Astrophysics of Variable Stars
ASP Conference Series, Vol. 349, 2006
C. Sterken & C. Aerts
Evening Discussion: Research Projects, Collaborations
and Career Aspects
G. Handler
Institut f¨ur Astronomie, T¨urkenschanzstrasse 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria
Abstract. Do I need to be a genius to become a good scientist? How can I
collect the experience I need to do research? What do I do if I made a mistake?
How can I ﬁnd a useful research project? How do I know that it is of good
international scientiﬁc standard? How can I judge that it can be realistically
carried out? How can I structure it? Should I collaborate? Who should I
collaborate with? Who do I better avoid? How far can I be guided by others?
How do I know whose opinions to trust? When should I be sceptical about what
other scientists say? How can I plan my career? Can I plan it at all? What do
I need to take into account if I am determined to work as an astronomer for the
rest of my life?
All these questions (and more) are of concern for the young scientist trying
to ﬁnd her/his place in the astronomical community. While there is no standard
solution for any of these problems, I would like to present some basic helpful
ideas and concepts that were mentioned during this evening discussion.
1. Introduction
At the beginning of a scientiﬁc career, it often seems diﬃcult to ﬁnd the best
place for oneself in the community. It appears full of colleagues who are much
more experienced than you which may sometimes even be discouraging. Of
course, all established scientists were in the same situation before, and they
have found their way.
In the following, I will try to give some suggestions that can help you to
become a successful astronomer. Unfortunately, there is no deﬁnite way how
to achieve this goal, but common sense is certainly a major ingredient. All the
recommendations below are based on common sense (I hope).
If you are interested to get a more detailed view on the problems a young
scientist may encounter, and how to master them I can warmly recommend the
book by Medawar (1979) to you. In fact, I believe this book should be basic
reading for every scientist (young or not), and I have adapted several suggestions
from it for the present article. Most of the discussions below come however from
my own experience, still being a young scientist myself (again: I hope). This is
supplemented by some comments that were made during the evening discussion
summarised here.
Before getting started, I should also point out that my views are of course
inﬂuenced from the scientiﬁc environment I grew up in, namely the Western
European one. I understand that the problems of people from countries to the
East of Austria may be diﬀerent, but I do not have the experience to discuss
these and I want to apologise for that.
403
404 Handler
2. Gaining experience
At this conference, you have met several people who are well-established scientists
and who have collected a lot of experience over the years. You may ask
yourself how one can build up this experience and how to use it eﬃciently.
2.1. Initiative
In my opinion, the most important part of the character of a good scientist is not
genius; it is self-initiative, common sense, enthusiasm and a strong will to work
hard. A curious, critical and enquiring mind is extremely important in the quest
for answers to unsolved questions, which is what science is about. Therefore it
is important, even as a young student, to go and search for these answers and
not to wait that someone else gives them to you. We are no longer in school.
One of the most important pieces of advice I ever got was: go ﬁgure. Or,
the British version: use your intelligence. The message is: try to ﬁnd your
solution instead of asking questions that you can actually solve by yourself. In
a career as a scientiﬁc researcher, you will have to solve problems nobody solved
before. Therefore it is important for you to know how problems are tackled most
eﬃciently, because nobody will be able to solve the problem for you. Doing that
will be your job.
2.2. Reading
One way to ﬁnd out how scientiﬁc problems can be solved is to see how others
answered scientiﬁc questions, what strategies they used and to what results this
lead. This information can be found in the literature. There is a lot of literature
around, and there are electronic means to ﬁnd what you need very eﬃciently.
For instance, the ADS Abstract Service1 can be searched not only for authors
or objects, but also for title or abstract words or phrases.
The reason why I mention this is that I ﬁnd it very important to read and
know the literature for your ﬁeld of research. You don’t need to know everything
by heart, but you should at least have an idea where to look it up. According to
my experience, young astronomers often do not know the literature well enough
and this is of course a problem if you are to interpret your results or if you are
to discuss them with others.
If you want to start working on a topic, it is useful to ﬁnd good recent
review articles. There are special review publications (like the Annual Review
of Astronomy and Astrophysics) which can be consulted, but it is usually more
eﬃcient to look for conference proceedings books (nowadays mostly published
in the ASP Conference Series) related to your subject and to scan the review
articles there.
The advantages of these review articles is that they are written by people
who are the leaders in the respective research ﬁeld, i.e. they will be competent
overviews. Review articles also contain a large number of references to interesting
papers on the subject, and you can pick those that seem most useful to you
1
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract service.html
Evening Discussion Summary 405
for further study. These again will contain references that will be of use. In this
way you can start to explore your ﬁeld by yourself.
