Gender*Equality Team – establishing equal opportunities for people of all genders; counseling is open to all members, associates and guests of Freie Universität Berlin and can be booked here.
Prof. Dr. Helene Kretzmer, professor for computational genomics and recipient of the DRS Supervision Award for outstanding PhD supervision, shares what really matters when it comes to good supervision: trust, clear communication, and flexibility in dealing with different work styles. She talks openly about her own experiences and challenges in academia and gives insights into how she juggles research and teaching. Plus: why mistakes matter – and why a healthy work-life balance is essential in science.
Audio
This interview was conducted in April 2025.
HIGHLIGHTS
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Find your own passion, what you want to do and try things out. And then you will find the topic you’re curious about. And once you have this, you will be able to do great research on it. So, you know, you will grow into the scientific role.”
“Failing itself is not the big problem. Because if we don’t fail, we didn’t try things out of the box. And I think that’s part of research, trying things that are not streamlined and have been often done before.”
“An unhealthy relationship between supervisor and PhD student over an extended period of three or four years, where both sides are frustrated, is simply extremely painful.”
– Prof. Dr. Helene Kretzmer
INTRO
Welcome to the DRS podcast, the podcast for doctoral researchers at Freie Universität Berlin. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and today’s episode is all about one of the most important relationships in any doctoral journey, the relationship between PhD candidates and their supervisors. My guest is Professor Dr. Helene Kretzmer, who received the DRS Supervision Award for outstanding doctoral supervision, an award nominated by PhD researchers themselves. In this conversation, we explore what makes a great PhD supervisor, how to build a successful working relationship, and what both doctoral candidates and supervisors can do to make the doctoral journey a positive and productive experience. Professor Kretzmer shares her thoughts on why supervision isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, how she adopts two different working styles, and why trust and open communication are essential for a successful PhD. We also talk about her personal experiences, how she found her way into academia, the defining moment that sparked her interest in research, and her perspective on work-life balance in academia. If you’re a PhD researcher looking for guidance, an aspiring professor wondering how to supervise doctoral candidates, or if you’re simply curious about what makes an excellent PhD experience, this episode is for you.Let’s get started.
Interview
Welcome, Professor Kretzmer. It’s great to have you here today. Before we dive into the topic of good doctoral supervision, how would you introduce yourself, what do you do professionally, and what motivates you in your work?
Thank you very much. So what I do in my general daily work, or the research that my group does, is quite interdisciplinary. And we’re pretty much at the intersection between bio and medical informatics. And we’re basically working with a variety of different tools of sequencing data, different layers of regulation, different methods, using, for example, single-cell and long-read sequencing. And yeah, we basically mix them with different types of computational strategies. And on the one hand, we’re then interested in understanding how the epigenome regulates health and disease cells. So, for example, how does a cancer cell differ from its benign counterpart? And on the other side, we’re a bit more translational. So, we try to utilize all the knowledge that we and others acquire to then develop new methods and models. So, for example, classifying tumour entities. And then by this, we try to integrate basically these two sides, basic and translational research, and our far-fetched aim would be then to improve patient care and improve disease diagnostics. And what drives me, I think, is this really interdisciplinary work where we work with a variety of different people. So clinicians, other bioinformaticians, informaticians, also clinicians and biologists. So basically working together, everyone brings their own type of expertise. And all of that becomes, I think, quite powerful and then really an impact on the long stretch, at least we hope, on human beings and patients in care situations.
That sounds very interesting, and I know that in your research you also work with PhD candidates and you recently won the DRS Supervision Award. Congratulations! Do you remember when you first heard about it? Where were you and how did you feel?
Thank you very much. Yes, I was actually overwhelmed. So it was very cute because I was sitting in the team meeting when the email came and we were basically wrapping up and with half an eye, I saw this email popping up with the headline, more or less stating that. And I didn’t want to react because I didn’t know really what was the remaining content of that email, but it had like kind of a gut feeling what it was about. So yeah, I was really touched because for me, it’s very important to have a research group that is happy and loves what they are doing. And then getting such an incredibly amazing and nice and friendly feedback. Yeah, I think that really made my day and made me very happy.
So when we’re looking at the relationships between doctoral candidates and supervisors, which I personally think are really important, how important do you think is a strong relationship between doctoral candidates on one side and their supervisors on the other side for a successful PhD?
I think successful in terms of going through the PhD with being liking what you do and being happy about what you do and really feeling that you have fulfilled what you’re doing and then also continue maybe with this work or similar work. I think for this, for most of the people, it’s quite essential. So I think I would never have made it through my PhD when I would not have known that I would have been in an amazing group with a strong supervisor and that’s also the feeling that I have with my group and the people I supervise that for us it’s quite important that we know each other well enough that also if someone has a bad day one can basically take care and feature that in. And that you know that you can come to your supervisor with any problem, issue and also amazing and great news. And you know, this person has a good relationship with you and understands you and react to it. And it’s not like a neutral person that gives remote information or not.
So a very human approach, we could say.
Yes, so I think for me the one fits all solution definitely doesn’t work. I like to figure out with everyone in the group, or with everyone at work actually, what the right type of interaction is. So some people just like to disappear for 10 days and be like, let me work and then I present. And then I think that’s the right approach for them and I’m happy to adapt to it. Others like to come in every day once or twice and just give quick updates and ask for feedback. And sometimes it also depends on the phase of the project. And I think most of the people, you know, if they’re in their safe zone and feel welcome and supported, they can do the best work that is possible. And that’s the state that I try to enhance and create.
