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Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor

Contributed equally to this work with: Loay Jabre, Catherine Bannon, J. Scott P. McCain, Yana Eglit

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

• Loay Jabre, 
• Catherine Bannon, 
• J. Scott P. McCain, 

Published: September 30, 2021

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330
• Reader Comments

Citation: Jabre L, Bannon C, McCain JSP, Eglit Y (2021) Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor. PLoS Comput Biol 17(9): e1009330. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330

Editor: Scott Markel, Dassault Systemes BIOVIA, UNITED STATES

Copyright: © 2021 Jabre et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The PhD beckons. You thought long and hard about why you want to do it, you understand the sacrifices and commitments it entails, and you have decided that it is the right thing for you. Congratulations! Undertaking a doctoral degree can be an extremely rewarding experience, greatly enhancing your personal, intellectual, and professional development. If you are still on the fence about whether or not you want to pursue a PhD, see [ 1 , 2 ] and others to help you decide.

As a PhD student in the making, you will have many important decisions to consider. Several of them will depend on your chosen discipline and research topic, the institution you want to attend, and even the country where you will undertake your degree. However, one of the earliest and most critical decisions you will need to make transcends most other decisions: choosing your PhD thesis supervisor. Your PhD supervisor will strongly influence the success and quality of your degree as well as your general well-being throughout the program. It is therefore vital to choose the right supervisor for you. A wrong choice or poor fit can be disastrous on both a personal and professional levels—something you obviously want to avoid. Unfortunately, however, most PhD students go through the process of choosing a supervisor only once and thus do not get the opportunity to learn from previous experiences. Additionally, many prospective PhD students do not have access to resources and proper guidance to rely on when making important academic decisions such as those involved in choosing a PhD supervisor.

In this short guide, we—a group of PhD students with varied backgrounds, research disciplines, and academic journeys—share our collective experiences with choosing our own PhD supervisors. We provide tips and advice to help prospective students in various disciplines, including computational biology, in their quest to find a suitable PhD supervisor. Despite procedural differences across countries, institutions, and programs, the following rules and discussions should remain helpful for guiding one’s approach to selecting their future PhD supervisor. These guidelines mostly address how to evaluate a potential PhD supervisor and do not include details on how you might find a supervisor. In brief, you can find a supervisor anywhere: seminars, a class you were taught, internet search of interesting research topics, departmental pages, etc. After reading about a group’s research and convincing yourself it seems interesting, get in touch! Make sure to craft an e-mail carefully, demonstrating you have thought about their research and what you might do in their group. After finding one or several supervisors of interest, we hope that the rules bellow will help you choose the right supervisor for you.

Rule 1: Align research interests

You need to make sure that a prospective supervisor studies, or at the very least, has an interest in what you want to study. A good starting point would be to browse their personal and research group websites (though those are often outdated), their publication profile, and their students’ theses, if possible. Keep in mind that the publication process can be slow, so recent publications may not necessarily reflect current research in that group. Pay special attention to publications where the supervisor is senior author—in life sciences, their name would typically be last. This would help you construct a mental map of where the group interests are going, in addition to where they have been.

Be proactive about pursuing your research interests, but also flexible: Your dream research topic might not currently be conducted in a particular group, but perhaps the supervisor is open to exploring new ideas and research avenues with you. Check that the group or institution of interest has the facilities and resources appropriate for your research, and/or be prepared to establish collaborations to access those resources elsewhere. Make sure you like not only the research topic, but also the “grunt work” it requires, as a topic you find interesting may not be suitable for you in terms of day-to-day work. You can look at the “Methods” sections of published papers to get a sense for what this is like—for example, if you do not like resolving cryptic error messages, programming is probably not for you, and you might want to consider a wet lab–based project. Lastly, any research can be made interesting, and interests change. Perhaps your favorite topic today is difficult to work with now, and you might cut your teeth on a different project.

Rule 2: Seek trusted sources

Discussing your plans with experienced and trustworthy people is a great way to learn more about the reputation of potential supervisors, their research group dynamics, and exciting projects in your field of interest. Your current supervisor, if you have one, could be aware of position openings that are compatible with your interests and time frame and is likely to know talented supervisors with good reputations in their fields. Professors you admire, reliable student advisors, and colleagues might also know your prospective supervisor on various professional or personal levels and could have additional insight about working with them. Listen carefully to what these trusted sources have to say, as they can provide a wealth of insider information (e.g., personality, reputation, interpersonal relationships, and supervisory styles) that might not be readily accessible to you.

Rule 3: Expectations, expectations, expectations

A considerable portion of PhD students feel that their program does not meet original expectations [ 3 ]. To avoid being part of this group, we stress the importance of aligning your expectations with the supervisor’s expectations before joining a research group or PhD program. Also, remember that one person’s dream supervisor can be another’s worst nightmare and vice versa—it is about a good fit for you. Identifying what a “good fit” looks like requires a serious self-appraisal of your goals (see Rule 1 ), working style (see Rule 5 ), and what you expect in a mentor (see Rule 4 ). One way to conduct this self-appraisal is to work in a research lab to get experiences similar to a PhD student (if this is possible).