Reading, of course, is not the only way to build up experience and you
should not spend all your time reading. You should not forget to work on your
own research as well. You can begin simply by just trying to reproduce results
from the literature. Observers may request published data from colleagues,
whereas theorists may be able to get other people’s codes. Experience is gained
best by trial and error. This way you will get a feeling of which strategies to
solve a scientiﬁc problem promise more success and which ones may be less
favourable. In this way you can also grow self-conﬁdence. It naturally comes
with experience.
2.3. Publishing papers
Another way to collect experience is to publish papers. As young scientists may
initially not be so well known in the community, their promise (and thus often
their probability to get a job) will, to a large extent, be measured by means of
their publication list. On the other hand, it is natural for a student to want to
graduate as soon as possible to move on to a “real” job, to earn “real” money
and to be free. Consequently, many people want to get their dissertations done
quickly and then write a few papers from this material.
I think this is the wrong strategy, if you want to stay in astronomy. Everyone
who applies for a postdoc position necessarily has a PhD, but not everyone has
papers. Therefore I suggest that as soon as a given part of the PhD work
is ﬁnished, the paper should be written and submitted. There are additional
advantages on top of having publications to show on your vita, such as that you
can use the referee’s report for your thesis and to gain experience, and you can
learn how to separate a larger piece of work into pieces that can be published,
which is an important skill for the future - see below.
The decision about when a work is suﬃcient for publication as a scientiﬁc
paper is a subtle one. Some people separate their studies into the largest possible
number of MPUs (“Minimum Publishable Units”) and try to get through with
this strategy. Others write very comprehensive papers, which can become so long
and strenuous so that few people would read them. I think that the truth is
somewhere in the middle. Read other people’s papers and use your intelligence.
2.4. Writing proposals
Dirk Terrell noted during the discussion that having skills to write winning
proposals is also highly important. To conduct your research, you will need to
acquire money and telescope time (the latter if you are an observer), and you
will need to justify the allocation of these resources very well. This requires a
certain way to argue your science case.
As a student, you may be able to practise proposal writing. You can oﬀer
help to your advisor when proposals are being written. (Some advisers actually
make you write proposals, like mine did. I did not like the additional work this
meant at all, but when we got the money, I was very happy...) The improvement
suggestions and referee’s reports you get will help you to upgrade your skills
and you will be better equipped for the times when you have to write your own
applications.
406 Handler
2.5. Making mistakes
Everybody makes mistakes, even the most famous colleagues. When I asked the
more senior attendees of this conference, who did not yet publish a paper that
contained a mistake, nobody raised a hand (except Conny Aerts, who however
expected a diﬀerent question). And of course, it is only people who work who
make mistakes; people who don’t, won’t.
What would you do if you made a mistake that can no longer be corrected,
e.g. if it has already appeared in print? There is no point in covering it up. This
is unethical and if someone discovers the cover-up, you will lose credibility and
you will get a bad reputation in the community. So, if a mistake happens, admit
it and move on. You will get a better name if you are known to be honest.
As your experience grows, you will have a number of ideas to explain certain
scientiﬁc phenomena, you will have some hypotheses, and some will be your
favourites. However, there is one thing you should always keep in mind: the
degree by which you are convinced about your hypotheses is totally independent
of their correctness. Therefore it is always useful to think critically about one’s
own ideas. In this respect I would like to let you into a secret. I now tell you
who the scientist is I trust least: it is myself.
2.6. Observers versus theorists
At this point, Don Kurtz remarked that this is because I am an observer and that
the situation is diﬀerent for theorists. This reminds me of an incident when I
overheard a conversation of an observer (hereinafter referred to as “O”; everyone
involved here shall remain nameless) with his student, where a theorist (called
“T” in what follows) was also present. The student had presented some results
of her dissertation work, showing the comparison of observed light curves and
the ﬁt she had computed to them. Everything looked very nice, except for one
night, where the light curve and the ﬁt were just mirror images of each other.
After some discussion, it turned out that this particular light curve was simply
plotted upside down. No big deal.
However, O took this as a starting point to explain the student about carefulness
in science, and said, “...and you have to check twice and three times
before you publish something and when you print it you have to check it over
and over again...” (getting very excited) “...and you can only put something
into a paper when you have checked it once again, and I am sure this is also
true for theorists, isn’t it, T?” And T’s answer was, “Mmmm... once we obtain,
more or less, good results, we don’t check the code anymore.”
Of course, T was kidding to remove some of the tension of the situation, but
it is often (jokingly) said in astronomy that theorists and observers are heard differently:
if an observer says something, everybody believes it except her/himself
and if a theorist says something, no-one believes it except her/himself. It is up
to you whether or not you believe this statement...
