professor walter dietrich

elizabeth ancarana: so now,i turn to our panelists. and thanks again for comingand talking to our new faculty here today. it's just a delightthat you're here. we have katia bertoldi who'sthe john l. loeb associate professor of thenatural sciences at the johnny paulson schoolof engineering and applied sciences. after earning herph.d. in mechanics

of materials and structuresfrom trento university in 2006, katia did a post-doctoralfellowship at mit and then served as anassistant professor of engineering technologyat the university of twente in the netherlands. she joined the harvardfaculty in 2010. katia's work focuseson the relationships between the internalstructure of a material and its mechanical properties.

her research onmaterials, especially those with tunableproperties, has direct use in many critical fields,including acoustics, optics, and electronics. next to katia isjames, or jay mitchell who's is an associateprofessor of genetics and complex diseases at theharvard t.h. chan school of public health. after completing hisdoctoral training

at the university of californiaat berkeley on human telomerase biochemistry, he did hispost-doctoral studies also in the netherlands aterasmus university in rotterdam where he focused on the geneticsof dna repair and aging. jay came to harvardin 2008, where since, he's been focusing onthe restriction of calorie or nutrient intaketo increase stressed resistance, particularlyduring major surgery, and the improvementof metabolic fitness

and the extension of longevity. we also havelawrence ralph, who's the john l. loeb associateprofessor of the social sciences in thedepartments of anthropology and african and african-americanstudies in the faculty of arts and sciences. after earning hisph.d. in anthropology from the universityof chicago in 2010, lawrence served asa mandela rodney

dubois a post-doctoralfellow at the center for african andafro-american studies at the university of michigan. he then joined theharvard faculty in 2011. his scholarly work explores howthe historical circumstances of police abuse, massincarceration, and the drug trade [? naturalized ?]disease, disability, and premature deathfor urban residents, showing how violenceand injury play

a central role in the dailylives of black urbanites. so we have a nice array,a very interesting array of work and backgrounds. each panelist will speakfor about 10 minutes, and then we'll open it up toquestions from the audience. so would you want tomaybe start with katia? katia bertoldi: yes. ok. so first of all, welcometo everybody to harvard.

so i was here in 2010,so a long time ago. so as elizabeth told you, istarted in january 2010-- no, sorry, it was in 2009because i started in 2010. so now you might thinkit's a long time ago. but you'll see, time will fly. and soon you will be on thisside of the table speaking to a new faculty. so what do i rememberof the first days? the first days are kindof mixed feeling, right?

at least for me was. on one hand, youfeel the pressure. on the other hand, youwould like to do things, but you don't know what to doand you don't know how to move. and then, you need to adjust. adjust to the new place. in my case, i wasmoving back from europe, so you need to fixyour family life. my husband needed to find a job.

so all these sort of differentpressure coming to you. so what can you doto deal with that? so i think the bestsuggestion i got was, before coming here,i was deciding whether to leave europe and comehere and to accept this offer or not. and my mentor in the netherlandsjust told me, look, katia. this is a unique opportunity. we know that there'sgoing to be-- probably

you're going tohave some pressure. it's going to be tough. but it's really unique. and there, you havethe opportunity really to do great thingsbecause mostly the environment. the people aroundyou, the resources. it's a seven year periodthat is tenure, yes. it's not so easy to get tenure. but forget about it, andtry to enjoy every day,

and really to make sure thatat the end of the seven years, you can say it wasworth doing it. and just make sure that youtake advantage of the resources. and this, i think, was thebest advice i really got. so try it try toforget about the fact that there's goingto be a promotion. there's going to beseveral promotions. one in between, andthen the final one. and just really takeadvantage of the resources.

now how of takeadvantage of resources. so in my case, i was luckybecause people in my area-- so i'm in the school ofengineering and applied so people working in an arearelated to my area of expertise go for lunch together every day. i was the only junior faculty. now there are a couple more. but this has beenvery, very helpful. it's true that maybe you wasteone hour of your day every day,

noon to 1:00. and maybe you could writea paper or do something. but now i realizehow important it has been because in thisinformal discussion, you get to learn howpeople move around. and i was assigned, asprobably most of you, to a mentoring committeeat the very beginning. honestly, because ofthese informal lunches, daily informal lunchesand discussion,

i never used thecommittee just because i have this informalcommittee every day. and i find it much moreuseful, because after a while, after you go forlunch every day, you can also ask thesesort of questions that maybe are intimidating. you don't want to ask tosomebody that you just meet once a year. so this has beenquite helpful for me.