Money!—Many people have been conditioned to avoid the subject of finances at all costs, but setting financial expectations early is crucial for maintaining your well-being inside and outside the lab. Inside the lab, funding will provide chemicals and equipment required for you to do cool research. It is also important to know if there will be sufficient funding for your potential projects to be completed. Outside the lab, you deserve to get paid a reasonable, livable stipend. What is the minimum required take-home stipend, or does that even exist at the institution you are interested in? Are there hard cutoffs for funding once your time runs out, or does the institution have support for students who take longer than anticipated? If the supervisor supplies the funding, do they end up cutting off students when funds run low, or do they have contingency plans? ( Fig 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330.g001

Professional development opportunities—A key aspect of graduate school training is professional development. In some research groups, it is normal for PhD students to mentor undergraduate students or take a semester to work in industry to get more diverse experiences. Other research groups have clear links with government entities, which is helpful for going into policy or government-based research. These opportunities (and others) are critical for your career and next steps. What are the career development opportunities and expectations of a potential supervisor? Is a potential supervisor happy to send students to workshops to learn new skills? Are they supportive of public outreach activities? If you are looking at joining a newer group, these sorts of questions will have to be part of the larger set of conversations about expectations. Ask: “What sort of professional development opportunities are there at the institution?”

Publications—Some PhD programs have minimum requirements for finishing a thesis (i.e., you must publish a certain number of papers prior to defending), while other programs leave it up to the student and supervisor to decide on this. A simple and important topic to discuss is: How many publications are expected from your PhD and when will you publish them? If you are keen to publish in high-impact journals, does your prospective supervisor share that aim? (Although question why you are so keen to do so, see the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( www.sfdora.org ) to learn about the pitfalls of journal impact factor.)

Rule 4: It takes two to tango

Sooner or later, you will get to meet and interview with a prospective PhD supervisor. This should go both ways: Interview them just as much as they are interviewing you. Prepare questions and pay close attention to how they respond. For example, ask them about their “lab culture,” research interests (especially for the future/long term), and what they are looking for in a graduate student. Do you feel like you need to “put on an act” to go along with the supervisor (beyond just the standard interview mode)? Represent yourself, and not the person you think they are looking for. All of us will have some interviews go badly. Remember that discovering a poor fit during the interview has way fewer consequences than the incompatibility that could arise once you have committed to a position.

To come up with good questions for the prospective supervisor, first ask yourself questions. What are you looking for in a mentor? People differ in their optimal levels of supervision, and there is nothing wrong with wanting more or less than your peers. How much career guidance do you expect and does the potential supervisor respect your interests, particularly if your long-term goals do not include academia? What kind of student might not thrive in this research group?

Treat the PhD position like a partnership: What do you seek to get out of it? Keep in mind that a large portion of research is conducted by PhD students [ 4 ], so you are also an asset. Your supervisor will provide guidance, but the PhD is your work. Make sure you and your mentor are on the same page before committing to what is fundamentally a professional contract akin to an apprenticeship (see “ Rule 3 ”).

Rule 5: Workstyle compatibility

Sharing interests with a supervisor does not necessarily guarantee you would work well together, and just because you enjoyed a course by a certain professor does not mean they are the right PhD supervisor for you. Make sure your expectations for work and work–life approaches are compatible. Do you thrive on structure, or do you need freedom to proceed at your own pace? Do they expect you to be in the lab from 6:00 AM to midnight on a regular basis (red flag!)? Are they comfortable with you working from home when you can? Are they around the lab enough for it to work for you? Are they supportive of alternative work hours if you have other obligations (e.g., childcare, other employment, extracurriculars)? How is the group itself organized? Is there a lab manager or are the logistics shared (fairly?) between the group members? Discuss this before you commit!

Two key attributes of a research group are the supervisor’s career stage and number of people in the group. A supervisor in a later career stage may have more established research connections and protocols. An earlier career stage supervisor comes with more opportunities to shape the research direction of the lab, but less access to academic political power and less certainty in what their supervision style will be (even to themselves). Joining new research groups provides a great opportunity to learn how to build a lab if you are considering that career path but may take away time and energy from your thesis project. Similarly, be aware of pros and cons of different lab sizes. While big labs provide more opportunity for collaborations and learning from fellow lab members, their supervisors generally have less time available for each trainee. Smaller labs tend to have better access to the supervisor but may be more isolating [ 5 , 6 ]. Also note that large research groups tend to be better for developing extant research topics further, while small groups can conduct more disruptive research [ 7 ].

Rule 6: Be sure to meet current students

Meeting with current students is one of the most important steps prior to joining a lab. Current students will give you the most direct and complete sense of what working with a certain supervisor is actually like. They can also give you a valuable sense of departmental culture and nonacademic life. You could also ask to meet with other students in the department to get a broader sense of the latter. However, if current students are not happy with their current supervisor, they are unlikely to tell you directly. Try to ask specific questions: “How often do you meet with your supervisor?”, “What are the typical turnaround times for a paper draft?”, “How would you describe the lab culture?”, “How does your supervisor react to mistakes or unexpected results?”, “How does your supervisor react to interruptions to research from, e.g., personal life?”, and yes, even “What would you say is the biggest weakness of your supervisor?”

