Scheduling and Communication

Scheduling and workload

For undergraduates, you’ll work with me to set your schedule for the semester or summer. Once this is set, you are expected to be working in lab, with your mentor, or on agreed upon lab-related activities during those times. You play an important role in our lab, so if you’re going to be late or absent, please let people know as soon as possible so we can plan ahead.

The situation is different for graduate students. In brief, I do not care what hours you work so long as you are fulfilling two requirements:

  1. You are making (sustainable) progress on your projects.

  2. You are contributing to the lab community.

The baseline expectation is 40 hours per week, but you can expect your workload to fluctuate over time. There will be light weeks and busy weeks. Frankly, there’s also likely to be some crazy weeks. This is an unavoidable part of grad school / research, so rather than try to avoid this completely we’ll mostly just aim to avoid surprises. Whether it’s unexpected or not, though, I ask that you try to be flexible. Keep in mind that, even during standard weeks, you may need to put in time evenings or on weekends to deal with experiments or cultures. You should also be conscious of when you’re working too much - I’d much rather have you make steady, consistent progress than have things move forward in bursts, separated by periods of burnout. If you find yourself with long stretches of light weeks or crazy weeks talk to me.

Remember, it’s more than just working in lab that counts towards your workload - time reading, writing, analyzing data, in lab meetings, etc. are part of this as well! When not required to be on campus / in lab for something, feel free to work off-campus. I often find that a change of scenery can help.

A note for grad students with TA positions: I certainly do not expect you to make as much progress during the semester as you would if you were on an RA position. That being said, I still expect you to be engaged in the lab, to attend lab meetings, and to be making at least some progress on your projects.

In addition to working enough to be making progress, your schedule should be arranged such that you can contribute to the lab community. It’s usually enough to just make sure you’re overlapping on campus / in lab with your lab mates for a bit (more than just in lab meeting), and that you’re going to department events. If you prefer to do your lab work at night (I definitely did during my PhD) or very early in the morning that’s fine. Just make sure you’re not 100% nocturnal / leaving lab before other people arrive.

When planning experiments, also check the availability of shared equipment (see Running experiments).

Time off

I expect you to take time off! You will generally not need to clear it with me if you’re going to take a day off - I do, however, expect you to arrange things so you don’t drop the ball with any experiments, field work, meetings, classes or other responsibilities. If you’re going to be gone for more than a day, please let me know. And if you’re taking more than a week off, please let me know at least a month in advance (earlier, if possible). None of this is so that I can track how much time off you’ve taken! It’s just so we can make sure 1) there’s someone around to take care of cultures and 2) there’s no conflicts with field work or experiments. Culture care during major holidays and academic breaks will be a lab-wide discussion.

Communication in the lab

The lab has three main avenues for communication: In person, slack, and email. Chatting in person is great, but memories are faulty - send a follow up via slack if something of consequence is decided during the chat. Slack messages are also encouraged for quick check ins or questions and for lab-wide communication. Official or serious business should be handled via email (to help ensure a paper trail). After an important meeting, especially if there are external collaborators involved, it is a good idea to send a summary via email for the same reason.

You are not expected to respond to messages/emails after working hours, on holidays, on weekends, or while you are on vacation (just make sure you’ve communicated this in advance). You are also, however, not ‘forbidden’ from sending messages during these times (I will often be guilty of sending messages on weekends and evenings). But again, there is no expectation that you reply outside of normal working hours. If there are urgent matters (e.g. an incubator goes down and we need to move cultures as soon as possible), we’ll likely text you rather than send a slack or email. These are often an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, so please try to be as flexible as possible.

If I haven’t responded to a slack message or email after 24 hours, please ping me again. If I’m on vacation, traveling, or in the field, give me at least 48 hours (unless something is urgent).