and what else can i tell you? clearly, at thebeginning for me was also difficult to suddenlymanage so many tasks. before, i was a post-doc. i was a faculty for awhile in the netherlands. but there, the environmentwas very different. i was sort of a seniorpost-doc because the structure of the academic systemis very different. so suddenly, i was prettymuch spending all my time

doing research. and then when i startedhere, suddenly i had to manage a group. i have currently 20people in my group. so it's a medium-sizedgroup, i would say. you need to write grant tomake sure that you get money to support the group. you need to teach, mentoringthese people, and write papers. so it took me a coupleof months to adjust.

but then what i figured outwas in my case very useful. every morning wheni wake up, i just try to make a list ofthings on a piece of paper and just cross lines duringthe day as things move. and make sure thati try to balance all the different things,because sometimes, i have the tendencyonly to focus on one. and then it's 5:00pm, and suddenly you realize you have todo other three things.

so trying to find abalance is always useful. beginning, i found itparticularly difficult to manage studentsand manage post-docs. so maybe i was a bit unlucky. at the beginning, i had somecases that were not so easy. also, this wasalso because of me, because probablyat the beginning, i was not so sure aboutthe quality [inaudible] into the people i was hiring.

so i can see that now,over time, i improve a lot. now i can select peoplein a much better way, and i'm much more surethat the people i'm hiring are exactly what i expect. but you learn by mistakes. so i spend quitea bit of time also dealing with managing people. i didn't take much advantageof the resources around campus that i-- i just mostly talk withsenior colleagues around me.

and this was afteri solved the cases, and to try to basicallysmooth out all the issues, i figured it out. something i foundparticularly useful was to try to puta limit on travel. so at the beginning, i lookat this as a compromise with my husband. clearly you can travel, and youcan spend almost all your time on planes and visitingbeautiful places.

and not only visiting, but alsogiving talks at conferences. but you also need--life is a compromise. so clearly, my husband wasnot at all up for that. and so we realized, ok,why don't we try to limit. we came up withsort of agreement, let's try to limit thetravel to once a month. it's not a strict rule. but let's try [inaudible]. sometimes it's two.

sometime it's zero. sometimes maybe three,but try to put some limit. a cap, at least. at the beginning,i look at that, i thought a fine compromise,but a limitation. now what i realize isthat helped me a lot. the fact that i need tothink where i want to go and i need to thinkwhy i want to go, and i need to be selective,because traveling

is tiring and takesout time that you need to spend doing other things. so i find it really-- nowthat when i look back, i'm thinking that thisis helping me a lot. so basicallycompromising between all the different tasks. so still keep visibility,but also being very selective and making sure that you choosewhere to go in such a way that you maximize someof the visibility.

and make sure that you meet thepeople that you need to meet and you want to meet. and yeah, i don't know. what else do youwant me to tell you? elizabeth ancarana: well,that's a good start. maybe we'll haveeach panelist talk, and then we'll openit up to questions. james mitchell: yeah, ok. i'll take over then.

jay mitchell from theschool of public health. i was going toapologize at the outset because i'm aresearch scientist. i run a lab. and i thought that mightbe not so common with what people in theengineering school do, but perhaps not so different. so i'm going to take youthrough some of the things that i've done over the lasteight years that have gotten me

to this point, and some ofthe lessons i've learned. so what elizabeth toldyou, just to refresh on what i do specifically,basic research lab. i'm trained in geneticsand biochemistry. and my lab focuses onaging and nutrition, and the mechanism by which, whenyou eat less, you live longer. that is you ifyou were a rodent. and we work on mice primarily. or if you were a fly or a yeast,the same thing holds true.

but what i actuallydo is study how the mechanisms that allowyou to live longer actually increase your stress resistance. and that turns out to bevery handy when you have a planned stress in your life. and so what we actuallywork on is surgery. and we're trying to figureout what you should-- or in this case,shouldn't eat-- before you go into a major surgery toincrease your body's resistance

to stress. so that's what i do. and the reason i tell you thatis because the first key lesson i learned at harvardis to be able to define what you do in two sentences. and it has to behopefully exciting, and it has to soundreally important. and most importantly,you have to be the best person in the world at that.

so you really have todefine your niche carefully. and i still struggle withthat, because my lab actually does a lot more than just that. we work on differentorganisms, different pathways. and i continually struggle withhow exactly to define my niche, my role. to make myself that mostimportant person doing that most important thing. but i think it's a good lesson.

and for me, learningthat lesson has helped with a lot of otheraspects of the business that are very important. publishing, for example. getting grants. it's easier to publish andget grants based on things that people know thatyou're the best at. things that they trustthat you know how to do. when you get outsideof your core business,

you're area of focus, peopledon't have that trust. they don't know you. and unfortunately, alot of this business is based on personalinteractions. who you know, theirjudgment of you personally. so it's enormously helpfuljust to keep that focus. what is your core business? what do you work on? what are you the best at?