Rule 7: But also try to meet past students

While not always possible, meeting with past students can be very informative. Past students give you information on career outcomes (i.e., what are they doing now?) and can provide insight into what the lab was like when they were in it. Previous students will provide a unique perspective because they have gone through the entire process, from start to finish—and, in some cases, no longer feel obligated to speak well of their now former supervisor. It can also be helpful to look at previous students’ experiences by reading the acknowledgement section in their theses.

Rule 8: Consider the entire experience

Your PhD supervisor is only one—albeit large—piece of your PhD puzzle. It is therefore essential to consider your PhD experience as whole when deciding on a supervisor. One important aspect to contemplate is your mental health. Graduate students have disproportionately higher rates of depression and anxiety compared to the general population [ 8 ], so your mental health will be tested greatly throughout your PhD experience. We suggest taking the time to reflect on what factors would enable you to do your best work while maintaining a healthy work–life balance. Does your happiness depend on surfing regularly? Check out coastal areas. Do you despise being cold? Consider being closer to the equator. Do you have a deep-rooted phobia of koalas? Maybe avoid Australia. Consider these potentially even more important questions like: Do you want to be close to your friends and family? Will there be adequate childcare support? Are you comfortable with studying abroad? How does the potential university treat international or underrepresented students? When thinking about your next steps, keep in mind that although obtaining your PhD will come with many challenges, you will be at your most productive when you are well rested, financially stable, nourished, and enjoying your experience.

Rule 9: Trust your gut

You have made it to our most “hand-wavy” rule! As academics, we understand the desire for quantifiable data and some sort of statistic to make logical decisions. If this is more your style, consider every interaction with a prospective supervisor, from the first e-mail onwards, as a piece of data.

However, there is considerable value in trusting gut instincts. One way to trust your gut is to listen to your internal dialogue while making your decision on a PhD supervisor. For example, if your internal dialogue includes such phrases as “it will be different for me,” “I’ll just put my head down and work hard,” or “maybe their students were exaggerating,” you might want to proceed with caution. If you are saying “Wow! How are they so kind and intelligent?” or “I cannot wait to start!”, then you might have found a winner ( Fig 2 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330.g002

Rule 10: Wash, rinse, repeat

The last piece of advice we give you is to do this lengthy process all over again. Comparing your options is a key step during the search for a PhD supervisor. By screening multiple different groups, you ultimately learn more about what red flags to look for, compatible work styles, your personal expectations, and group atmospheres. Repeat this entire process with another supervisor, another university, or even another country. We suggest you reject the notion that you would be “wasting someone’s time.” You deserve to take your time and inform yourself to choose a PhD supervisor wisely. The time and energy invested in a “failed” supervisor search would still be far less than what is consumed by a bad PhD experience ( Fig 3 ).

The more supervisors your interview and the more advice you get from peers, the more apparent these red flags will become.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330.g003

Conclusions

Pursuing a PhD can be an extremely rewarding endeavor and a time of immense personal growth. The relationship you have with your PhD supervisor can make or break an entire experience, so make this choice carefully. Above, we have outlined some key points to think about while making this decision. Clarifying your own expectations is a particularly important step, as conflicts can arise when there are expectation mismatches. In outlining these topics, we hope to share pieces of advice that sometimes require “insider” knowledge and experience.

After thoroughly evaluating your options, go ahead and tackle the PhD! In our own experiences, carefully choosing a supervisor has led to relationships that morph from mentor to mentee into a collaborative partnership where we can pose new questions and construct novel approaches to answer them. Science is hard enough by itself. If you choose your supervisor well and end up developing a positive relationship with them and their group, you will be better suited for sound and enjoyable science.

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• 5. Smith D. The big benefits of working in a small lab. University Affairs. 2013. Available from: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/the-big-benefits-of-working-in-a-small-lab/

Potential Red Flags to Consider When Choosing a PhD Supervisor

You should choose your PhD supervisor carefully. They will be one of the most influential people in your academic life, playing the role of mentor, confidant, and advisor throughout your degree. Here are some potential red flags you should keep an eye out for so that you can choose a good advisor.

They’re not publishing

Publications help a professor get grants, earn tenure, and build their career. If a potential supervisor hasn’t published a lot relative to where they are in their career, this could be a red flag that impacts your ability to publish during your PhD. 

Their students aren’t publishing

A supervisor should be helping their students publish, so you should be cautious if you see that a significant number of a potential supervisor’s current students don’t have any publications--especially their more senior students. 

Their current students aren’t happy

Talking to current students gives you a better picture of what it would be like to work for this particular person. Ask them things like how many hours a week they work, what the supervisor’s expectations of them are, and what opportunities they’ve had. If the current students are unenthusiastic about the supervisor or seem overworked, this could be a red flag. 

They don’t let you talk to current or past students

It’s common practice to talk to a potential supervisor’s current or past students as part of an on-campus interview or as part of your research into the supervisor. Current students often give you more honest insights into what it’s actually like to work in this particular lab. If a potential supervisor explicitly tells you not to contact their current students (or if they are all “conveniently” absent on the day of your visit), this should be a big red flag. 

Very few of their students have graduated

When considering a potential supervisor, check how many students they have graduated. How long did it take the supervisor’s past students to graduate compared to the departmental average? If one supervisor’s students all seem to have a longer time to degree, or if they have graduated very few students, you might consider choosing a different supervisor. 