Now, you already said that the one fits all solution doesn’t exist. Do you still think that there are some key factors that contribute to a successful relationship between the doctoral researchers and their supervisors?
Oh, yes. I think key factors, definitely. And I think this is about trust and also being emphatic about the other person and understanding their position and also their feelings and which type of pressure they sense at that moment. So I think in terms of the ingredients put together, this works basically in every situation and I would almost say it’s essential in any relationship. It’s just how to dose it and how much to use of which part and which station just depends on the person and the project.
Now let’s take a look at your personal ideal doctoral candidate. Are there specific qualities that doctoral candidates should have to work well with you as a supervisor and who would be the right fit in your research group?
I think for me what is relevant is that someone is interested in the topic itself intrinsically and brings the right level of excitement. So I usually give a little bit of a speech at the beginning that I tell people that I’m not going to kind of carry them to the goal and that I’m not going to tell them how many hours they have to work or when they have to do what. I’m happy to support everyone and enable them but I will not micromanage or put up stringent timelines that they have to fulfill. So the self-drivenness I think is essential because I love my job a lot and I work with a lot of people that love what they do. And if someone actually does not want to work on a topic, I think this is creating a painful situation for both sides. And that’s nothing you can cover by, you know, pressuring people into certain parts of the work. So yes, I think being highly motivated and self-driven and then being interested in the topic. And I think from that stage, we will agree on good terms how to work together.
When you’re having interviews for research positions for PhD candidates, how do you make sure that people actually have this intrinsic motivation in the topic? Is it just the smile on their face or is there other things that you consider?
I think it’s a good mixture of both sides probably. So it’s on the one side, I think it’s a lot of personal clicking. So I’ve hardly had the time that I met someone and was either not convinced in one or the other direction. So I believe into the gut feeling and sensing someone and getting a feeling that you get along well. And then finding the right project, because there are so many interesting things to work on. Not everyone needs to be interested in everything. So it’s getting well along with someone, feeling that they want to work on it, which usually correlates with someone approaching me, asking for a PhD position, having maybe read a paper, asking a few questions about certain things we do. And then the next half is basically figuring out if they know what they would like to do. And if not, collecting enough data points basically to design something to get started, to give them the option to learn what they’re actually curious about.
Many things of what you say, they touch on the fact that different people have different needs. Did you already encounter the situation that you had to adjust your approach as a supervisor? And if so, could you share an example?
So yes, I had a few occurrences in that direction, let’s say. So I think usually when it’s about master or bachelor theses, I think the intrinsic motivation is sometimes, or the idea that people think that they want something is not as developed as for a PhD position. So with bachelor and master students, I had this a few times that they were really not that much self-driven as they stated at the beginning. And then I had to adjust in a way that I gave like smaller snippets of information and basically told them a bit more in which direction it goes. But I think that’s a good learning example for them as well as for me, but especially for them to understand, okay, this is maybe not what I like. And I think that also reaches into the range of PhD students. And here I would say it’s not the student’s fault and neither the supervisor’s fault. Sometimes people don’t match. And I think at that stage it’s relevant to understand this early, because an unhealthy relationship between supervisor and PhD student over an extended period of three or four years, where both sides are frustrated, is simply extremely painful. So sensing this early and then rather seeing how to improve the situation, and that might include switching the group, is something that I, of course, don’t like to consider. But sometimes I think it helps both sides and improves the situation for everyone.
And when would be the best moment to do so? Right in the beginning when you realize something is off? Or do you think it’s worth waiting a while?
I think kind of a while. So usually, especially when you switch the country, the first few weeks might be simply different, and you might adjust to a new environment and everything. But then I would say within those first three to four months, you really sense if this is going to work out long term or not. And that’s also a timeframe where you can find options and search and also support the student by maybe finding a better option.
What do you think doctoral candidates can do wrong in their collaboration with their supervisors?
I think not being honest, at least in my experience, doesn’t work. So if you have the feeling, you know, you need to be a different person in the meeting and you cannot express what you actually think or feel, I think that’s a mistake because that means that the other person can also not adjust to you but maybe thinks everything is fine, everything is good and is not considering to change on their side. And I think for me it’s a matter of fairness that everyone is allowed to say I don’t like the following or I feel overwhelmed. And then it’s not about like, this is your fault or something, but work together to find a solution so that everyone gets again into the space where they can actually show that they are great researchers and proceed and grow.
Definitely. Now let’s change direction a little bit and move to another topic. I would like to know what was your childhood dream? What did you want to be when you were a child?
That was for me a very constant dream. So I wanted to become a medical doctor. And I think I started with that dream really from really early childhood on that was very clear medical doctor it is. And it took quite a few years, actually, until Abitur, where I then started to realize that I found the knowledge you gain during this type of work and during the studies extremely interesting. But I actually never really wanted to work as a medical doctor, but wanted to do research in this direction. That’s why I think also the perspective of my research group is a bit in that direction still. So it never stopped that this was a path I considered for a long time.
So after you started studying at university, did you know pretty much right away that the academic career was the right fit for you or was it a defining moment, a moment where you thought, okay, I’m definitely going to stay in research because that’s what I love?