and build out from there. not easy, but very important. so a corollary tothat is writing. and i wasn't a particularlygood writer coming in, and i've really hadto sharpen my skills. communication in general. i wasn't a very good speaker. and i've tried tosharpen my skills. these days, it'snot good enough just

to write well andspeak well, but i think you have tobe even more clever with social media and other waysof getting your message out. so the more often youcan get your message out, i think it does have benefits. and this can be atmeetings, traveling, perhaps in the public realm. the media itself, sometimesthey find something you do interesting.

and you can try to use them asa route to convey your message and how interesting it is,and how it should be funded, for example, by the nih. that's a bit of adouble-edged sword, too, because the media cantake what you do and twist it into something else. but it's by and largeprobably worth it to try to get thatattention on what you do. so that's the key lesson, thetwo sentence, the elevator

pitch. setting up a lab. an assistant professor is likea small business entrepreneur. you have to run a group. you have to obtain funding. you get your investor. the university gives you,in our case, about two and a half, three years. at least that's how itwas eight years ago.

but you probablyhave no training-- at least if you're ageneticist like me, you're not trained inorganizational skills. you're not trained in finance. and you're certainly not trainedin choosing people or managing them. and for me, that's beenthe biggest struggle is to choose good people. of course, harvard's wonderful.

the students, thepost-docs, even the technicians that we haveaccess to is tremendous. but i really wish i hada sixth sense to know, that's the one that'sa good fit for my lab. a mutual good fit. and i don't. and talking to my colleagues,even the senior ones, they get better. but i don't think anybody reallyhas the secret to choosing

people that are a good match. but we keep trying. grants after the three yearstart-up package runs out fund everything, including,in my case, 70% of my salary is through my grant. so that's primarily what i dothese days is write for grants. but of course, to get grants,you need to have the papers. and for the papers,you need to choose the good people, thestudents, the postdocs who

then deliver the data. and it's thatpreliminary data, then, that allows youto get the grant. so it's just a revolving circle. and where do you start? you come in here. it's your first year. i've seen two differentpatterns that people follow to break into the business.

one is to hire seniorpeople, a senior lab manager or technician,senior postdocs, and to have a veryhigh burn rate. just churn outmature data rapidly, and then enter thepublications and the grants. i chose a fundamentallydifferent route-- to do everythingmyself very slowly, and to learn and make allthe mistakes along the way. i think both pathscan be successful.

it probably just dependson your personality. so there are unfortunatelyno generalizations that i can make. i've seen both succeed,i've seen both fail. the one thing that i cansay is choosing my path, at least i do knowhow to do everything. and also comingfrom europe, there was some necessityto that because i didn't have any ideahow things here worked.

so that's maybe situational. but i think thosetwo paths can work. taking advantage of resources. of course, as we'veheard, they're tremendous. and i alreadymentioned the students, and we heard from alangarber, the faculty are also wonderful resources notjust for what you do, but for things that aretangentially related, which might have someinfluence at some point.

collaboration isa wonderful thing, but i'll give one examplefor me that it was enormously enriching. but i entered it witha false pretenses of what i thought imight get out of it. so being in the schoolof public health-- and we have a department ofimmunology and infectious diseases-- i struckup a collaboration with a biologist whoworks on malaria,

which i know nothing about. we were interested inhow what the host eats-- and the host being the mouse,in this case-- how what they eat affects the course of disease. and we found some reallyinteresting stuff. namely, that if yourestrict food intake, you don't succumbto the illness. so very interesting. and i thought,this is wonderful.

it's really enriched how ithink about my core business. but the mistake i made is tothink that i could turn that into another core business. and that has beenenormously difficult. to go, then, to different studysections, different journals who don't know me. i'm not a malaria guy. and to try to recapitulatethe same thing that i'm doing in my coredidn't work out, in my case.

that was my expectation,to diversify my funding. and it was a false expectation. i keep trying, becauseit's really interesting. and so i would saythe take home was that it was so interestingand so enriching for my core business thatit was totally worth doing. but it's hard topredict ahead of time. so i just don't havefalse expectations of what you might get out of it.

equipment is another thing maybespecific to the lab sciences. but it's all out there. you just have to figureout where, and who to ask, and how to ask. and i don't have any goodadvice except for perhaps things like this. so if there's anybodywho has a gc that detects hydrogen sulfide, iwould love to talk to you. it's worth a try.