They’re hard to get ahold of

If a potential supervisor is difficult to contact or very slow to respond to emails, this is another potential red flag. Communication is an essential part of the supervisor-student relationship. If the person you’re considering as your supervisor seems like they’re always too busy to meet with you or like they’re avoiding your emails, they may not be a good choice. 

Other people say only negative things

Talk to students in other labs or departments who have interacted with your potential supervisor to find out what their experience with your potential supervisor was like. If their experiences have been overwhelmingly negative, this could be a red flag. 

You don’t get on during the interview 

You should choose your supervisor for their expertise and their personality. They should be someone you get along with and can see yourself having a professional relationship with them. Someone who seems disinterested in you or your ideas, or is openly hostile towards you isn’t the person you want as your mentor during your doctorate. 

They don’t talk specifics about funding

Before committing to a PhD supervisor or project, you should have a very clear understanding of what kind of funding comes with the offer. This means knowing exactly what your stipend would be, how much you would have for research funds, and if summer funding is included. You and a potential supervisor may have the same research goals and similar personalities, but if they can’t pay you or continually avoid the topic of funding, you should consider another supervisor. 

On its own, none of these behaviours is a guarantee that a supervisor will be a bad choice. However, if a potential supervisor displays several of these behaviours, you should do some more research before saying yes to their offer.

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Signs of a Toxic Research Advisor and Research Group in STEM

Learn more about the signs and red flags of a negative and toxic research environment in STEM academia.

As a graduate student in a STEM discipline, you’ll be conducting your research work under the guidance of a research adviser and within a research group with other grad students and undergrads. Since you’ll be spending your time being mentored and surrounded by these individuals, you’re going to want to be associated with people who are going to help you and your career path. However, given the current state of academia, the STEM research work for graduate students can be a dark place. While graduate school is expected to challenge you into becoming an expert in some field, it’s not healthy for a graduate program, advisor, or research group to be a toxic environment. Or any job for that matter! Unfortunately, many STEM graduate students fall victim to hostile, toxic, and unhealthy research environments.

The main point of this post is for graduate students to understand that you shouldn’t excuse unprofessional behavior because “that’s how academia is.” Academia should not be a world where students are essentially treated like crap by their advisors simply because that’s the culture.

Why are some research advisors and groups toxic in STEM academia?

Not all programs, advisors, and groups are toxic, but the ones that are leave graduate students abused, bullied, overworked, and in most cases with mental health challenges. Why do groups and advisors like this exist? Well the answer complex. A negative and toxic research group can results from advisor who enables negative group behavior and exhibits toxic behavior themselves, all the while departments don’t crack down and stop such behavior. Academia is a competitive world where schools and advisors are left with a lot of freedom to run things as they please. While it’s expected they follow a code of ethics, many times, ethics go out the window when schools and advisors want to squeeze out all the research out of grad students as they can before they graduate. Because let’s face it, grad students are cheap labor for research (ie think about your grad student salary rn, if you even have one). In this world where grad students are expected to pump out good, publishable research, for the sake of learning and scholarship, advisors will create their own research expectations which often can contain toxic practices. This expectation is usually excused because it’s what everyone else has experienced in past generations, and its sometimes viewed as “paying your dues” and something you need to go through in order to earn the Ph.D. And like I said before, when the culture of academia expects and excuses toxic behavior, it gets passed on and excused by the next wave of graduates. Here are some sources and articles that discus this culture as well.

But I want to acknowledge, not all academic worlds are toxic. There are good people who don’t perpetuate this toxic culture. And these are the people who are leading by example and striving to change the culture.

What can I do if I’m a victim of abuse by my advisor or research group?

If you’re a victim of ANY kind of bullying, abuse, or toxic behavior by a research group member or an advisor, report it to your department and work your way up the chain of command. If you feel uncomfortable, seek advice from your graduate student association or union. They are there to protect you. If the abuse is sexual or physical, don’t be afraid to seek legal counsel.

Obviously, I understand it’s much easier said than done.

Academia’s culture can be very intimidating and unfortunately sometimes doesn’t help students. So fear is normal. From my personal experience, my advisor was toxic and when I attempted to speak up, my department took his side simply because he was a “leader in the field.” My voice wasn’t heard. I know and understand that speaking up can become a battle.

So those things being said, let’s get into the signs of a toxic research advisor and group!

Research Advisor and Research Group Red Flags

Your research group and pi unreasonably criticizes your work ethic.

This is probably the biggest red flag you can encounter in academia. A group and advisor who criticizes your research and work philosophy. Many groups don’t schedule lab times, so it’s up to the student to establish work hours to get their work done. This is the first cause of the problem here. Example, let’s say student A works from 9 to 5 every day and is productive, but student B works 8 to 8 every day and feels that student A should be putting in as a much time as themselves. So student B tells student A they should be in the lab more.

What is wrong with this situation is that student B shouldn’t be criticizing student A if student A is being productive. Comments like this make student A feel pressured to work more. From my experience, I was criticized by my lab mates for not working in the evenings, weekends, and holidays, even though I was working as hard and for as long as a I could. To them, I wasn’t working hard enough, which really made me feel bad about myself and my work ethic.

Snarky and abrasive comments about work and the pressure to work all the time from your lab mates isn’t healthy. Now I get it, there is a time and place for criticism, only if its warranted and not a projection of someone else’s frustrations or feelings.

