Michael Coleman, van Geest Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge has a new blog “Science Without Anguish”.
“We love science but not the stuff that comes with it: all those events that trigger anguish, insecurity, overwhelm and frustrate. The failed experiments, short-term contracts, spirilling administrative demands and reviewers who just don’t seem to get it. How can we keep a clear mind with all that going on? This blog series is the guidance I wish I would have had earlier. It’s what I’ve learned from years of slowly improving how I handle the emotional ups and downs so I can stay rational and do my best science. Writing it down helps me clarify it, and perhaps parts of it will work for you? Interestingly, much of it comes from outside academia. This blog maps many insights gained elsewhere onto research life to fill that gap.”
Read the BlogIntroducing the blog series ‘Science Without Anguish’, launching 15th April. 10 articles on managing the emotional challenges of research life to improve both productivity and wellbeing. Stay tuned for more info @chimpmanagement @CamNeuro @clinical_hr @LittleLizS @ChurchillCol pic.twitter.com/eHQR8IjyQX
— Coleman Lab (@Lab_Coleman) March 28, 2024
About the Author
Who: I value sincerity, loyalty, reciprocation, and getting the best from myself and others in a culture of psychological safety. I don’t like inappropriate use of the word ‘can’t’, especially about other people, and I believe ‘progress’ at someone else’s expense is not progress at all. I’m driven to understand things by piecing them together into a bigger picture because I don’t have the brain space to hold unconnected fragments, whether it’s molecular and cellular mechanisms, human psychology or the society we live in. And for some reason, I’m driven to spend long hours on a bike!
Why: As a first generation university student and the first from my school to go to Oxbridge, this opened up a whole new world for me, but also a whole new set of challenges. To deal with this, and the further challenges that each new life stage brings, the self-help and personal development trail has been a constant throughout my adult life. I can hardly believe how ‘far’ that’s taken me, but after a certain point it’s not achievement that matters: it’s who you become along the way and what you do with it.
What: I’m a professor of neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and Senior Research Fellow at Churchill College. I run a team of fantastic co-workers studying how nerves (axons) die and how to keep them alive. Crucially, we are identifying the diseases and specific patients where targeting the mechanism we work on is most likely to succeed (the NMNAT-SARM1 pathway, or ‘programmed axon death’) so Pharma can do the best possible clinical trials.
Getting to this point has involved so many ups and downs that I feel compelled to pass on what I’ve learned. Over time I’ve realised that the examples we’re usually given of how to handle them are not necessarily the best for each of us, that we have more choice than we realise in our path through the world of research. So in parallel, I am building coaching skills to help the next generation of scientists navigate academia and improve its culture and effectiveness for the longer term. At home, I’m a husband, and a father to three amazing young adult kids.
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