navigating theharvard environment, there is very little herethat is as it appears. and you get to learn thatprobably pretty quickly. you've probably alreadyfigured that out. so for me, mentorshipwas really a key to surviving thisopaque environment. and mentorship fromthe tenured faculty was enormously helpfulin figuring out how the school, the school of publichealth and the university,

how they interact. how that works. what's important, wherei should spend my time. but wasn't reallyhelpful for how to climb the tenure ladderbecause they had done it in a different era. so for that, getting to knowyour colleagues who are just one step above you isenormously helpful, because it's different,i think, now that it

was even five or 10 years ago. lastly, the relationshipwith your department chair, who you can't,choose, by the way. it's like kids and parents. you're here already. you've got a department chair. but it really is ofcritical importance. although i don'tsee my department chair except once a monthat faculty meetings.

he's also my formaladviser, so i see him annually to discussmentorship-related items. but my relationshipwith him it's critical if i runinto a gap in funding. it's going to be mydepartment chair who's going to pull me through or not. he's the one who sets thepace of the tenure ladder. so again, it's notsomething you control, but it's certainlysomething you should be

aware of, at least in my case. and i've heard thisin other institutions in the lab sciences, too,of the critical importance of your relationship withyour department chair. finally, a piece of advice. and i think we justheard it from katia. don't worry aboutthe tenure too much. in our case, it's a10 to 11 year process. so maybe it's easierfor me to say.

i have other colleagues whoit's a five to six year process, and that seems farmore stressful. but in any case, withthe longer clocks, you can really say-- ican say in all honesty, possibly i'll get another jobwith a bigger salary running a department somewherebefore i make tenure. that's something i see happensto my colleagues all the time. another thing that might happenis you run out of funding and you don't have toworry about it anyway.

but hopefully youwill enjoy, you'll find a good work-life balance. and that period oftime, you won't just be focused on making tenure,but you'll actually learn and enrich yourselfduring that period. laurence ralph: hi. again, i'm laurence ralph. i'm in the departmentof anthropology and african andafrican-american studies.

i guess i'll begin by justreaffirming some of the things that the panelistshave said, and offering some concrete details. i think the first thing isuse the people around you as a resource. i think not onlyprofessionally, but personally. one of the biggestthings in my first year was that the people thati met in orientation in this institute aswell became people

that i would hang outwith for happy hours or what have you because wewere all new to cambridge. and we were all goingthrough the same process at the same time. and we still havesustained relationships. so i think that'sa critical thing. or at least it has been for me. the second thing i'll sayis that my first year, i had a striking experienceat this very faculty club.

and it wasn't duringthis institute, but shortly after, when mydepartment had an event here. and we were upstairsin one of these rooms, and there werewaiters with gloves on and silver trays passingout lobsters or something like that. and it was like a gleeclub in the background. and i was looking around,and i was like, where am i? and i had just came from theuniversity of michigan state,

a state school. and just as i'mhaving this thought, like, what is this place? one of my colleagues said,man, before the recession, we got two lobsters. and i couldn't believe it. i say that to say that therewill be moments like that here at harvard. and those moments canintimidate you, right?

because at the same time, youneed to interact with people. and what's especiallyjarring is the juxtaposition between those momentsand the conversations that you have with people whoare actually down to earth and friendly and funny. but you might not think so inparticular environments here. so i would say thatthat's an important thing to remember because again,the people in your department are resources that you canturn to for particular things,

right? i'm in two departments, soi've had different takes on how harvard operates. and even how adepartment operates, relationship with the chairof the department and what have you. and what's interesting isthat in terms of things like mentoring, there's noreal one fixed way that you can expect to be mentored, i think.

in both of mydepartments, mentoring has been really activeat particular moments. and you can tell that seniorcolleagues had a discussion about, this is what we'regoing to do about mentoring, and they'veimplemented something. but at other moments,it's not been on the radar in the same way. and it's oscillatedbetween both departments. so i would say that what'spresented to you now

might not be how itis in the long run. so it's important to takeadvantage of the opportunities that you have, particularlyaround mentorship, because they might not always be there. one faculty member mightbe really into mentorship, and that might be herthing or his thing. and they might bedriving the other faculty members towards that direction. but they might be on leavethe next year or something

so you don't know howit's going to pan out. i think in light of that,one of the best ways to approach a mentorship, ithink, is around your research, and around yourarea of expertise. and soliciting feedbackon what you do. and i think thisgoes back to what jay says aboutknowing your strengths and knowing who youare as a scholar, and branding yourself,for lack of a better word,

as the type of scholarthat you want to be. i think that particularlyaround if you're writing a paper, if you'rewriting a book chapter-- my field is a book field. but also, when you'reapplying to grants or things like that, when you can haveconcrete things to share with people andsolicit their feedback, it can be a way both to gethelp on what you're writing, but also a way forthem to know what

you do so whenthey see articles, they might send it to you. or when something comesacross in the news, you might have thosehappenstance conversations about that particular area orthat particular research topic. and i think that it'sespecially critical coming from another university, or ifthis is your first job coming from graduate schoolwhere you have a built in networkof your cohort,

or you have a built innetwork of your dissertation committee orsomething like that, this is like-- i would thinkof it as reconstituting another network ofscholars that can help you in the next phaseof your career. and there's particular--at least in the faculty of arts and sciences,there's particular centers that can help you with that. one is the fas researchadministration services.