Your Research Group Provides Poor or No Mentoring of Incoming and Junior Students

When you start in a new research lab, it’s likely one of the upper grad students or postdocs will train you in the lab, not the PI. This is normal and ok. But if new students in the lab are not properly trained and guided by others in the lab and the advisor doesn’t delegate or make this happen, this is setting new students up for failure! Junior students need proper guidance and mentorship. Poor mentorship will make the student’s experience more challenging!

Your Advisor is Rarely Around or Present in the Both the Lab and Their Office

This is huge. It’s one thing if your advisor is genuinely busy, but if they seem to be absent mysteriously, it could be a sign your advisor could be a problem. Advisors who are absent can be absent for a number of reasons, personal, travel, conferences, and other academic tasks. But when emails go unanswered for days when a student is seeking help, that a problem. When an advisor becomes so absent, it can be a sign that the advisor does not see their students as a priority and this can make students feel lost and like they’re an afterthought. If a student needs their advisor and can never seem to find them in the lab or office when they need help, how can a student be productive?

Your Advisor Delegates Tasks that Should be Their Own onto Students

This is a point I feel very strongly about. Because I was a victim of it.

There are tasks that are reserved for the advisor and tasks that are reserved for the student. If the advisor’s duties are pawned off onto students, it’s not only unethical, but students are not their advisor’s secretaries.

Examples of tasks include ghostwriting peer reviews, ghostwriting proposals, ordering lab equipment, negotiating quotes for equipment and supplies, setting up meetings and seminars, purchasing food for seminars and meetings with their own funds, doing research group paperwork, grading homework when you’re not hired as a teaching assistant. The list can go on

Make sure that you set boundaries and let your advisor know what you’re willing to do, and what you’re not willing to do on behalf of the group. There are some tasks that are ok, but if these tasks build up and begin to cut into your research and schoolwork time. It’s too much and shouldn’t be happening.

This creates an environment where your advisor will begin to rely on you for too many things. My experience had much of this, I spent hours writing proposals, planning things for my advisor, being his unpaid teaching assistant, and doing work that he should have been doing. All of this work not only was time consuming, but I received no visible credit.

Now some of you might be thinking, “well that’s good experience for a student! Now they know what being a professor is like.”

Advisor Doesn’t give Student the Freedom to Design and Plan Research

If your advisor plans and designs all of your papers, experiments, and research, they are not teaching you how to be an independent researcher. Instead, the student is being a lab tech. This is not a healthy way for a grad student to go through grad school. Students need to learn with the GUIDANCE of their advisor. Advisors should give students the freedom to make decisions, design projects, and conduct work without being micromanaged. It’s ok for an advisor to suggest and recommend research project ideas, but the student and advisor should work together to further develop the plan.

Advisor Pushes Classes to the Side

If your advisor tells you to put more time into research and not focus on your classes, that’s a problem. Or if they tell you to take specific classes because they are easy and not a lot of work, that is also a problem. Courses in grad school are meant to help complement your research and help you learn more and become better a researcher. As someone who had a very coursework heavy Ph.D. I wish I took the classes I wanted to, not the ones my advisor thought were easy.

Advisor and Research Group Doesn’t see Value in a Diverse Resume

It’s 2021 and if you’re from the US, a resume needs more than just experience. Most employers look beyond your experience and want to see leadership, volunteering, and expectational soft skills like teamwork, public speaking, and communication. Your advisor shouldn’t be focused on all research. They should want your resume to be diverse and competitive in the market, so they should see that your resume needs to be diverse. You can have fantastic research skills, but if you can’t communicate them in an interview, no one is going to know how fantastic you are!

Advisor Thinks They Can Do Anything They Want, Regardless of School Policy

The kind of advisor is the one who thinks that because they’re successful or that they’re tenured enough to get away to breezing past school policy are the ones who will abuse it if they can. Unfortunately, academia is a world where things are allowed to slide, exceptions will be made. But if your advisor is doing this to take shortcuts, manipulate the system, or get away with things that are wrong. That’s a huge NOPE. As I said, I shouldn’t have been a TA for a class I wasn’t getting paid for. But it happened.

Another example is the advisor unreasonably extends contracts for postdocs even though their appointments should be over. Or the advisors who use immigration paperwork to keep international students longer. Or advisors who withhold graduations from students. These are all abusive practices.

Advisor Uses Gaslighting Language

Gaslighting is when someone makes a point and the other person makes that person feel dumb or inferior for speaking. Gaslighting is like “flipping the narrative.” A gaslighting advisor will makes students feel bad about themselves for speaking up, and will take the student’s point and use it against them. This kind of language in any situation is wrong.

Advisor Can’t take Criticism and Won’t Admit they are Wrong

Everyone makes mistakes or is wrong at some point. If your advisor can’t accept they’re wrong, they’re toxic. Students should be allowed to reasonably challenge their advisor, especially in the world of research. Science is a world of challenging what is known. Advisors who can’t admit they are wrong will make students feel bad for speaking up (ie gaslighting). When advisors can’t accept they are wrong, they usually put students through repeating unnecessary experiments, redoing work, and doing things they don’t want to do, even though the student is correct.

