Sunday, October 9, 2022

Interview with Dr. Ryan Need, an assistant professor within the University of Florida Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Overview: This post is part of series of interviews with 23 scholars about their research process and path that will be conducted until the end of 2023.

Dr. Ryan Need began their tenure-track position at the University of Florida in 2019, which meant that moved to a new location and were just establishing their research group as the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began.  While the academic startup process requires focused energy to establish new collaborations, set a research group culture, etc., this time of remote mentoring added additional hurdles as they founded their group Quantum Materials Design Group. Ryan’s technical work currently focuses on creating and controlling interfacial chemistry and symmetry in thin film systems. You can learn more by exploring their publications here: Google Scholar link. 

This post was written in a collaborative manner.  I emailed Dr. Need a list of questions ahead of time and then met with them to discuss. I edited their responses to make sure that the key points of the discussion were clear, and Kate Epstein did light editing for clarity.

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Q: When and why did you start conducting research (high school, undergraduate, graduate student)?

Photo by Ren Ran on Unsplash

Dr. Need: I did some small “research” projects for science fairs as a high schooler, like building a sloped sandbox to study river patterns created by different flow volumes. While these were probably as much about my dad (a retired geologist turned stay-at-home dad) getting his science fix as they were about me learning, these projects were also fun and memorable introductions to the scientific method.

The first projects where I really felt like I was doing research were as an undergraduate student; first was a short one-semester research project with a civil engineering group at Clemson, followed shortly thereafter by a position in a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates site at Washington State University (WSU).  I decided to pursue research experiences as an undergraduate to fulfill my own curiosity—to better understand how the world around me worked.  By committing to research, I wanted to learn how to ask questions to fill in the unknowns and design the experimentation needed to answer those unknowns.

Q: When did you first “feel” like a researcher?

Dr. Need: The summer REU at WSU was the first time I really felt like a researcher.  That summer, I was working in an experimental laboratory and had the opportunity to collect data, plot it, and then talk with someone else about those results.  Looking back, it was the first time that I had done enough pieces of the research puzzle sequentially and consistently to where I felt like a researcher.  I also felt treated like a researcher by my mentor, David, and the other faculty there.  In the end, I felt like I saw a new piece of knowledge- even though that new knowledge was really, really tiny. 

 

Q: When did you first solidify that you wanted to pursue a faculty position and lead an academic research group?

 

Dr. Need: Not until I was a postdoc, but even then, the passion that drew me back to academia was teaching, not research. 

 

I wanted a career that could have a large impact on the world.  In the grand scheme of things, human lifetimes are relatively short.  As I thought about paradigm shifts, I became convinced many of those happened by luck. As much as researchers can prepare and go through the research steps, they cannot ensure that they will make a breakthrough.  By training students, however, I could ensure a large impact.  In a course where I teach 100 students and help them develop to their full potential, I can ensure that they will go on to impact the world in a positive way. 

 

I chose to teach at an R1 institution, which puts a larger focus on research than other types of institutions such as a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI).  My spouse was driven to be a researcher at a doctoral institution with very high research (R1) from the start.  As we looked at options, it became obvious that there were few locations where institutions that we would both be happy with were in (what I considered) a reasonable commute to each other.  In addition, there are few other locations beyond an R1 that offer a materials science undergraduate program. 

 

Q: Have you observed any differences between pursuing a research agenda at a national laboratory versus at an academic institution?  If so, what are those and did they impact your final decision to take a faculty position?

 

Dr. Need: While I have noticed differences between doing research at national labs and universities, my choice to take a faculty position was driven more by the “two-body problem” [meaning the fact that they have a spouse who also works in a researcher intensive field and want be geographically near each other] than by my personal preference between the two environments. 

 

Briefly, I’ve found national labs to be more focused on the research, with more time of the day/job spent doing and thinking about research, whereas time in academia for both students and faculty are split between research, teaching, and other activities (outreach, clubs, committees).

 

Q:  How did you prepare to lead a research group?  You conducted research previously but had not led a group.  

Dr. Need: As best I could, but I’ve learned more on the job and have definitely felt unprepared at times. After accepting the faculty job, I tried to give myself experiences in the remainder of my postdoc that I thought would teach me skills I hadn’t practiced but would need. For example, I started a project with a collaborator using an experimental technique that I hadn’t done but wanted to have in my group’s toolbox. I also took a teaching pedagogy workshop and participated in a professional skills development mentoring program to improve my teaching and management skills.