I think I was absolutely unsure what I wanted to do. So I studied biomathematics, so mainly mathematics with a bit of biology on top. And for a long term, I was actually not really sure what I wanted to do. So what I did was then going for a semester abroad, I went to New Zealand. And there in 2010, I worked the very first time with sequencing data. And that was incredibly fascinating for me. I figured out that you can actually read out the entire genomic context of a cell or content of a cell. And back then I thought, wow, now we can actually know everything about a cell and really understand how diseases arise and how things go wrong within a cell. Of course, it turned out that there are so many more layers that we couldn’t read out during that time and that we might be able to read out now, but still it’s way more complex than just sequencing. But that was for me a defining moment where I understood this is the type of research that I would like to do. And from then on, I was pretty sure that I would like to proceed with a PhD and also there see a bit what the next steps are.
So you didn’t have a plan going ahead? You weren’t sure yet if you want to have a professorship one day or not?
No, for a long time not. I think I during my PhD, I considered doing a postdoc simply because I was curious about what we were doing, but I was, I wouldn’t say afraid, but I had huge respect for the idea of actually running a group because that means that a lot of people are trusting me that I come up with cool ideas. How they can get started and then trust me that this will result in them having a PhD. And I found that this was, you know, it’s not only caring for me and my research and my career, but now taking over the responsibility for other people. This was something I did not consider during my PhD and it took a little while throughout my postdoc to actually grow into this role and understand that I like it a lot.
That would have been my next question. Now that you have the role and the responsibility as well, how does it make you feel?
Let’s say I did a relatively long postdoc and then slowly grow into the group leader role before I then started with a professor position. I had a lot of training time and also time to build up some confidence and also get the respective feedback from people I was working with. And now I enjoy working with a lot of excited young people, seeing how they grow, how their research starts from the beginning of the PhD and then develops throughout the time. So I think I’m in the happy place where I’m really doing what I like. And now I’m more confident that with the right motivation and the right team, the PhD for most of the people is an exciting and great time and not a scary and uncertain time.
Let’s imagine I were one of your doctoral candidates and wanted to become a professor. What would you advise me to focus on? Or maybe you would also say, let yourself grow into it, allow yourself to grow into it. Or would you say there’s something I should prioritize, be it publications, networking or maybe teaching?
I think there are hard and soft facts, basically. So I think on the soft side, I would say, don’t be afraid to fail. Find your own passion, what you want to do and try things out. And then you will find the topic you’re curious about. And once you have this, you will be able to do great research on it. So, you know, you will grow into the scientific role. And then, of course, these parts that are useful when you consider applying somewhere, which means, of course, papers count. I think that’s simply the type of money we deal with. But papers will fall into place if you do great research. So I think that part should grow over time. Then I would definitely say do some teaching because the role of a professor is not only supervising people and doing research, but the main part is about teaching. And if you don’t like it, neither you nor your students will enjoy the time where you are in the classroom. And I think that makes considerable parts of your life actually less enjoyable than they could be. Yes, that’s why I would say teaching, testing that, seeing if you like it and how to become good at it, is essential.
Yes, I totally agree. And I’m happy that you mentioned it because I think teaching is often frowned upon a bit or people don’t like it as much. They think it just comes with the job. But yes, I think the same as you just said that in order to be happy and fulfilled and to make your students and PhD candidates happy as well, it’s really important to also like that part of your job as a professor.
And I think it can actually be really fun. So I think if you do an exciting lecture, often the questions you get are pretty good questions and also coming from different angles than you were thinking about it. And sometimes you’re like, this is actually a really good idea. I haven’t thought about it. And also seeing people, you know, grow into the topic and become more interested about the parts you do. For me, that pays back a lot if you have an excited class there. Of course, it’s also exhausting if you talk for 90 minutes straight, that is exhausting physically. But for me, it pays back a lot to see that people are interested in what you’re doing and even consider pursuing that path of research.
Now looking back at your own PhD, what were the biggest challenges you faced and what, or maybe also who, helped you to overcome them?
I think for my PhD, some big challenges were that it was part of a larger consortium. So there were a lot of stakeholders and expectations. So I think my major challenge was basically myself, because I needed to find my way of working in a larger group where everyone needed something and also gaining confidence that I was doing things correct and right. And I think the part that was a challenge was also helping me to overcome because I met a great number of people that really were super supportive and taught me a lot. And with them, I learned that I really like the type of interdisciplinary joint research, because once the knowledge of different expert domains comes together, you can learn way more about a disease or a cell state than you could do on your own.
You said that you had to find your own way of working. I’m very curious. What is your own way of working? What did you find?
I think my way of working is, first of all, seeing the other side and understanding their way of thinking and also their approaches and trying to find a good way of communication, because in my opinion, communication is really the key to most of the things. There are so many options how misunderstandings can happen, especially when you come from different domains, where you sometimes almost speak different types of languages. So the way a clinician phrases something, the bioinformatician might not understand at all, and the other way around. And I think all domains have things that are easy and work well, but all domains also have challenges. And if we do not understand the other side, it’s hard to really build integrative work.
I agree. Definitely. By the means of communication, a lot of misunderstandings can be discovered and avoided or solved. Now, another thing you said, which I also find very interesting, is that you had to gain confidence to do the things I think you said correctly and right. And I think that’s very interesting because in my experience, a lot of PhD candidates lack confidence which also might be due to experiences they had, a lot of criticism maybe. Do you have any tips for what people in a similar position could do to gain confidence?
