qualifications are required to join the lab. We try to take students at all stages of their academic careers, so the question is a bit hard to answer. But, projects often involve:

  • Using linear algebra or differential equations techniques to model and analyze systems.
  • Coding algorithms in MATLAB or Python
  • Using ideas from evolutionary biology and neuroscience.

No one student has all of these skill sets, but most have one or two - you will learn a lot of what you need to know in the process of working on the project.

Subsubsection 2.1.1 Onboarding checklist

If you are interested in joining the lab group, here are the steps we'd like you to complete.

  1. Have an initial meeting with Professor Pauls to discuss your interest, background, and the lab structure. You can schedule here.
  2. Once you decide to join the lab, set up a mentoring meeting with Professor Pauls (schedule here). Subsubsection 2.1.2 details the objectives for the meeting. Prior the meeting, fill out the form described in Subsubsection 2.1.3 and send it to Professor Pauls

  3. Click this link and send the resulting mail to help ensure you have:

    • Access to our slack space: dart-pauls-lab.slack.com
    • Access to our google drive. If you haven't used google tools through Dartmouth yet, look at Google Drive.
    • An invitation to any standing lab meetings: xxx

  4. Install and familiarize yourself with:

  5. Prepare a short bio for our lab webpage and add a picture if you like. Send them here.

Subsubsection 2.1.2 Mentoring

Worksheet Collaboratively building our mentor/mentee relationship
A4US

In bringing undergraduates into the Pauls lab, our primary goal is to provide a rich and rewarding research experience. As each student comes to the lab from a different direction - at different stages of their Dartmouth career, with different goals and aspirations, or with different motivations - the experience and context for the work needs to be tailored to each individual.

To facilitate this, beginning in the lab always begins with a conversation between Professor Pauls and the new lab member. The idea is to come to a common understanding of what the students aims to achieve and build expectations around those in the context of the ongoing research.

Every student comes to our lab with a unique background and story to tell. We want to learn as much about you to make the experience as good as possible. To that end, Professor Pauls encourages you to share aspects of your life that might not seem directly relevant to the work, but are part of who you are. Are there other "extra-curriculars" that are really important to you? What are your interests outside mathematics and neuroscience? Where do you see yourself after you leave Dartmouth? How do you think you learn and work the best? Are there things we can do or accommodations we can make to help you thrive in the lab? Do you have a big family, a small one, or somewhere in between? What communities are of particular importance to you on and off campus?

Below are some questions that serve as starting points for our discussion. An outcome of the discussion is a written summary document that all parties can refer to over time. Importantly, we can revist this discussion at any time - longer term lab members often do this regularly as their goals and aims evolve.

These questions are adapted from Branchaw, J. L., Pfund, C., and Rediske, R. 2010 Entering Research Facilitator’s Manual: Workshops for Students Beginning Research in Science, WH Freeman and Company.

  1. What are your major goals in joing the lab? What are your personal and professional goals in general?
  2. What are the reasearch goals of the lab? What are the current projects?
  3. Which of these projects would you like to be associated with?
  4. What is our shared vision of success for your time in the lab?
  5. How long do you expect we will work together on this project?
  6. What is the expectation for hours worked per week for the mentee?
  7. What are the best ways for us to communicate?
  8. How often do we expect to communicate? Are there times when we should not expect quick responses?
  9. How often will we meet one-on-one to discuss progress on the project? How long will these meetings last?
  10. How will we schedule these meeting? Who is responsible for the calendar management?
  11. What will the mentor do to prepare for these meetings?
  12. What will the mentee do to prepare for these meeting?
  13. At these meeting, how will we provide feedback to one another? written? verbal? both?
  14. If the mentee gets stuck, what process will we follows to get you unstuck?
  15. Are there any other issues that are important to you but we haven't addressed yet?

Subsubsection 2.1.3 Ongoing evaluation

This work is funded by NSF grant IOS-1749500. While some lab members are not directly supported on this grant, all members contribute to the goals outlined there. To that end, we like to track lab members' progress along various fronts and use this form when you enter the lab to help us in record keeping.

As different lab members have different projects and different tasks associated to them, not all the parts of the evaluation form will be relevant. Don't worry! Just leave those blank.

Please fill out the form when you enter the lab. Each year, when it comes time to report to the NSF, we'll ask you to fill it out again to gauge your progress.

Subsubsection 2.1.4 Levels of engagement

Different lab members work with different intensities depending on their role as well as their goals. Supported post-docs and graduate students should expect to spend the majority of their time on lab projects. Undergraduates have more varied engagment expectations - you will detail these expectations in the initial mentoring conversation with Professor Pauls, but we give some common examples here.

  • Students who are supported full time in an off-term should expect to spend about 30 hours a week on lab projects.
  • Students working during one of their academic terms, no matter where their support comes from, should expect to work 7-10 hours a week.
  • Some funding sources have additional requirements. For example, Presidential Scholars produce a written report at the end of the supported period. Students working in the lab to support their senior thesis will write a thesis as part of their degree requirements.

