Group Guide

Expectations and Responsibilities

My Responsibilities

My job is to help you succeed in graduate school, learn the right skills for your research and future career, and provide support for you. Your success is very much tied to my success, so I want you to be successful at WPI and beyond. Sometimes I may tell you things that are uncomfortable to hear, but I am looking out for your welfare. I try my best, but I do make mistakes. If I am not providing you enough direction, mentorship, or other resources, please let me know.

Your Responsibilities

Work hard, learn new important skills, ask for help when needed, and strive to become an independent researcher.

- Work Hard

We don't have set hours in our group. I expect students to work "enough" to get the research done. Sometimes you will work very hard (like when a paper is being submitted or revised), while at other times the pace may seem more relaxed. Some students work late in the day, while others work early in the day. I expect students to be hard workers, but you also need some work-life balance.

- Learn important skills

Skills you should try to develop include (but not limited to): speaking, writing, data analysis, being software savvy. See this list here at the Graduate School Checklist.

- Ask for help when needed.

See below for advice on this.

- Become an independent researcher.

Early in your research career you will need to rely on me for guidance and direction. As you mature you should try to become more independent, which means becoming an expert in your field, including knowing the literature and really understanding what you are doing. At some point you should be generating your own research ideas and questions, rather than just relying on me.

Graduation Requirements

Generally I expect one publication for Master's students and several publications from PhD students. Publications are the way to show that you've been a productive researcher during graduate school, and that a potential employer should hire you. Publishing means you need to generate data, analyze data, and write a publishable journal article. You may not be an expert at these different tasks, but graduate school is here to help you learn them.

How to Succeed

Ask for Help

Don't be afraid to ask for help! I expect students to try to solve their problems first, but it isn't productive to waste a lot of time with difficult, challenging problems which you are unsure how to solve. Generally I recommend you look for solutions in this order: internet (google!) > group members > me. I love google and when I encounter a problem (e.g. error message) I'll use google to try and find solutions. Most problems have been encountered by others, so thankfully the internet is usually kind in helping others. Next ask group members for advice or if they've seen the problem before. Use our Google group. I try to follow the Google group, but sometimes you have problems more specific to your research or situation that you need to talk to me about. Send me a slack message and I'll do my best to help.

Strive to Become Independent

At the beginning of your research there will be a lot of new and confusing concepts. You'll be relying on me and your fellow researchers a lot. That's fine! But over time you should strive to become an independent researcher, someone that doesn't always need to rely on others to get work one. See below of how to judge your efforts to become independent.

Don't do what asked	Poor
Do just what asked	Good
Go beyond what asked	Great

There is also a temptation to treat the modeling as a black box, that just gives numbers based on your input and has some magical, unknown stuff going on inside. Don't treat your calculations like a black box! Learn what the software is doing. Learn how to read the output files, find error messages, check whether a job is converged or if it is converging, etc. There is a lot going on with the calculations and it takes a lot to understand everything and all the details, but you should strive to master understanding the modeling input/output.

Reading and Writing

Reading and writing are crucial, yet often underappreciated skills of research. You really need to know the literature and your research field. Read textbooks to get a solid foundation. Read journal articles to know that others have done and how your research fits within the literature. You can learn a lot of how to approach problems and perform good research by reading what others have done.

You also need to learn to write well. My advice is to start early, start often! Make writing a habit. Waiting until a few months before graduation to write your thesis or dissertation will only cause you headaches. Talk to me about getting started with writing.

Resources

Writing

One of the best tools out there for collaborative writing is Overleaf, which is based on Latex. It is the tool I prefer when writing with students. It's like technical writing in a Google doc. You should learn to use it and Latex in general. Also use the WPI writing center often! They can help you a lot in the writing process.

Computational Resources

We have a few on-campus computers (Turing, Ace) as well as access to off-campus computers (XSEDE). If you are having trouble getting enough computer resources to complete your research, please come talk to me.

WPI Graduate Student Education

WPI has a lot of seminars, courses, and other resources to help graduate students grow and develop. Take advantage of these!

Collaborations

We are a theoretical group, but it is usually best practice to have experimental collaborators who can verify our work. This isn't always possible, but I encourage you to actively think about ways to interact with experimentalists. We already have existing collaborators, but we are always looking for more. You may meet someone at a conference, or read an interesting paper. Let me know about this and we can possibly try to get establish some new collaborations.

Other Group Resources

Communicate with others using Slack. Our wiki has lots of other resources. For technical questions, please use our Google Group to post and answer technical questions.

Policies

Weekly Meetings

I generally like to meet weekly with my students individually to track your progress and help you along. Sometimes meetings are held at set times, while sometimes I just set up meetings on a week to week basis. Plan on coming to a meeting with some google slides of your results/progress of the last week, and be prepared to discuss what you did, what challenges you had, and what you plan on doing next.

Student Office

Please try to keep the office clean. With several students in one room it can become untidy, but we need to keep it clean for everyone's health and safety. I sometimes want to bring visitors to see everyone, and it is embarrassing to have a messy office.

Backups

I fully expect everyone to back up their files. You can see the page on Archiving Data for more details. I will not sign off your thesis or dissertation until all the backups are in order!

Vacation and Holidays

Everyone needs a break. Come talk to me about vacation you want to take.

Presentations

I encourage you to present your work at local and national meetings. We have a lot of great conferences here in New England. Talk to me about this. WPI does provide some scholarships for graduate students to attend meetings and you should apply for these. Send me a copy of your poster or slides at least 1 week before your presentation. Often we will need to go through several iterations to get your presentation ready.