I think finding a mentor or someone you trust helps a lot because your mentor doesn’t need to be always your supervisor because your supervisor has to have a look at the science and also be more critical. But if you have a mentor, that person might simply help you to explain less emotional both sides. And I think for me, usually positive reinforcement works quite well. So I don’t work that well with people just saying this and this is bad. So I think finding a good balance between, of course, criticizing and the friendly and nice way of things go wrong, because ignoring them usually doesn’t help. But on the other side, also telling people if they did something good and correct, so that they can build confidence on what they are doing. And learn to balance also the emotions on if they did something wrong. Because, you know, I think failing itself is not the big problem. Because if we don’t fail, we didn’t try things out of the box. And I think that’s part of research, trying things that are not streamlined and have been often done before. So I think supporting people on being allowed to fail and helping them then to get on a path where they can proceed. That’s how I think I myself build confidence on things. And I have the feeling that also works for a few other people.
Do you think that’s sometimes lacking in the academic field that people get encouraged, that they also get encouraged to make mistakes and learn from them?
I think it’s kind of also a natural way, especially if there’s a lot of pressure, that it’s easy to say, let’s not do any extra rounds, let’s not try something that is high risk. I can see how this sometimes is also like a, I wouldn’t say survival strategy, but a strategy that you need to do to get through harsh times. But for me, that’s where research starts, where it becomes interesting to try new things. So it wouldn’t be the type of research that I would like to do.
And you would miss out probably in a lot of interesting stuff.
Yeah, I mean, everything, of course, you know, if you don’t do high risk, you might be quicker at the goal that you might have put. The question is, is this the best goal that you could have reached? And I think balancing this a bit, of course, you cannot, like do only high risk and fail throughout five years, because this will also need to lead somewhere, right? So I think finding the fine balance between being able to try new things and be allowed to fail and not … You know, if a student fails on something, you don’t need to tell them that they did a bad job. They are frustrated themselves, right? So it’s not that you need to like negatively enhance this feeling because no one likes to fail anyway. So I think finding a good balance between trying out new things with the risk of failing, but then also picking up the person again and helping them to recover and get to the next steps. I think that’s the challenge, but also if it works, it comes with a lot of reward.
I think it became very obvious during the course of this interview that you’re very passionate about your job, about research. When your job is also your passion, it can be easy for working hours to spiral out of control. How do you maintain a healthy work-life balance? Or maybe that’s also something you’re still working on.
I think the healthy work-life balance is first of all probably defined for everyone in their own way. And what I try to usually communicate is that there are phases of more speed, more work, where you have a high phase, where something is more urgent. And I think this is good to learn to tolerate them and actually kind of maybe also to enjoy them. But I think for a healthy work-life balance, we need also the down faces on the other side, you know, where you work less, where you recover from the sprint that you have just done. And I think by this, for me, it doesn’t look like, you know, a flat line where I have every time the same or every day the same work-life balance throughout a week or a month or a year. But there are phases where you do more and then are phases that you do less. And I think I try to balance that a bit in a way that every time I’m excited, of course, I have no problems for myself to say, okay, I’m working more during this time, or I’m spending more time on it. But then also trying to find the phases, you know, where you do more maintenance, and balance these two sides.
Do you think those phases with less work, they’re naturally integrated into the course of academia or is that something you actually have to make sure that it’s happening and that there are those phases with lower work pressure as well?
I think it’s both. So I think for the students, it’s often something the supervisor needs to enforce at some point. Because it’s easy to keep someone in the high phase. But usually, you know, if you run a sprint, you can’t do six sprints in a row over the distance of a marathon, because, you know, this is not how you can balance energy. So I think for people that are easy to be excited and to be in the sprint, it also needs someone taking care to make sure they stay as healthy as it should be. I have to admit for myself, I’m less good in it, but I also don’t feel like I’m suffering from that at the moment. So I will find my phases…
Professor Kretzmer, to wrap it up, let’s do a few quick questions, just short and spontaneous answers. It’s just a series of four or five questions I have for you. And I would ask you to just quickly answer with one word or it could be five words as well, but just a really quick and spontaneous answer.
Are you someone who likes to plan ahead or do you prefer to take things as they come?
I like to plan ahead, but I know this is not always possible.
In an ideal world, how many doctoral candidates would you like to supervise at the same time?
Four.
What do you enjoy most about leading a research group?
The joint work and also celebrating together the successes.
Do you have a role model in academia or in doctoral supervision?
Actually not.
Who is more responsible for a good relationship, the supervisor or the PhD candidate?
The supervisor.
Because?
Because the supervisor has way more information on most of the things, is way longer in the game and hopefully already, let’s say, emotionally more stable and experienced in doing research together.
And they also hold more power in the hierarchy of the university?
Absolutely, yes.
Is there anything else you would like to share with doctoral candidates, maybe also with other supervisors?
I think for doctoral candidates is mainly find a place where you think you can do great research, where you feel understood. And yes, I would almost say happy. And then the research will fall into place.
Thank you so much for this conversation. It was very inspiring to hear about your experiences. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you very much.
OUTRO
That was such an insightful conversation with Professor Dr. Helene Kretzmer, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. We covered so much from the key principles of good supervision to practical advice for doctoral candidates, career planning for future professors, and even the role of failure and work-life balance in academia. One key takeaway? A strong PhD supervisor relationship isn’t just about research. It’s built on trust, communication, and understanding different working styles.
If you’d like to learn more about the DRS Supervision Award and past awardees, visit the Dahlem Research School podcast website. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to check out our other interviews with supervisor award winners, and discussions on key topics in the doctoral journey. This was Dr. Marlies Klamt for the DRS podcast, the podcast of Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join us again for our upcoming episodes.
