I recently spoke with Isabelle Kohler, a professor at VU Amsterdam, who is also running her own company, Next Minds, helping early career scientists navigate their science journey.
We spoke about choosing labs, finding good mentors, learning to prioritize important tasks and much more.
I hope you enjoy this episode, and I want to say thank you to Litmaps for supporting the podcast, which allows me to keep doing and improving it.
Litmaps is an easy-to-use, comprehensive literature review tool that helps researchers of all backgrounds find and manage papers better.
I’ve been using their tool for over 6 months now, and I love being able to get a quick overview of a specialized field in a highly visual map that takes 10 seconds to create.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
07:42 Starting a Company while Being a Professor
08:04 Inspiration for Helping Early Career Scientists
11:55 Challenges Faced during PhD Journey
24:39 The Importance of Publication Metrics
30:18 University Rankings and Evaluating Labs
34:24 Considering a PhD Position
35:28 Importance of the Research Environment
36:52 Factors to Consider in the Lab Environment
39:12 Gathering Information about Potential Labs
41:54 Seeking Advice from Former Lab Members
44:51 Understanding Personal Needs and Preferences
48:01 Dealing with Toxic Lab Environments
53:14 Making Difficult Decisions
54:35 Staying Organized as a Scientist
56:00 Navigating the Publication Process
01:00:16 NextMinds and Future Plans
Strategizing your early academic career