and i would assume that otherschools have similar things, where if you have a grant,they can not only give you an idea of what kind ofthings that you can apply for based on your topic, butalso what faculty members are doing similar research. so they'll put you in touchwith different faculty members, even in differentschools, actually. you can get a letterof collaboration that can help your grantand things like that.

another thing is the variouscenters around harvard could be a way topresent your research and develop organicrelationships in that way with faculty that aredoing similar things. and i would say thatdeveloping this kind of network can be a way of thinkingabout harvard as a home base for your researchagenda, right? what i mean is that it canbe quite daunting to think about yourself asa researcher that

has to have a publicpresence, that has to have a website, thathas to have twitter, facebook, and all of these thingsthat-- not only are you doing research, but there'smore and more obligation to present your researchto the wider world. make it accessible tothe wider world in ways that we're oftennot trained to do. in ways in which we are notnecessarily comfortable doing. but i think one way is tothink about it as, what

are the various ways that youcan just promote your research around the university, right? and that's less daunting, right? can you develop a relationshipwith the harvard magazine, or the crimson orsomething like that that can also promote yourresearch in a different way that's not at the same scale,in a way that allows students and colleaguesaround the university to know about your research,know about your research

agenda, and have theseorganic conversations. and just a quickstory on that note is that the last researchgrant that i received, it was different in the sensethat your department had to nominate you for the grant. then it went up theladder and the provost had to select differentapplications out of the nominationsfrom each department. and then it went tothe granting agency.

but in my case, the reasonwhy my department chair knew that this grant wouldbe great for me, that was a great fitfor my research was because i had just shared withhim a nsf application, right? and so he had readthe nsf application. he had wrote a letter ofsupport for the nsf application. and that applicationwasn't successful. but this other grant wasthat was particularly for my research topic, right?

and he wouldn't haveknown that and had that on the forefrontof his mind if i hadn't been active aboutsharing my research, and sharing my researchinterest with him at that particularmoment in time. so i think that it'snever a lost cause when you try to build a network. it might take timeand it might take energy and things that arekind of difficult that you

don't always have. but i think that in theend, it will pay off for your ultimateresearch goals. elizabeth ancarana: thank you. ok, lots of great, great advise. and just to follow up on whatyou were saying, lawrence. there's also aresource available. it's open access. it was created in ouroffice a few years ago.

faculty finder. so you could just evengoogle harvard faculty finder and it'll come up. or the office websiteis faculty.harvard.edu. and there are lots of resourcesavailable to you there as well. but harvard facultyfinder on faculty finder, you can find otherfaculty at harvard that are working on similarresearch topics as yours. and that's a way to develop yournetwork around your scholarship

as well. do we have questions forany one of our panelists? and we have a [inaudible]mic that's coming around. speaker 1: i have a question. this is for jay or anyof the other panelists if they want togive a stab at it. so i want to followup on the comment you made about being anassistant professor or running a new lab essentiallyas being a small entrepreneur

and running a startup, which issomething that i've read about. and one thing i wanted to askis, how does this analogy carry over to getting funding? so from the perspectiveof this analogy, what does it mean about howproactive one must be, or what kind ofstrategies, essentially, one could use to getyour venture funded. james mitchell:right, so the rules used to be that youcan rely on the nih

for biomedical research. and now you have to diversify. so i think we try totrain our post-docs, and even our studentsthese days-- i wasn't trained in this way. but to always think about astrategy to take those data and turn them into more money. and that can be in the formof nih grants, of course. it can be in the formof foundational support

for some disease. it can even be fromcorporate sponsorship. and harvard isfantastic at bringing in corporations who areinterested in funding research at harvard. and i've recently been ableto take advantage of one of those types of grants. so the idea is aboutdiversification of funding. and i made the commentabout the department chair

is the one who, if youcan't make payroll, they're the one who'll bail youout, because that's how it is. you can see things--nih grants at least last typically around four years. so you can see it coming. but it's not something thatyou can turn around rapidly. so it could take you a yearor two to get one renewed. but i think the people preparea certain way these days. you just take this into account.