Advisor Speaks over Students and Doesn’t Listen

Communication is key. If your advisor speaks over students, doesn’t listen or makes them feel small, it’s likely they don’t want to hear what you have to say. In the sciences, everyone should be heard.

Your Advisor and Group Appear Isolated from Others in the Program or Department 

This is a very manipulative behavior but it happens. Some advisors do a very good job of isolating students from collaborations, working with other groups, or even other faculty because they don’t want their research leaving the group circle, or they don’t want students to see what it’s like in other labs. You should not feel isolated by your advisor or during grad school. Groups that are isolated are groups that are only seen in the lab, have few friends, and closely follow their advisor’s orders.

Advisor Withholds Students Graduations or Publications from Them

I’m a firsthand witness to this one. If an advisor “doesn’t allow” students to graduate when they want, or publish when they want, they’re controlling and manipulative. Students are supposed to choose their paths. I’ve seen an advisor not allow students to apply for graduation or publish when and where they want. This usually happens when advisors don’t want students to leave either because they’re good workers and they fear replacing them, or because they just want more people in the lab. I’ve also seen students who graduated never get finished manuscripts published even though they warranted publication simply because the advisor had a personal problem with the student.

Embarrasses and Criticizes Students and Tries to Use it as a “Teaching Moment”

This is the worst kind of advisor. Let’s say you give your first presentation reviewing and article in group meeting. It’s your first time giving this kind of presentation, and afterward, your advisor barrages you with criticism so much so you feel the tears coming on. Then they end the conversation with “You’ll thank me later when you apply for a job, present this paper again next week.” Afterward, you think, “They was just trying to help me and challenge me.” But after a day or so, you realize they didn’t tell you anything about how to fix the mistakes you made, instead they made you feel ashamed and foolish. This is wrong.

There are right and wrong ways to give feedback. A wrong way to give feedback, is it make the student feel stupid, instead of pointing out issues and offering solutions. Bullying and using abusive language and hiding it as a teaching moment is toxic.

Your Advisor Gossips and Talks about Other Students Behind Their Back

It’s not 6 th grade anymore, professionals should not be gossiping in the workplace. I’ve had an advisor who poorly talked about other student to me, and it made me feel bad listening to it. And then it made me question if he was talking poorly about me to others.

Your Advisor Makes Comments About Gender, Ethnicity, and Student’s Family Life

No, just freaking no. An advisor, or an boss should not make comments about your gender, ethnicity, appearance, and the choices you make in regard to your family. Women and BIPOC are the most affected by this.

Your Advisor Claims You Need Them to be Successful

If your advisor claims that you “need them” to be successful, your advisor is toxic. An advisor should not make you feel like you need to rely on them, their namesake on publications, or their connections for you to be successful. An advisor is a mentor, a source of guidance and support. An advisor is not supposed to be someone who “makes you who you are.” Your success comes from you. If they make you feel like you need them for success, first off they’re wrong. And secondly, they’re wrong.

Your Advisor Doesn’t Support or Explore Different Career Paths for You

By going to grad school, you’re creating a career path for yourself. It’s important to have an advisor who wants to help you reach your goals. A toxic research advisor will typically be one-track-minded in terms of career paths for their students . If your advisor doesn’t support your goals, they’re not a supportive advisor. They should give you the opportunity to explore any career option in academia, industry, government, and much more! There’s more to getting a STEM PhD than working in a lab for the rest of your life. An advisor should also be supportive of you if you change your mind.

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How to choose the right PhD supervisor

4 red flags to be wary of in the search for a good match.

Gemma Conroy

Credit: Thomas Barwick/Getty

23 June 2020

Thomas Barwick/Getty

A PhD supervisor can make or break a candidate’s progress. It’s estimated that roughly half of all PhD candidates in North America do not complete their doctoral studies due to a lack of support from their supervisor.

“It’s a decision that should be taken very seriously,” says Anna Sverdlik, an educational psychologist at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada.

“This is the person you could be working with for several years and it can shape who you are as an academic.”

Below are four tips that can help PhD candidates choose a suitable supervisor , and the red flags to watch out for:

1. Interview the supervisor

While most candidates focus on trying to impress a prospective supervisor, Emma Beckett took the opposite approach when she was choosing between institutions for her PhD.

“I approached each meeting as if I were interviewing the supervisor, and not the other way around,” says Beckett, a molecular nutrition scientist at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia.

“Forget the power dynamic and remember it’s about what’s best for your development.”

Asking the right questions can give students a better sense of whether a supervisor is the best match for them, says Sverdlik, who studies motivation and wellbeing in doctoral students.

“Talk to them and see what kind of person they are,” she says. “Students are often too grateful when someone shows an interest, and this puts them at a disadvantage.”

Red flag: If a potential supervisor is difficult to pin down for a meeting, they are unlikely to treat their students as a priority down the line, says Beckett.

2. Get an outside perspective

Reaching out to former students, collaborators, and lab members can be a good way of forming an accurate view of a supervisor’s reputation, says Gerard Dericks from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom, who studies PhD student satisfaction.

“You want to do a mini background check, as it’s difficult to tell how honest a researcher is during an interview.”

Speaking with former co-authors can also give candidates a better idea of how collaborative a supervisor is and how well their skills and research interests match, says Dericks.

