In this brief note, I have attempted to articulate my philosophy for advising students on research projects, including research assistantships, practicums, theses, and any other context in which research occurs. My goal is to give you insight into how I view my role as a mentor and to establish my expectations of you while under my mentorship. The intended audience of this document is undergraduate students seeking to work in my lab for 1-2 years or longer, though graduate students and postdocs seeking to work for me may also benefit from reading it (please reach out to me first in case I have a more appropriate version for you).

Advising Philosophy

I think many undergrads interested in research are confused about what research actually is, and about what the role of a research advisor is by extension. There are a few things you should consider before you ask me to take you on as a research assistant:

Working in a lab is not the same as taking a class. I won’t have all the answers for you, and there may not be a “correct” answer to every problem. We as scientists have tools to help us understand the problems we are working on and formulate solutions, but it is up to us to figure out how to correctly apply those tools (or create new ones if the methods we have access to won’t work for the problem we want to solve). Remember: research is all about the process of discovery.
Doing research is not easy. Something in common you will see in some of the world’s most accomplished scientists is that they worked incredibly hard, putting in long hours at the lab and defending their ideas against (sometimes harsh) criticism. For better or worse, research is not a 9-5 job, because we can’t predict when breakthroughs will happen or which experiment is going to be the “right” one. Part of my job as a mentor is to guide you through this process of discovery, helping you to ask the right questions and protecting you from working too hard, but I cannot force you to produce results in your research if you do not put in the effort.
Research is a collaborative effort. Studies have found that the most disruptive scientific ideas come from teams of scientists, and are not the product of individuals — hence why great scientists are said to stand on the shoulders of giants. No matter how brilliant you may be, you should not be doing your research alone; your work should be the product of a collaborative dialogue with other members of the lab, the QAC, and the entire University. Unfortunately, many undergrads don’t realize this, and they instead spend most of their time working without coming to me with questions or concerns until it’s too late.
Research is not for everyone. If you spend some time doing research for me and you find that it’s not for you, or you’d rather work with another mentor, that’s ok! As an undergrad, you have the benefit of being able to work in many labs if you so desire, and you should take advantage of that opportunity to expose yourself to more than one stream of research.

Note that these points are not meant to scare you away from research. I am always open to meeting with students to talk about research, even if they aren’t sure if research is right for them!

My Expectations

Research is an opportunity for you to advance both professionally and personally, to build your critical thinking skills and expertise with quantitative methods, to improve your ability to convey complex ideas to various audiences, and to figure out what you want to do with your life. It is my goal to ensure that these things happen, but to evaluate whether I’ve succeeded you will need to produce some things for me over the course of your research experience.

Most importantly: by the time you have completed your research project, you should have produced some tangible outcome that you can add to your resume. Ideally, this will be co-authorship on a paper that is published in a high-impact venue, or a completed undergraduate thesis. But it could also be as simple as a script you wrote to perform an analysis or a poster you presented at a research event on campus. The magnitude of your “research deliverable” is something we will figure out as we meet to discuss your project, but your deliverable can’t just be “I worked in Dr. Laverghetta’s lab for X amount of time.”

Meetings & Communication

You should expect to have weekly meetings with me during the semester so I can keep track of progress and keep our goals updated. I expect you to be punctual during those meetings, and to take notes to keep track of project goals (note-taking is an essential skill for industry)!

As the lab grows, we may start to hold regular lab meetings as well. While I am less strict about attending those, I will press upon you to make an effort to join at least semi-regularly. Remember that research is a collaborative process: you should learn more about your colleague's research and contribute your thoughts on their project. I may also ask you to present your work to the lab from time to time.

Outside of meetings, I want you to remember a guideline I was given when I interned at Meta: spend no more than 30 minutes trying to solve a problem that is impeding your progress before asking for help. Undergrads can feel intimidated for asking for help with research, but the last thing I want is for you to waste hours trying to solve a problem if I know an immediate solution for it!

It is my goal to foster a supportive and collaborative environment for the lab, I will arrange at least one lab lunch each year as a teambuilding exercise (once we have a few members).

Work Environment & Expectations

As the nature of our work does not require being physically present in a lab, you have flexibility as to where and how you work. There will be a shared lab space where you can come to ask me for help and to work independently, you will be free to use this space to work on classwork not directly related to the lab (within reason). You should feel comfortable spending long hours writing code and performing data analysis on a computer if you want to do research with me. You should also be willing to submit jobs using the HPC, the nature of my research requires working with supercomputing.