you're going tohave to diversify beyond the traditionalsources, and be creative. i've heard on the radioabout crowdsourcing of certain things. it hasn't come to thatfor us, but i think we all have open minds now. and i have to say, i don't thinkit compromises our research at all. it's the same data,the same interest.

a lot of what i do isobviously translational. if somebody wants to payfor that, that's great. and i don't see that ascompromising our mission katia bertoldi: cani add something? so on a very practicalside, [inaudible] very different strategies. so i've seen youngcolleagues basically say, ok, i'm going towrite one grant per month. even two grants per month.

and i've seen themsticking to this plan. and some of them havebeen very successful. some of them, not so successful. i've seen colleagues insteadbe more strategic and say, let's first collect-- let'sput together a very good idea. let's refine this idea. let's maybe have somepreliminary contact also with managers, withnsf manager, nih manager, and make sure thatwhat i'm going to write

is likely to be funded. again, also in this case,you're never sure, right? but also in this case, i've seen50% of this class of colleague being successful, and 50% not. so i believe there is not reallya single path to go around it. and also, something i foundvery useful, anyway, in my case, is money from industry. so don't forget to talk toalso people outside academia, outside fundingagency, because if you

are able to startthe right relations and meet the right people, thatmight be very, very useful. elizabeth ancarana: wehad another question. speaker 2: question for anyone. how close to the vestor not close to the vest do you keep your ideas,or intellectual property. i hate that term for what we do. but intellectual property-- i'veseen senior faculty, and not even senior faculty be verysecretive with things they're

working on, and thatmakes me kind of sad as someone in academia. at the same time, i hadlunch with a friend of mine. she's a post-doc and sheapplied for a faculty job at another institution. and a couple months later, thechair of that search committee didn't talk about the job butsaid, oh, can you look at this grant that i'm writing. it's basically an idea thatcame from her application.

and then i thought backa couple months ago, where professor xfrom institution y said, oh, what are youworking on these days? and i kind of said, well, i'mthinking about this new space. and they're like, wellsend me what you have. i'd love to just look at it. and i didn't send anything,but i was like, oh no. what did-- thatmakes me kind of sad. so how did you thinkabout that at all.

laurence ralph: yeah, i cansay a few words on that. i think the fields area little bit different, but i think onthings like this, it can be kind ofcounter-intuitive in the sense that if more peopleknow about your work, i think it's less likely thatsomebody takes your idea. but if you keep itclose to the vest, it could be more likely becausethe person that you shared it with could then take it.

so i think that speaks towardsgetting your ideas out there, having them in circulation,presenting your ideas. and i also think thatyou're here for a reason. you're here because theybelieved in what you do. and so i think thatthey ultimately want you to develop that coresense of your research agenda. so i think that you haveto have conversations with your colleagues aboutthese kind of things. and getting yourideas out there.

i think can help. james mitchell: just a quicknote from my perspective. we've all heard thesestories, and they're real. these things do happen. and i think it'sa risk assessment. you have more togain, or more to lose. and i like to say that,for the most part, i think i have moreto gain by sharing. that being said, peopleare creatures of habit

and do develop reputationsfor doing these things. so to some degree, that can bepart of your risk assessment. you can find out-- ifsomebody's specifically asking about an idea of yours,that it's in an idea state, check it out. speaker 2: thoughts, katia? katia bertoldi:no, i totally agree with what laurence and jay say. typically i tend to be open.

i know there is some riskassociated with that, but i really think that theadvantages in being open are much larger and muchmore than the disadvantages, because what youwant to make sure is that people knowabout what you're doing. and if you are very secretive,and you keep everything as a secret, peopledon't get to know. and maybe then you reallyrun the risk of somebody get the same idea withoutknowing what you're doing,

and they get it. james mitchell: last thought. people love collaboratingwith harvard. so if they're fromwithout, it can definitely be used to your advantage. speaker 3: i justhad a question. i was reflecting on all thevarious things you said, and in some sense, it's, nooffense, a bit of a downer. i was curious if you could speakto-- the point of this exercise

is to have fun on somelevel, and to live an interesting life. and i was wondering what thingsyou've done over the years to preserve the actual pointof the exercise in the face of worrying about money, andworrying about promotion, and all of that. how do you keep the joy? katia bertoldi: well, i'mstill proud when i meet people outside harvard in the evening.

and after a while, theyask me, what's your job. and i tell them what i'm doing. they're very surprised. and what i alwaystell my husband, the day they assume i'm afaculty, i'm going to quit. so i think it's possible tokeep a level of joy inside, and to combine it withan academic career and with your job. and also, within the job,i think it's a lot of fun.