Paying attention to how colleagues interact with the supervisor can also prevent candidates from entering a toxic situation.

Beckett says she experienced this first-hand at a lab meet-and-greet session when she was searching for a postdoc position. “Multiple students came knocking on the principal investigator’s door in tears,” she recalls. “That’s definitely a bad sign.”

Red flag: If a supervisor seems to prefer working alone or doesn’t include students as co-authors on their papers, it’s unlikely that they will help the candidate build their resumes, says Sverdlik.

3. Look beyond the PhD

Candidates should look for a supervisor who can help them develop the skills they need to progress in their career after completing their PhD, says Beckett.

“Too many students get caught up in the PhD topic or project, but it’s about building skills that can help you pivot into what you want to do next,” she says. “The outcome of a PhD is not about output, but who you are as a scientist.”

Sverdlik says that candidates should discuss professional development opportunities with potential supervisors, such as writing workshops , training in advanced statistics, and research integrity seminars.

Red flag: Too much emphasis on publishing papers can be a sign that the potential supervisor lacks integrity and isn’t focussed on helping their students’ skill development, says Beckett.

4. Consider the supervisor’s working style

Rather than choosing a supervisor for their prestige and research interests, Beckett says candidates should pay attention to the workplace culture and how things run day-to-day.

This can mean discussing expectations before committing to a potential supervisor, such as working hours, meeting frequency, and how the supervisor tracks their candidates’ progress, she says.

“Some students like to be micromanaged, while others prefer to do things in their own time,” says Beckett. “Finding out whether your day-to-day controls and procedures are compatible is a way of understanding their ‘big picture’ ethos without actually asking.”

Red flag: Prospective supervisors who expect candidates to work on weekends or be on-call outside of working hours are likely to be more interested in a student’s productivity than their growth and development, says Beckett.

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• Sociology Forum

Red flags for graduate programs and advisors

By Keithkwok February 9, 2017 in Sociology Forum

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I just discovered an old thread at  http://www.socjobrumors.com/topic/red-flags-for-graduate-programs-and-advisors/page/2?replies=23

Someone said that it would be a red flag if your prospective "advisor only 'co-authors' with students (or former students)." I am confused why it should be seen as a red flag?

Thank you! BTW, I have a list of factors that some senior students suggest me to take into consideration when deciding which program to join:

1. Never go to a school to do PhD simply because of one professor. There should be more than three faculty members that you want to work with.

2. Avoid programs that ask PhD students to TA too many courses.

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It's not a red flag. If you look at the post, you'll see it has 3 "goods" and 10 "no goods," so more far more people disagree than agree. If anything, it's more likely a green flag that this is an advisor you'd want. The reason why that person may have made that ridiculous statement is that a faculty member who only co-authors with graduate students may be seen by faculty as not being serious scholars. But even that notion is a big stretch.

The point is, you shouldn't be treating every post on that forum as gospel. There is plenty of misleading nonsense - sometimes deliberately misleading nonsense - posted.

• high_hopes , 1too3for5 and Matterhorn

10 hours ago, socapp2017 said: It's not a red flag. If you look at the post, you'll see it has 3 "goods" and 10 "no goods," so more far more people disagree than agree. If anything, it's more likely a green flag that this is an advisor you'd want. The reason why that person may have made that ridiculous statement is that a faculty member who only co-authors with graduate students may be seen by faculty as not being serious scholars. But even that notion is a big stretch. The point is, you shouldn't be treating every post on that forum as gospel. There is plenty of misleading nonsense - sometimes deliberately misleading nonsense - posted.

11 hours ago, bradley610 said: I'm just doubtful that this happens very often at all. Almost no one would "only co-author with students".

You are right.

My current situation is that I am balancing between two PhD offers: one from a top 25 program, the other from a 40-50 program (US news ranking). Almost everyone told me to go to the former, as the program fits me much better, but I really like one professor in the lower-ranked school, who also helped me a lot in this application season. I like him because I believe he is the smartest scholar I have ever met so far. But I am also aware that the smartest scholar is not necessarily the best PhD mentor.

I guess I will go to the top 25 program, because we cannot go to a program simply because of one advisor. But that is a hard decision to make.

51 minutes ago, bradley610 said: Yeah, that's an interesting dilemma, but I think it's probably right to go with the top 25 program, unless there's a reputation for the department treating people poorly or that a large percentage of students don't end up finishing their degrees. I'm guessing the top-25 school is Brown and the other one is Illinois. Congratulations on that. Getting into both is a real achievement, and you should be proud of it, but having the chance to earn a PhD at an Ivy really is something special. It strikes me as a once in a lifetime kinda deal, the kind of thing you don't pass up unless there's a genuine problem with it that you can identify.

Your guess is completely correct. Also thank you for your advice. You are right, decisions of this kind are hardly correct or incorrect, as our life outcome is never completely determined by the very first decision, but also what we do and how we live our life after the decision is made.

If you're able to, also try to attend both visitation weekends. I'm in a somewhat similar position and well I know which school I'll most likely attend since it's much better ranked and has a better faculty fit,  it is also good to gather as much information as possible. 

Also, meeting this Illinois professor is never a bad thing. Even though it is unlikely that this person will be your mentor, you can always follow up with them at conferences and its good that they will have a face to your name. 