The Doctoral Council acts as the representative body for all doctoral researchers at the university. It was established in the State of Berlin following the implementation of the new Berlin Higher Education Act (Hochschulgesetz). At Freie Universität Berlin, the council comprises two elected members from each department, totaling 22 members. We interviewed Maren Vogel who is one of the elected member of the doctoral council since 2024.
Audio
This interview was conducted in Decemeber 2024.
Highlights
“I think personally the most rewarding was the amount of people that have approached me from my department but also beyond with their different personal stories, however big or small. Not all of them lead to kind of political decisions or political issues, but it’s just very rewarding to hear how much trust people put in the work that we do as a Doctoral Council.”
Maren Vogel, representative of the doctoral council at FUB
SUMMARY
English:
For this episode, we spoke with Maren Vogel, a PhD student at Freie Universität Berlin and the first speaker of the newly elected FUB Doctoral Council as of May 2024. She tells us about the Doctoral Council’s role in the university and how doctoral students can get involved, as the Council aims to represent doctoral students, provide support for them, and promote networking. It expresses doctoral students‘ needs to the university authorities, addresses issues in various departments, and builds academic connections.
A significant recent achievement of the Council was changes in the regulations of new structured PhD programs at FUB’s Department of Education and Psychology, establishing clearer guidelines for the programs and reducing the pressure on students regarding their milestones.
Personally, Maren became involved in the Council through her interest in the Dahlem Research School and her desire to represent the doctoral students’ diverse experiences and find broader solutions to common problems. Regarding her workload as the Council’s speaker, she explains that they hold meetings every six weeks, which require some preparation. But commitment levels among Council members vary, as it aims to respect its members’ personal responsibilities.
Maren encourages doctoral candidates to reach out via email or the council’s upcoming website, as they welcome suggestions and engagement from all FUB doctoral students. She also discusses her hopes for better support for doctoral candidates, focusing on financial stability and resolving conflicts of interest between candidates’ dissertation work and research assistant roles. In this context, Maren stresses the importance of good leadership from supervisors and improved communication.
She also shares insights on how experiences vary among doctoral students from different departments, with factors such as job roles, study backgrounds, and personal situations impacting their individual journeys. Maren invites feedback to the Council and suggests that everyone’s perspective matters in shaping the PhD experience – including non-native German speakers, as meetings can be conducted in English to accommodate more perspectives.
Für diese Folge haben wir mit Maren Vogel gesprochen, einer Doktorandin an der Freien Universität Berlin und – seit Mai 2024 – ersten Sprecherin der neu gewählten FU-Promovierendenvertretung. Sie erläutert die Rolle des Gremiums an der Universität und die Möglichkeiten für Promovierende, sich zu engagieren. Das Ziel des Gremiums ist es, die Interessen der Promovierenden zu vertreten, ihnen Unterstützung zu bieten und Vernetzung zu fördern. Die Vertretung bringt die Anliegen der Promovierenden gegenüber der Universitätsleitung zur Sprache, greift Themen aus verschiedenen Fachbereichen auf und schafft akademische Verbindungen.
Ein wichtiger Erfolg des Gremiums in jüngster Zeit war die Änderung der Regelungen für neue strukturierte Promotionsprogramme am Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft und Psychologie der FU. Es wurden klarere Richtlinien für die Programme geschaffen und der Druck auf die Studierenden hinsichtlich der zu erreichenden Meilensteine verringert.
Maren begann ihr Engagement im Gremium durch ihr Interesse an der Dahlem Research School und den Wunsch, die vielfältigen Erfahrungen von Promovierenden zu vertreten und gemeinsam Lösungen für häufig auftretende Probleme zu finden. Bezüglich ihres Arbeitsaufwands als Sprecherin erklärt sie, dass alle sechs Wochen Sitzungen stattfinden, die Vorbereitung erfordern. Das Ausmaß des Engagements variiert jedoch, da der Rat Rücksicht auf die persönlichen Verpflichtungen seiner Mitglieder nimmt.
Maren ermutigt Promovierende, sich per E-Mail oder über die in Kürze verfügbare Website der Vertretung in Kontakt zu treten, da Vorschläge und Beteiligung aller FU-Promovierenden willkommen sind. Zudem äußert sie die Hoffnung auf eine bessere Unterstützung für Promovierende, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf finanzieller Stabilität und der Lösung von Interessenkonflikten zwischen der Dissertationsarbeit und der Tätigkeit als wissenschaftliche*r Mitarbeiter*in liegt. In diesem Zusammenhang betont Maren, wie wichtig eine gute Führung durch die Betreuenden sowie Verbesserungen in der Kommunikation sind.
Außerdem gewährt sie Einblicke in die unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen von Promovierenden aus verschiedenen Fachbereichen; Faktoren wie die Art der Beschäftigung, der akademische Hintergrund und die persönliche Lebenssituation beeinflussen den individuellen Promotionsverlauf. Maren lädt dazu ein, der Vertretung Feedback zu geben, und unterstreicht, dass jede Perspektive wichtig für die Gestaltung der Promotionszeit ist – dies gilt ausdrücklich auch für Nicht-Deutsch-Muttersprachler: Sitzungen können auf Englisch abgehalten werden, um mehr Perspektiven einzubeziehen.