i really enjoy interactingwith the students. and i'm probably more fun nowthan when i was a post-doc and i was doing the research. i was in the lab by myself. now i'm in the lab onlyover summer a few times. most of my time, i'm in myoffice writing or a meeting with people. but it's still a lotof-- it's even more fun because now i have the abilityto work on multiple projects

and develop more ideas, and towork with these extremely smart people, it's just amazing. laurence ralph: yeah, i wouldecho some of those comments. i think that the peoplein both of my departments are leading figures ofthe kind of research i do in different ways. and so the ability to havejust conversations with them, the ability to picktheir brain, the ability to get concrete feedback fromthem is actually enjoyable,

and it's actually helped mepersonally and professionally and so i think that thingsloom large in the background. but i think that being hereand having the platform that we have and having the kindof interactions that we have is a humbling experience. it's a fun experience. and also, just theamount of people that circulate throughharvard at any given semester, let alone a year, is areally, really fun experience.

and you really have theresources to just imagine what you want to happen. there's no personthat i can think of that i couldn't imagineinviting to harvard, period. that includes, i don'tknow, entertainers. it includes scholars. it includes athletes. it includes anybody whoi would want to meet. and i think it's not outof the realm of possibility

that they wouldaccept an invitation. and so i think being able tohave that kind of imagination is fun. it's part of the reasonwhy i wanted to be a professor in the first place. elizabeth ancarana: jay, doyou want to add anything? james mitchell: i'd justecho these sentiments. doing research iswhat drives me, and this is the best placein the world to do it.

and that makes me very happy. and i feel very luckyto be able to do that. stephen gray: i have a question. stephen gray. i have a questionto sort of follow up on that one that relatesto balance and time management and joy. being someone-- i just recentlycame from private practice and i had a half timeappointment at mit.

but primarily, my contributionwas through my practice. so now i'm moving fully intothe academic realm, which is a little bit different for me. but i also have a youngchild, and i have a partner. my wife, who wouldlove to make sure that she sees meat the same hour all the time in somesort of predictable way. so what do people do forbalance with their partners and their children,and carving out time

strategically to do the thingsthat we need to do in order to push thinking in ourrespective disciplines? james mitchell: i'lltake a stab at that. i have three kids who are inthe middle school to high school range. and i think one of the biggestadvantages of being in academia is you can set yourown schedule, largely. i don't travel thatmuch by choice. so i can do allthe little things

that many of my colleaguesin other fields can't do. i can go to breakfast shares. i can go to plays inthe middle of the day. i can do all those little thingsthat cumulatively, i think, really enrich my life. katia bertoldi: i think one ofthe big advantages of academia is flexibility. but then we need also tobe very careful about that because my husbandhas an industrial job.

so it's 7:00 to 5:00. at 5:00, they get outand it's over, right? and then you startthe day after. when you have aflexible job, you have the tendencyto run over, right? and there's so much to do. but i think at acertain point, it's important to recognize that evenif you spend eight days a week and 48 hours a day,it's not enough to do

what you should do. [inaudible] there are limits. and you need toaccept your limits. and apparently, it's notpossible to do everything you would like to do. and just accept that, and tryto find a good compromise. and it's also true that thetenure process is quite long. in engineering school,it's seven years.

it might be longer,but probably i don't think it mightbe much shorter. so maybe you want to spend--if it's one month time period, you're willing to spend all theperiod just doing one thing. but for seven years,it's 1/10 of your life. so it's really important to makesure you find a good balance. elizabeth ancarana:question here? speaker 4: thank you. my question is directedto all the panelists,

but i think it'sgets a little bit to the point around networking. and it's about howmuch time you try to dedicate-- if there's aspecific amount of time-- to engagement in non-researchor non-academic activities within yourdepartments or schools. and i'm specifically thinkingabout committee engagement. i have two extremes. i have a secondaryappointment in the department

of biostatistics whereliterally in any given week, i'll get three requestsfor committee membership of academics orcurriculum that would take five hours a week for months. on the other extreme, inmy primary appointment in the department of globalhealth and social medicine, i know these committees exist,but there's no open invitation to join them. and i'm just wondering,one, how much

do you value thesememberships in committees both in terms of yourprofessional enjoyment, but also yourprofessional advancement. two, do you have a setidea of how much time you would want to try tocommit to those activities? how do you balance thatwhen you, like you said, have so many things thatyou're trying to balance. and then three, arethere any committees that you've just reallylearned a lot from,

or that you would recommendthat junior faculty get involved in because they can learna lot about the underbelly of the school, orhow things work, or how promotioncommittees work. laurence ralph: yeah,i'll take a stab at that. for me, it's been trialand error, actually. just figuring it out. i think my approachhas been committees that-- particularly when it'soutside of the department

or the departments that i'min, just wider fas committees, it's been things that i enjoy,and that i know that will nourish me in a different way. so i'm on the committeefor public service. and i think thinkingthrough those ideas around public serviceand meeting students who are interested in publicservice in particular, i think that is fun for me. or women and genderstudies, or ethnic studies.