Subsubsection 2.1 Lab meetings

When the lab has several teams working on different projects, we will often have regular weekly lab meetings to discuss all the projects, share projects, and help one another.

We encourage everyone to think about how to best contribute and collaborate during these meeting. Here are some behaviors that are constructive in a group setting:

  • Cooperating: You are interested in the views and perspectives of other group members and willing to adapt for the good of the group.
  • Clarifying: You make issues clear for the group by listening, summarizing, and focusing discussions.
  • Inspiring: You enliven the group and encourage participation and progress.
  • Harmonizing: You encourages group cohesion and collaboration.
  • Risk Taking: You are willing to risk possible personal loss or embarrassment for the success of the overall group or project.
  • Process Checking: You question the group on process issues, such as agenda, time frames, discussion topics, decision methods, and use of information.

Of course there are also behaviors that can detract from good group dynamics. Here are a few:

  • Dominating: Uses most of the meeting time to express personal views and opinions. Tries to take control by use of power, time, and so on.
  • Rushing: Encourages the group to move on before the task is complete. Gets tired of listening to others and working with the group.
  • Withdrawing: Removes self from discussions or decision making. Refuses to participate.
  • Discounting: Disregards or minimizes group or individual ideas or suggestions. Severe discounting behavior includes insults, which are often in the form of jokes.
  • Digressing: Rambles, tells stories, and takes group away from primary purpose.
  • Blocking: Impedes group progress by obstructing all ideas and suggestions ("That will never work because... ").

If you are concerned that these behaviors are creeping into our lab meetings, do not hestitate to talk with Professor Pauls.

Subsubsection 2.2 Collaboration with the Silver Lab

Current work is in collaboration with the Silver Lab at Barnard College and Columbia University. Rae Silver, the Helene L. and Mark N. Kaplan Professor of Natural and Physical Sciences, is a internationally known expert in the neuroscience of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (see her "Women in Science" profile).

Our lab regularly communicates with the Silver lab and we facilitate collaborations between students across the labs (unless something like COVID-19 gets in the way!).

Subsection 2.2 Leaving the lab

Subsubsection 2.2.1 Offboarding checklist

This is a stub right now.

Subsubsection 2.2.2 Letters of recommendation

This is a stub right now, but Professor Pauls is always happy to write letters of recommendation!

Subsubsection 2.2.3 Keeping in touch

Over the years, many people have passed through our lab. This list will give you a sense of what they have all gone on to do. If you have more up-to-date or additional information on anyone, send it here.

If you are a lab alum, please let us know how you are doing!

List 2.1. Undergraduates
  1. Alyssa Anderson, D'07 (Senior Thesis): PhD Cornell, Finance; Section Chief at Federal Reserve Board
  2. Patrick Karas, D'08 (Research Associate, 2006-2008) MD Dartmouth Medical School; Resident at Baylor
  3. Katherine Roddy, D'11 (Presidential Scholar 2009-10)
  4. Melissa Bearden, D'12 (Research Associate, 2011-2012): Senior Director, Corporate Strategy at Capital One
  5. Valentina Semenova, D'13 (Senior Thesis, Mathematics): MS, Columbia, Operations Research; Deployment Strategist, Palantir Technologies
  6. Madeline Kreher, D'13 (Senior Thesis, Mathematics): Senior Business Manager, Capital One
  7. Mahnum Shahzad, D'15 (Research Associate, Winter 2015): PhD, Harvard, Health Policy
  8. Sarah McGowan, D'16 (Presidential Scholar 2014-15): Data 2 the People, Team Member
  9. Matthew Jin, D'17 (Sophomore Science Scholar 2014-15): Data Scientist, Microsoft
  10. Deip Kumar, D'18 (Research Associate, 2016-2018): Software Engineer, SpaceX
  11. Lefteris (Sebi) Nakos, D'18 (Research Associate, Spring 2016): Trader, SIG
  12. Katherine Royce, D'19 (Presidential Scholar 2017-18)
  13. Brian Schoenfeld, D'19 (Presidential Scholar 2017-18): Financial Engineer, Moody’s Analytics
  14. Andrew Alini, D'19 (NSF funded research associate, Summer 2018-Spring 2019): MA, Computer Science

List 2.2. Graduate Students
  1. Danielle Cole, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2005 (SUNY Maritime, Professor)
  2. Greg Petrics, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2011 (Northern Vermont College, Associate Professor)
  3. Katherine Kinnaird, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2014 (Smith College, Assistant Professor)
  4. Ross Leib-Lappon, Dartmouth College, Engineering, 2016 (co-adviser) (Vermont Technical College, Assistant Professor)
  5. Tommy Khoo, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2018 (co-adviser) (Data Scientist and Developer, BetterYou)
  6. Daryl DeFord, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2018 (co-adviser) (Washington State University, Assistant Professor)
  7. Elizabeth Tripp, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2020 (Sacred Heart College, Lecturer)
  8. Yitong (Pepper) Huang, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2021 (adviser of record). (Northwestern University, Post-doc)
  9. Laura Petto, Dartmouth College, Mathematics, 2021 (adviser of record). (Lincoln Labs)