Q: You worked on your advisor’s research vision as a graduate student and a post-doctoral researcher.  Where in that process did you start to take the time to solidify what your unique research mission would be? 

Dr. Need: Many of the topics I’m interested in today are rooted in subjects and problems I studied as a graduate student (e.g., interface and defect effects in strongly correlated oxides). But the specific questions and approaches I’m employing I developed as a postdoc and along the way as faculty member. In particular, I find conference talks, poster sessions, and conversations have been productive places for me when I want to brainstorm new research directions.

 

Q:  Has your definition for research changed over the years? 

 

Dr. Need: Actually, I’d say my definition of research hasn’t changed that much over the years. I feel like starting with my NSF REU and continuing through today, I’ve thought of research as the process of designing, executing, and reporting a science experiment or set of related experiments to test a hypothesis. What has changed is how many of the steps of that process that I’ve been responsible for at each level. As an undergraduate, I was mainly executing small portions of the experiment. During grad school I learned to design experiments, execute them in more completeness, and write them up for different audiences. Now as a faculty member the focus has shifted more toward the design part of that equation, and of course, funding the research projects. But I think of the funding piece as unavoidable “business administration” that enables research but is not really part of the research itself. 

 

Q: Thinking back over the last two years, what was the most surprising part of the research process as an early career faculty member? Why?

Dr. Need: The independence, or viewed differently, the lack of oversight. I have tremendous latitude to research and teach what I want, with very few people checking up on my progress or vetting my decisions. On one hand, I appreciate the creative license such freedom grants me to dream up new projects and lessons, but it surprises me because it doesn’t seem like a particularly efficient way to run a business.

Q: What are the skills needed to begin a strong research career? What skills do you look for in early-stage researchers applying to work with you?

Dr. Need: First, being organized and detail-oriented is important to managing and executing complex research projects successfully. Second, because of the culture of independence often found in research environments, the ability to operate, prioritize, and learn new skills independently is also important. Lastly, having curiosity and resilience.  These are needed to help you to try again when your experiments fail or negative reviewer comments arrive.


Q: There are so many “management tools” to help researchers improve their productivity or impact today. Can you highlight one management tool you think researchers should consider utilizing?

Dr. Need: Zotero is much better than Endnote.

 

Q: Who is a researcher that you admire? If you had the ability to ask them one question about their experience being a researcher, what would it be? 

 

Dr. Need: I really admire Chris Leighton at the University of Minnesota. He works on similar research problems to the ones I have chosen to pursue and utilizes related experimental approaches. As for a question I’d ask him, it’d either be:

 

 (1) How do you minimize stress/anxiety around promising to support students for a ~5 yr average PhD when your funding tends to come in ≤3 year chunks? Or relatedly,

 

 (2) If given a magic wand to fix/change something about the R1 research environment in the US, what would it be?

 

Q: How might a researcher build their passion for an area in which they are technically competent, but not necessarily enamored by the work.  

 

Dr. Need: This is tough. It’s something I’ve struggled with a lot and still struggle with. As a research principal investigator, I’ve found that creating and sustaining interest in my projects – for myself, my students, my funding agencies – falls almost entirely on my shoulders. However, my passion for research is driven by my work’s ability to help others, not uncovering some new fundamental understanding for the sake of the knowledge itself. So, for me, the best way to keep my passion and interest in a project going is to talk with collaborators or other scientists who are working on related problems where I can be reminded of the value of my work.

 

Q: How do you know what collaborations to pursue?  

 

Dr. Need: I am just settling into a place where I have the confidence and space to say “no.”  When I started as a tenure track faculty member, I was not sure what projects would thrive and so I started many in hopes that at least one would work.  I entered into new collaborations trying to build connections, to try new things and get funded. Now, I am at a place where I need to throttle back. I have larger projects with traction, I feel like I have more space and stability to look for the right collaborations.  While many collaborations could be fruitful, not all will stretch me towards my career goals.  In addition, I have learned my own boundaries for the amount of work that I can take on and still feel balanced.  

 

It also takes some time (and skill) to identify hypothesis that are ahead of the rest of the field.  Seeing the range of proposed studies while a post-doc helping with beamline proposals was really eye-opening. 

 

Once you decide that a concept is innovative, there are other factors in determining if a collaboration will be fruitful.  I tend to work well with highly organized people.  Since I am organized, being paired with unorganized researchers leads to friction. 