so basically, i'mon committees that enhance my research interestsoutside of what i specifically do. but as far as committeesfor the department, i think setting limits isa good idea, especially for me in two departments. i think that it'sfine to say that i'm on this number of committeesin this department, and this on this, so i reallycan't take anything on.

or there's committeesthat are only particular to specifictimes of the year that you can planto manage, or manage your time in different ways. prize committees are like that. so if you're on aprize committee, it's really at theend of the year that you wouldhave to read a lot. but it's only sustainedfor a couple of weeks,

and then it's over. so you could do that. like the hoopes prizeis one of those things where it's actually enjoyable. you actually get to reada lot of different theses from studentsdoing amazing work. and it's a lot ofwork, but it's a lot of work for a particular amountof time, and then it's over. and this same thing withselection committees

for graduate school when you'readmitting graduate students. that's a particulartime of the year, at the end of thefirst semester. but once you're donethat, it's kind of done. and that way, you can be a goodcitizen to your department, but you're not incommittees where you have to meet on a regularbasis for the whole year. and so i wouldthink strategically about the kinds of committeesthat you like personally.

the ones-- what kind of timecommitment they take up. when in the year they takeup those time commitments. but at the end ofthe day, i think it's trial and error,because you'll figure out which ones that youenjoy, and which ones that you don't want to do. and it's really a personalthing on many levels, whether you enjoycurriculum or you enjoy hands onstudent committees,

or you enjoy things like that. james mitchell: nois a full sentence. for me, it's verydifficult to say, and i think the advice fromlaurence is really good. but even some committees-- theone i least like to serve on is the iacuc committee, theanimal ethical committee. it's a huge time commitment. but i'd have to say, i'velearned a tremendous amount from that one.

not just about the businessitself, but also because it's on a harvard medical area, thelongwood medical area level. so it's closer to auniversity level committee. and that's been reallyinteresting starting as a young assistantprofessor who naively accepts an offer from his departmentchairman who said, oh, it's just afew times a year. really not a big deal. so it was a hidden opportunity,i would say, to learn a lot.

speaker 5: soactually, following up on that exact point. i'm curious to know whatyour strategies have been around the art of sayingno, whether it's committee meetings or service,maybe guest lecturing, or doing reviewarticles or chapters. how have you allnavigated saying no, particularly to senior levelpeople within your departments? katia bertoldi: it's not easy.

it's not easy. so at the beginning, iwas afraid to say no. and so i said a lot of yes. but then i ran into trouble. big trouble, becausei was over-committed, and then i was not able todeliver what i promised. so quickly realizedthat that was much worse than sayingno at the very beginning, because if you say yes, thenthe person expects something

from you. and then, you need to deliver. so i quickly realized that. fortunately, at the beginning,you have the excuse, you're young. so you can use the excuse,sorry, i over-committed. i didn't realize that. and come out with thissort of apologies. so if you say toomany yes, you will

learn at a certain pointyou need to say no. but i think it's better to sayno from the very beginning, so yeah. laurence ralph:so some strategies that are complicated thati've had trouble with. one is the deferral strategy,because people do remember and they do ask you later. so that one doesn't always work. i think setting limitsactually is a good one in terms

of-- this is what i'vecommitted to for the year, and i can't do anythingabove that in order to do what i have to do. i think people understand that. and that goes for, ithink, travel as well, like when people areinviting you to things. you'll get suddenlya lot of invitations, and setting limits. really thinking intentionallyof how many times

this semester am i goingto leave or go out of town, or something likethat, because that will affect your ability todeliver what you promised here and i think one of thebiggest strategies, though, is asking peoplehow to say no, too. i think this office is goodat giving advice about that. like you can ask somebody,or even ask a mentor, what kinds of things can i sayno to, and what kinds of things are really good for me todo, or expected of me to do?

or if you can'tactually do something. a lot of times,you can't actually do things because you can'tbe in two places at one time, things like that. but just the minutiaof knowing how to frame a response to somebody,you can seek out help for that. and it can be very useful. elizabeth ancarana: weprobably have time for one more question, if anyone has any.

ok, well this wasreally informative. really wonderful. thank you to all threeof our panelists,

professor walter dietrich,katia, jay, and laurence. we have time for abouta 15 minute break, but we're going to startagain right promptly at 3:45 with our tenured faculty panel.