3. Research projects
As Laurent Eyer pointed out during the discussion, it is not necessary to go and
ﬁnd a research project in some cases. These can be pre-deﬁned by the team you
Evening Discussion Summary 407
are working in (such as large collaborations) and consequently you contribute
to the success of the whole team. This is often the easier option, but it may not
be as scientiﬁcally satisfying as pursuing your own ideas would be.
On the other hand, if you are unsure of what to do, you may also choose
to attach yourself to a group where interesting and important work is going on,
and where the spirit is good. In that way, you can increase your experience and
ﬁnd your own way through discussions with other group members. Personally,
I did a similar thing when I got myself a grant during my PhD student years
that allowed me to go overseas to join just such a group. I still beneﬁt from that
today.
Most commonly, however, you have to deﬁne and carry out your own research
projects. This is especially important if you want to obtain a grant to
conduct research (and in this respect, often to fund your own salary), but it is
also commonly required to outline a research plan if you apply for a job some-
where.
The choice of a good research project can therefore be critical to the advancement
of a young researcher’s career. Are good projects hard to ﬁnd? I
don’t think so, and one only needs to keep a few basic things in mind.
First of all, the problem you are going to work on should matter to the community
and be scientiﬁcally interesting. For instance, if you were to determine
the V magnitudes of all the stars in the Bright Star Catalogue to an external precision
of ±0.01 mag, this would certainly be useful to many photometrists, but
it won’t create a lot of excitement about science because it’s boring. However, if
you set out to determine the Hubble Constant (or “Hubble’s Random Variable”
as malicious tongues call it) to the same relative precision and succeed, you will
be a hero. In brief, you want to work on a problem where the answers matters.
As a next guideline, you do want to attack problems that are soluble within
a certain amount of time. If you are at the beginning of your career, you only
have a few years to establish yourself. You will also have to write reports for
your grants, give accounts of previous work if you apply for telescope time, etc.
etc. Therefore you must take care that you can get results within the limited
time available.
Of course, some of the relevant scientiﬁc problems you identify may take
longer to solve than just a few years. In such a case, it is often possible to
separate the whole project into smaller steps that you can attack in a reasonable
amount of time. In this way you can secure your survival while not losing sight
of your big goal.
I also believe that a young researcher should not only stick to a single, very
specialised, branch of research. It is very useful to have a broad overview of
work going on in related areas (which brings us back to the subject of reading
the literature), as it may sometimes happen that you get stuck in a problem that
you cannot solve. Somebody who has only learnt to work on just that question
then is lost, whereas someone else can easily switch to a diﬀerent topic. Of
course, for a student this means quite a bit of additional work and the advisor
will need to understand and support such an approach but in the end it will be
worthwhile.
408 Handler
4. Collaborations
In these days, many research projects are carried out through collaborations.
The larger a project becomes, the more (wo)manpower is needed. Some scientiﬁc
problems need to be tackled from various sides, and specialists on the diﬀerent
approaches would team up. If you are going to work on a topic that you cannot
master without collaborators, how can you ﬁnd out who the best collaborator
will be?
Besides using your intelligence, you may want to look at diﬀerent aspects
of the persons you want to work with. Scientiﬁc competence is of course the
primary requirement, and you will have an idea about this when knowing the
literature and going to conferences, but the personality of a potential collaborator
is often an important issue as well. For the special case of multisite observing
campaigns, I recommend the excellent and critical article by Sterken (1988) who
describes some problems that can occur in such collaborations.
Like in the “real world”, there are diﬀerent types of people (although I
must immediately say that the variable-star community is a particularly nice
one). Colleagues you may want to avoid collaborations with are egocentrics or
jealous persons. Such people tend to make a group success their own and try to
push others back for their own advantage.
It is often diﬃcult to recognise colleagues of this kind before it’s too late
but you may be able to ﬁnd some indications. There are scientists who do not
cite other people’s work in their papers (even if they use results of others, they
may “forget” the citation), but they do cite themselves whenever possible. This
way they create the impression that they are leaders in their ﬁelds. Some people
criticise other’s ideas (particularly those of less established people) harshly, only
to use them by themselves later. Others may claim that they had certain ideas
before anyone else, discouraging the person who had the original thought from
pursuing it further. I again add that such cases are very rare, if at all present,
in the variable-star community.
Collaborations should always be synergies, i.e. the total outcome from the
collaborative work would be larger than the sum of the outcome of the individual
scientists’ eﬀorts, had they worked independently. If you feel that your
collaborations do not lead to a synergy or if you notice some jealousy or if you
cannot work in a group, then do not collaborate. You will be happier and more
eﬃcient. There is no standard way of doing science; everyone has to ﬁnd their
own.