Prof. Dr. Cornelia Reiher was one of two recipients of the Supervisor Award 2023, an award presented annually by the Dahlem Research School for exceptional supervision of doctoral researchers. In this episode, Professor Reiher talks about what good supervision entails for her, how she supports her doctoral researchers and what she expects from them. We also talked about how she and her doctoral researchers dealt with the challenges during the pandemic, which particularly affected them due to their field research in Japan. Professor Reiher emphasizes the importance of recreational breaks and a good work-life balance in order not to lose creativity in the scientific creative process.
AUDIO
This interview was conducted in April 2024.
HIGHLIGHTS
„You can’t be creative and productive 24/7. That’s why these recovery phases are immensely important, especially for creative ideas. I think a lot of people, myself included, have the best ideas in their free time and not when they’re staring desperately at a screen.“
„The most important factor is not to lose the passion and enthusiasm for the project.“
From our interview with Prof. Reiher
TRANSCRIPT
INTRO Welcome to a new episode of the Dahlem Research School podcast. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and I am happy to accompany you through today’s episode. In this episode, you can expect another exciting interview with one of two winners of the Supervision Award, Professor Cornelia Reiher, who is a Japanologist at the FU Berlin and won the award in fall 2023.
In this interview we talk about the following:
How she plans to use the prize money
What is generally important to her when supervising doctoral researchers
What challenges she and her doctoral researchers, who are all doing field research, have faced during the pandemic and how they have dealt with these challenges
What she wishes from her doctoral researchers
Why she herself completed her doctorate on the train
And how she assesses the situation of doctoral researcher parents – and I can already tell you, more positively than I would have thought.
I also found her attitude to work-life balance, which we talk about at the end of the interview, particularly interesting.
I hope you enjoy listening to it now.
Prof. Reiher, please introduce yourself briefly.
I am a professor of Japanese Studies at the Free University of Berlin. My work focuses on the society and politics of contemporary Japan. And I deal with two larger topics. One is food and nutrition in Japan, but also culinary globalization. So I also have a project on Japanese cuisine in Berlin.
At the same time, the other is Japan’s rural areas. I am particularly interested in finding out how rural areas in Japan are changing against the backdrop of demographic change.
The two topics combine the larger issue of migration, i.e. on the one hand transnational migration of Japanese people to Germany, for example, and on the other hand urban-rural migration of Japanese people within Japan, as well as the role of transnational migrants in rural Japan.
Another topic I have dealt with a lot in recent years is qualitative methods in Japan research. It’s more about how do we actually research Japan? And in this context, I have also published a handbook that doctoral researchers also like to work with.
This is already the perfect segue, because even though that sounds like a very exciting field of research, we are going to talk about something else today, and that is that you have won an award for the exceptionally good supervision of doctoral researchers. How many doctoral researchers are you currently supervising?
There are currently five. Two are in a DFG project and the other three are at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies, where I am PI.
How did you find out that you had won the DRS Supervision Award and what was your first thought?
Well, I received an email and thought, oh wow, I’m really pleased that my work has been recognized. Especially from the doctoral researchers who were allowed to nominate me. In other words, it’s really nice when doctoral researchers are satisfied, because that’s not a given. After all, a doctorate is a fairly long-term, difficult and not entirely easy undertaking. A time with many ups and downs. And if the doctoral researchers then feel that they are well supported by their supervisor, i.e. by me, then I am extremely pleased.
I think that was a very nice recognition that comes with the award, but it also comes with a payout of 2,000 euros, which is intended for the further promotion of young scientists. How did you use the money, or how do you plan to use it in the future?
Yes, I think there are two big issues for which there is never enough money: proofreading the dissertations. One of my doctoral researchers is a native English speaker, but they all write in English. This means that it’s always nice to have the English proofread by a professional at the end if there’s a bit of money available. That’s one option I’m thinking about. The other is, of course, conference travel. Because when the results are actually available, it’s nice to take them out into the world and present them to a specialist audience. So those are the two thoughts I have at the moment. I will discuss this with the doctoral researchers to see what their needs are.
I think that’s two great ideas and of course it’s also great that you then want to discuss this with the doctoral researchers. Can you still remember the first doctoral researchers you supervised and what it was like to suddenly be on the other side and guide someone in their scientific work? And what challenges, but perhaps also what wonderful moments can you remember?
This is quite a good time for this question because next week the first doctoral researcher I have ever supervised will be defending her dissertation. That was a bit of a lengthy process, because maybe I can say something about corona afterwards. This has been a very, very difficult time for Japanologists, especially those who have to conduct field research in Japan. I came to the FU in 2014 to teach at the graduate school and to get involved. That means that I was already involved in teaching doctoral researchers before I was officially allowed to supervise the first doctoral student, so it wasn’t the first time that I was allowed to supervise and advise doctoral researchers. But being the first doctoral researcher of my own was of course a very intense experience. It wasn’t an easy path for either of us, precisely because of the many ups and downs. At some point, we ran out of funding and then, or actually especially during the pandemic, field research was not possible, so we had to go through some ups and downs together, not only intellectually but also personally. After all, it wasn’t just the doctoral researchers who were handicapped during this time, but of course also the researchers who were already a bit further along. That affected me just as much as my doctoral researchers. And in this respect, I am very pleased that, despite these many hurdles and obstacles, it has now come to a successful conclusion.
Then I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the defense goes well next week. And I will ask you the question about corona and Japanese studies, but first I would like to talk a little more about doctoral supervision. I would be interested to know how you rate the importance of good supervision for the success of a doctorate.