 

Q: Why did you choose to do research at a university rather than within a national laboratory or industrial facility?

 

Dr. Need: Dr. Need: Goes back to the fact that teaching more than research is my driving passion, and that my spouse really wanted to be a professor and mentor graduate students.

 

Q: In most positions, we balance the time needed to conduct research with other obligations like administration, teaching, etc.  How do you manage your time? 

 

Dr. Need: Not as well as I’d like, but hopefully a bit better every day. I tend to let the minutiae of administration and teaching consume more time than maybe I should. But those are also the activities that I feel support the most students (I have ~100 students in class each year but only 10 research students), and so that seems the way to help the most people and what I’m drawn to prioritizing.

 

If you’re asking about habits or approaches to time management, I use Google Calendar and create different color-coded calendars for different activities (teaching, writing, email, self-care, community time) so that I can see everything in one place, and the color tells me how balanced or imbalanced my week is/was. Everything on my schedule and all my to-do lists live on this calendar, or temporarily in my head.  I do not have a nondigital schedule, but this works fine since I am typically in reach of a computer or phone. I do use a single running notebook for all my meeting notes and in-between thoughts. I tried having different notebooks for different projects or classes initially, but found myself never grabbing the right one for meetings. So now my teaching, research, and personal notes all go in a single book.  

 

Q: How do you track ideas for future projects?   

Dr. Need: I make a slide deck that is my own “pitch.”  This deck includes screen of paper, data, etc. that support my idea.  The I save in a folder marked “Research Ideas.”  This idea came from Steve May at Drexel.  

 

Q:  Is there anything you wished that I asked you or you think other researchers should consider when re-evaluating their research focus to increase success and impact?  

 

Dr. Need: My advice for folks thinking about the academic research track would be to consider where their drive for the job comes from, thinking along the lines of the question above about building and sustaining passion in projects. What I’ve seen in my two, short years on the job is that the PIs who have that deep passion for solving particular problems, are driven by the love of scientific discovery, and/or have supportive research communities, are the ones who seem to succeed with the most ease. Not that it can’t be done without those things, just that it’s harder.

 

Q:  There are actually a lot of researchers with two-body challenges.  Since you alluded to it earlier, what advice might you give early career PhDs pursuing their first positions and are partnered with other PhD researchers.  

 

Dr. Need: There are benefits and challenges when both partners want to pursue academic positions.  The benefits are that each person will be learning the new system together and can be there to support each other in ways that can be difficult for people who don’t understand the job as intimately.  On the other side, you have two people who will each be working absurd hours, be stressed out as they establish themselves professionally, and each person may not always have the bandwidth for the support the other needs.  

 

If you are in a two-body situation at the early stage of career, take time to critically think about what is driving you towards your dream job.  Be honest with yourself then discuss with your spouse why you each want to pursue that career, so you understand what’s driving each of you and plan for what might interfere with that drive.

 

In addition, it will help to develop strong communication skills and the ability to lean into difficult conversations.  For example, a difficult conversation might be exploring what your secondary plans are if your first plan turns out not to be the right fit.  Finally, you both are going to grow as humans and researchers over time.  It is not given that you both have the same career trajectory and discussing what happens if you do not change in the same direction is important. 

 

Q:  What advice do you have for establishing a co-equitable partnership with your graduate students?  

 

Dr. Need: I have tried to set up the expectation of openness, honesty, and transparency between myself and graduate students working with me. I try to tell the students how I make decisions, the external factors (such as grant expectations), and clarify why there might be an order of priorities.    

 

I defined my success as my graduating students being hired into the positions they want.  So, one of my first goals with all of my graduate students is to identify their 10 yr. dream job and then build a plan to get them there. We build the plan together and revisit it each year, but it starts with them answering just four questions (credit to Dr. Tori Miller for the method):  

 

1.     What is your dream job?

2.     What are the credentials need for that position (awards, skills, etc.)?

3.     What are the experiences or skills that you need for that position?

4.     When you look at your résumé, where are the gaps? What do you need to start doing to get your dream job? 

 

This gap analysis helps us both determine what activities the student should be involved with and prioritize over the next year, which may change or stay relatively similar as the plan is updated each year.  For example, I’ve had one PhD student change his goal from an industrial R&D position to working at a national laboratory. Thinking about this information together helped us make several small adjustments in his plans (e.g., applying for a different kind of summer internship) that when added together and built upon will help his chances getting the job he wants.

 

 

Photo by Sen on Unsplash