Spring break has just started, and as students excitedly go off to their various plans, what will I be doing?
It will be burners rotation time. In a previous entry, I mentioned that my life is like rotating burners. Now that classes are not in session, I put teaching on the back burner and put research on the front burner. I need to finish up a research paper, and run some statistical analysis to see if certain dietary patterns is related to heart disease in men. I need to crank out those analysis quick because the PI (Principal Investigator, ie the head huncho of a research project) needs those data quick. So I'll be very busy this coming week.
While I am at it, let me briefly explain the hierarchy terminology in research. The person on the top of the totem pole is the PI, followed by the Co-investigators (ie Co-I's, I am a Co-I in a couple of projects), followed by the post doctoral fellows (ie, post docs), followed by the grad students. The PI and the Co-I's write grants to get money for research, the post docs may take part in writing parts of the grant or they may also write their own grants. The PIs and Co-I's are the people who get money to support salary of the post docs and stipends for the grad students. The post docs and grad students in turn work on the research projects under the supervision of the PIs and Co-I's. So that is the very rough and basic description on the operation of life science research.
It will be burners rotation time. In a previous entry, I mentioned that my life is like rotating burners. Now that classes are not in session, I put teaching on the back burner and put research on the front burner. I need to finish up a research paper, and run some statistical analysis to see if certain dietary patterns is related to heart disease in men. I need to crank out those analysis quick because the PI (Principal Investigator, ie the head huncho of a research project) needs those data quick. So I'll be very busy this coming week.
While I am at it, let me briefly explain the hierarchy terminology in research. The person on the top of the totem pole is the PI, followed by the Co-investigators (ie Co-I's, I am a Co-I in a couple of projects), followed by the post doctoral fellows (ie, post docs), followed by the grad students. The PI and the Co-I's write grants to get money for research, the post docs may take part in writing parts of the grant or they may also write their own grants. The PIs and Co-I's are the people who get money to support salary of the post docs and stipends for the grad students. The post docs and grad students in turn work on the research projects under the supervision of the PIs and Co-I's. So that is the very rough and basic description on the operation of life science research.
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