Well, good supervision helps when there are problems, of course. I assume that most doctoral researchers are motivated to start because they are interested in working on a research topic in depth. This means that intrinsic motivation is usually very strong, especially at the beginning. But then, of course, such a doctorate proceeds in phases. Before the field research, most doctoral researchers are still in relatively good spirits, optimistically happy that they are now doctoral researchers. Especially in connection with the graduate school, you get to know a lot of new people, the Dahlem Research School offers fabulous workshops and then suddenly you’re all alone in the field. And it may not work out the way you had imagined. Maybe nobody wants to conduct interviews, maybe access to the field is difficult. There are all kinds of intercultural problems that can arise and perhaps personal problems, loneliness, whatever. And I think it’s important to have good support. So that there is a relationship of trust, that you can turn to your doctoral supervisor to talk about it openly, to address it. At the same time, however, and this is the strength of the graduate schools, I also point out, for example, that peer groups are very important because doctoral students never have this experience alone. And then simply getting support from other doctoral researchersis important. Interestingly, however, sometimes doctoral candidates in this situation don’t even realize that this is a possibility and that they can provide the impetus. And this also applies to the other phase after the field research, which is often very enjoyable, actually analyzing and writing the data. It’s quite a lonely process at your desk, after you’ve been on the road a lot and perhaps had some great adventures, to then say „make writing social“, i.e. write together, get together in writing groups, meet up, you don’t have to go through it alone. That’s an impulse that a good tutor should also give. And of course I read everything I receive and comment on it openly and honestly. And of course that prevents situations in which a dissertation is submitted and then perhaps fails because nobody looked at it beforehand.
Yes, I agree with you 100 percent. Both in terms of the fact that you don’t have to do a doctorate alone. I always say that you don’t have to do a doctorate alone, just write your thesis alone. But also that it is good to exchange ideas with each other and that the supervisor is not the only person who can provide support. Do you think there are also areas where it is not appropriate for them to provide support, where you say that the person doing the doctorate has to do it alone?
I see a doctorate as a process in which you learn to conduct research independently. And that of course also means that you have to establish contacts in the field independently and of course be able to work independently with the data and acquire certain methodological skills yourself, for example, if you don’t have them. Of course, there are all kinds of offers for this, which I can also point out. But the work of data collection and data analysis can, of course, only be carried out independently by the doctoral student with support.
In my experience, the vast majority of doctoral candidates have problems with the fact that they don’t have enough accountability, i.e. commitment. Have you established structures to regularly review the progress of your doctoral students or do you say that this is now an area that is their responsibility?
Here I would differentiate a little between doctoral researchers at the graduate school, who are ultimately committed to themselves and their sponsor, and doctoral students who are working on a research project. I have to write a report at the end and I have to present the results and they are employed directly by me. I make sure that certain milestones are met or achievements are made. More so than with doctoral researchers, who can actually work on a free topic at the graduate school. But if I don’t hear anything for a while, I ask. At the same time, the graduate school also has milestones. So sometimes papers are due or literature reports and things like that, so you have to be careful that the doctoral researchers don’t get lost.
If you had to describe in one sentence what kind of supervisor you are or would like to be, what would that sentence be?
Good supervision means that you adapt to the needs of the doctoral candidates.
And thinking the other way around, what does your ideal doctoral researchers look like? What expectations do you have of them? What skills should they have, but perhaps also what human values?
Yes, ideally doctoral candidates are creative, passionate about their subject, interested and full of a thirst for knowledge and ideally friendly and cooperative.
That’s a bit different for everyone. I think your colleagues would perhaps give a different answer, but that’s exactly right. If you think back to your own doctoral studies, what influence do you think your relationship with your supervisor(s) back then had on how you work with doctoral researchers today and how you lead and guide them?
I myself did my doctorate in a Research Training Group and I can say that I really appreciated this experience of working together, and in some cases suffering through the doctoral period. That’s why it’s so important to me to encourage doctoral students today to get together with their peers, with their fellow researchers, to exchange ideas, perhaps even to plan their first publications together, to organize workshops. And perhaps also to be aware that these are the networks that may endure and become important in the future, regardless of whether they work in academia or perhaps outside academia.
Do you see a change in the function of supervisors of doctoral researchers? Do you think that supervision is different today than it was perhaps ten or 20 years ago?
Well, I only have one German doctoral researcher, all the others are international doctoral candidates. And I think that, on the one hand, there is certainly a change over time, but on the other hand, there are also different doctoral cultures that we have to deal with. I think that the expectations of supervisors are sometimes very different from what I experienced myself. I had a lot of freedom. I also didn’t expect my doctoral supervisor to read everything I sent. I always knew that the professors I was dealing with at the time were all very busy. Today, the expectation is more that doctoral researchers want to play it safe in my opinion, prefer to ask again, want to be absolutely sure that they are going in the right direction, don’t make any mistakes. And I would perhaps also like to see a little more self-confidence and a little more freedom to be creative and solve the problem yourself first, or perhaps with the help of peers. In other words, to dare to be more proactive again.
I find it very exciting that you have just mentioned that your working group or the group of doctoral researchers that you supervise is very international. How do you deal with the fact that there are perhaps very different expectations and approaches?
This is a work in progress. Our working language is English. And we come across problems from time to time that I would never have thought of. The only thing we can do is to talk openly with each other and explain how the German university system works, perhaps also how the job market works, and hope that the next problem, which is sure to come, will be addressed just as openly. And I believe that a basis of trust and direct communication is also important here. Sometimes that works more, sometimes less well.
But all your doctoral researchers are on site with you in Berlin when you’re not doing field research in Japan?