Another important point (especially in the light of what has been said above
about certain personalities) is how far you can discuss your ideas with others?
On the one hand, you would certainly want to ﬁnd out how good your thoughts
are, but on the other hand, you would not want someone else taking your ideas
and results away from you.
From my own experience, I was hardly harmed by discussing my thoughts
with others. The communications usually give me more input than I had before
(I always leave conferences with lots of new ideas and strong motivation) and
broadened my views. Therefore I suggest to discuss everything with everyone.
Of course, you would want to have some sound background in order not to
embarrass yourself. In addition, few people would go through all the eﬀort of
Evening Discussion Summary 409
reproducing your work for taking your ideas or results away. Not discussing
ideas also bears the risk of “drifting away”, i.e. you may get lose yourself in
paths that lead to nowhere or you would deviate to a point where you lose sight
of your initial science goal. In my view, communication is always positive, and
it leads to synergies.
Finally, I would like to point out that when giving you advice, more senior
colleagues can be wrong as well. It is always a good thing to make up your mind
and follow your own ideas if you feel they will lead you somewhere. Even if you
have to withdraw some of your ideas or they are not fruitful, it is worth the
eﬀort: you will again have learnt something.
5. Career aspects
Scientiﬁc careers can, in most cases, not be planned; careers happen. Scientiﬁc
qualiﬁcation is not the only ingredient to be successful as a researcher on long
term. Private circumstances and luck play important roles too. However, you
can help yourself to a good career path, but you must also be prepared to make
some sacriﬁces.
In our time, it is very often a requirement to have some work experience in
other countries. When you graduate, you must be prepared to leave your home
and to move to some foreign place. Postdoc jobs are rare, permanent jobs even
rarer, and astronomy is a small community. This requires mobility at your end.
It is even possible that you will have to spend a large part of the rest of your
life out of your country, if you are determined to stay in astronomy.
Many students do not have a family of their own when they begin their life
in science. However, as most of us do not want to spend their life in solitude,
partners and even children will enter our lives. Because of the frequent need to
go abroad to stay in science, conﬂicts between work and private life can result.
This can go as far as having to make a decision about giving up a relationship
or giving up science.
If you choose to give up science, you usually do not need to worry that you
cannot ﬁnd a job outside of science. Fortunately, a training in astronomy will
also give you good skills that are required by companies. For instance, you will
have mathematical and computer skills that are far above the average. Many of
my former fellow students and colleagues who left astronomy have very well-paid
jobs in the computer business nowadays. They are much better paid as if they
had stayed in science.
A job in science is usually not one where you can make a lot of money.
Consequently, astronomers are often people who do not care a lot about wealth.
But they have a job they love, and I personally believe that money can never
outweigh happiness.
If you are decided to stay in astronomy, it will be helpful if you made yourself
irreplaceable in your area of expertise, as Margarida Cunha and Christoﬀer
Karoﬀ commented. This means, it would be useful if you could become a leader
in your area of expertise and it would be a loss for the community if you are
not given a job. What you need to do is to keep your eyes open to ﬁnd your
niche. In that case you would get more help from colleagues to ﬁnd employment.
410 Handler
This point of view nicely interlocks with the previous discussion on working on
subjects that matter to the community.
Another very important aspect with regard to ﬁnding a job, besides publishing,
are letters of recommendation. If you apply for a postdoc or permanent
position somewhere, you are usually asked to supply two or three references.
This should be scientists well known in the ﬁeld who know your work and who
respect it to such an extent that they can recommend you warmly to a potential
employer. It is again up to you to establish contacts who can serve as a reference
to you. And again, this is best done by communicating, publishing, hard work
and enthusiasm.
6. Summary and conclusions
Becoming a scientist is not easy. There are many challenges to be overcome
and I hope I could give you some ideas of how it could work. These ranged
from growing experience through initiative and enthusiasm, reading and writing,
outlining research projects, ﬁnding collaborators to some prerequisites on how
to increase your chances to make a career. No matter whether you are among
the lucky ones or not, my main suggestions can be summarised very quickly:
Go ﬁgure. Use your intelligence. And, most importantly: have fun and
enjoy!
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Karolien Lefever for suggesting most of the topics discussed in
this paper. My attendance of this meeting was supported by the Austrian Fonds
zur F¨orderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung under grant P18339-N08.
References
Medawar P. B., 1979, Advice to a Young Scientist, HarperCollins Publishers
Sterken C., 1988, in Coordination of Observational Projects in Astronomy, eds. C.
Jaschek & C. Sterken, Cambridge University press, p. 3