16 hours ago, sociologicals said: If you're able to, also try to attend both visitation weekends. I'm in a somewhat similar position and well I know which school I'll most likely attend since it's much better ranked and has a better faculty fit,  it is also good to gather as much information as possible.  Also, meeting this Illinois professor is never a bad thing. Even though it is unlikely that this person will be your mentor, you can always follow up with them at conferences and its good that they will have a face to your name.   

Thank you! I remember you are admitted to UCI, which is my dream school. I love the climate of California! Irvine, in particular, is a very nice community to live. But I guess I have been rejected in spite of no formal notification yet.

The visitation weekends of the two schools happen to be on the same day! Also, I am an international student. So I will probably not attend due to the expensive airfare. But I will definitely Skype with the Illinois professor, as you suggested.

Just to add one more perspective, from my field, which may be different.

I think if someone really only ever coauthors with students or former students, I would consider it a red flag. The reason is that this person is unlikely to be a good collaborator if they aren't able to work well with others in their own field and can only do science with their own group or former group members. That is, current group members are basically forced to collaborate with their advisor and those who graduated may be the ones who had a good relationship with their advisor. The lack of outside collaboration also means that if you join this group, you might be joining a pretty insular academic community. You will have fewer chances to interact with academics with different ideas/approaches and maybe more importantly, when it's time to get a job beyond grad school, you might not have as many connections and your network may not be as large.

However, as others pointed out, it's almost never true that someone only ever publishes with their own group. That said, it's still worthwhile to see how often your potential advisor interacts professionally with scholars from other institutions that were not part of his/her group. Eventually, (some of) your advisor's network will be your network, so you want to see what you can tap into by joining this group.

eloquentrivka

May be a useless opinion coming from a British masters in a different social science field, but the head of our program was someone who would only co-author with students or former students. He also supervised my dissertation, as well as some of my friends'. He was notorious for not handing in paperwork for our projects to be authorized, forgetting to submit our references, and basically doing nothing when he was clearly paid to do a lot of things. 

My friend recently got an email from him asking her to edit a significant portion of her thesis because he had submitted it to a journal without telling her and had received some additional requests from the editors. I suspect he does this fairly often - choose students to supervise who 1) will not fail even if left alone, and 2) work on his areas of interest. I deviated from his 'plans' for me because I rejected his suggested dissertation topics and went for my own in a qualitative method, but plenty of my friends were pulled into doing free work for him under the guise of doing their fieldwork. If he likes what you end up with, he'll stick his name on it and submit it for review, sometimes even without consulting you. This long and continuing list of publications under his name, btw, is one of the main reasons his position is in such a safehold in the college and department. 

On 2/12/2017 at 1:31 AM, TakeruK said: Just to add one more perspective, from my field, which may be different. I think if someone really only ever coauthors with students or former students, I would consider it a red flag. The reason is that this person is unlikely to be a good collaborator if they aren't able to work well with others in their own field and can only do science with their own group or former group members. That is, current group members are basically forced to collaborate with their advisor and those who graduated may be the ones who had a good relationship with their advisor. The lack of outside collaboration also means that if you join this group, you might be joining a pretty insular academic community. You will have fewer chances to interact with academics with different ideas/approaches and maybe more importantly, when it's time to get a job beyond grad school, you might not have as many connections and your network may not be as large. However, as others pointed out, it's almost never true that someone only ever publishes with their own group. That said, it's still worthwhile to see how often your potential advisor interacts professionally with scholars from other institutions that were not part of his/her group. Eventually, (some of) your advisor's network will be your network, so you want to see what you can tap into by joining this group.

Thank you! Your viewpoint indeed makes sense. It is very likely that the potential supervisor who only co-authors with a limited group of people (in the most recent five or seven years) might constrain your access to a wider range of resources. However, based on my observation of co-authorship in sociology, it seems that only very few scholars are able to co-author with collaborators from a variety of institutions. Such scholars are usually very famous.

13 hours ago, eloquentrivka said: May be a useless opinion coming from a British masters in a different social science field, but the head of our program was someone who would only co-author with students or former students. He also supervised my dissertation, as well as some of my friends'. He was notorious for not handing in paperwork for our projects to be authorized, forgetting to submit our references, and basically doing nothing when he was clearly paid to do a lot of things.  My friend recently got an email from him asking her to edit a significant portion of her thesis because he had submitted it to a journal without telling her and had received some additional requests from the editors. I suspect he does this fairly often - choose students to supervise who 1) will not fail even if left alone, and 2) work on his areas of interest. I deviated from his 'plans' for me because I rejected his suggested dissertation topics and went for my own in a qualitative method, but plenty of my friends were pulled into doing free work for him under the guise of doing their fieldwork. If he likes what you end up with, he'll stick his name on it and submit it for review, sometimes even without consulting you. This long and continuing list of publications under his name, btw, is one of the main reasons his position is in such a safehold in the college and department. 

Sorry to hear the sad stories of your friends. British masters are notorious for their lack of academic support, as they seem to be aimed at making money to fund their PhD students. Just out of curiosity: when he submitted his student's paper to a journal, did he list himself as the first author or single author, or the student's name as the first author? It seems that if the student was the first author, the student at least benefited from his conduct somehow.

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