Yes and no. So perhaps we will also have to address the tiresome issue of funding. Some of the doctoral researchers whose scholarships or positions have expired and who are not yet finished are no longer on site. So at the moment I’m in a phase where only three of the doctoral researchers are still here on site, two are no longer, so in principle we are now doing more of what we practiced during the pandemic, namely communicating online. At the same time, these are also the strategies that we practiced during the field research. In this respect, it no longer seems so unusual to me, but is really, really helpful.
Let’s stay directly on the subject of funding. What challenges do you see, or perhaps you have seen, during corona, but also now in particular?
Yes, first of all, scholarships are of course rare, especially for foreign students. The graduate school where I am a PI receives DAAD scholarships and China Scholarship Council scholarships, but these are not available to everyone interested in doing a doctorate, for example not to German citizens. And secondly, you can of course raise third-party funds to supervise doctoral researchers. But these then expire. This means that the duration of a doctorate is clearly limited, usually to three years. And for projects with intensive field research, this is actually relatively unrealistic and almost impossible to achieve. And that’s why it would of course be nice if the FU were to put a little more money into the graduate schools if it wants good doctoral researchers, but also good supervision.
Could one solution then also be to narrow down the projects? In other words, not to do without field research, but to make the project smaller overall?
Yes, but a doctorate should also have a certain level. You certainly have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, you never use all the data that you bring back from field research. Even if it’s tempting, of course, it won’t work. It’s also my job to curb some of the enthusiasm, to say, look what you have here, you can actually leave it as it is and save the rest for papers. But in the end, it just takes time. We work with Japanese informants, Japanese-language sources. So on the one hand, we have to take the foreign language component into account. And on the other hand, field research is also something that you can’t plan well if there are problems somehow, that you can’t get access to the field, that the timing is perhaps also bad because it’s a time when no one can talk to you. Then you have to be a bit creative. I think the pandemic has also opened up many new opportunities for us that we perhaps hadn’t even considered before, namely that you can also conduct online interviews, that you can even do digital ethnography. So these are all newer methods that, I believe, also benefit doctoral researchers. At the same time, what you just mentioned, namely the problem of too much data, does not solve the problem at all, but actually increases the amount of data and many doctoral researchers naturally feel overwhelmed by it, and here it is important to try to narrow things down by talking to each other.
Do you do that in addition then, the online interviews for example, or could that also replace the field research on site?
That depends on the topic. I have a project that I am currently supervising, which is mainly about what policymakers say about rural revitalization policies, so I don’t think you have to be on site. There are also a lot of written sources, policy papers and so on. But if you want to find out how people do certain things in their everyday lives, then it makes a lot of sense to be on the ground. We have now done a lot of hybrid ethnography. This means that we conducted online field research during the pandemic and were able to go back into the field afterwards. And it’s very interesting to observe the differences. In other words, what you learn when you look at the online representation of various practices or online practices and what you don’t see. For example, sometimes you don’t even notice that people might be neighbors because it’s never been an issue. And many things that you would otherwise not even notice, you can actually only notice on site. That’s why I would argue in favor of maintaining field research, on-site.
Yes, you’ve just said a lot about the situation during corona. Perhaps we can still talk a little more in detail about what the particular challenges were in your field, i.e. in Japanese Studies, during the pandemic and how you dealt with them?
Yes, with pleasure. Japan is one of the few countries where there was a complete ban on non-citizens entering the country between 2020 and 2022. Our project started in October 2020, so it was a challenge to get the doctoral researchers to Berlin in the first place. After a week in which I think we actually saw each other here on site, there was a new lockdown and we were really only able to meet online for six months. That was of course difficult for many reasons. On the one hand for motivation, but also of course for getting to know each other. And especially for international doctoral researchers who were new to Berlin, it also meant that they didn’t get to know anyone and felt quite alone. I then tried to solve this with a study group. We met online, sometimes every week during the pandemic. Since all of my doctoral researchers have something to do with migration and rural Japan, it worked out quite well and we invited more and more people or they somehow found us, so the study group became bigger and bigger, and more international.
And then we started a blog at the same time, so that the doctoral researchers, even if they couldn’t go into the field yet, could at least start writing small posts about what they had already read and what we had discussed, which helped them to get into writing, so that there was simply the feeling that a text was being created. And of course it was also a very good exercise. But there were always crises. The Japanese government briefly opened the borders, but closed them again immediately afterwards. This naturally led to a lot of uncertainty and increased psychological stress in the group. And then we simply tried to support each other. We organized a small online Christmas party. So it was really more about giving social encouragement again and again and reminding people how we could perhaps carry out the project by other means. And then we came up with these digital tools. And that was good that we were able to continue the project at all, that the doctoral researchers were able to continue their doctorates, even if they were fortunately all able to travel to Japan again for real field research in 2022.
And what delays did this cause? For some, it must have been almost two years, if you actually wanted to fly there at the time when the borders were closed?
Yes, that is not yet entirely foreseeable. We now have some work that is still in progress. I think it will take one to two years. There’s also parenthood, which often happens during a doctorate. In this respect, several factors have come together that have been challenging. But the great thing is that I also saw how wonderfully the doctoral researchers coped in the end, even though they may not have felt that way when it was difficult. So I think we really made the best of it and, above all, discovered new methods that we wouldn’t have thought of before. And I think we all grew together. And I thought that was very, very nice.
So in the end, the result was a positive one, even if the general conditions weren’t exactly ideal.
Well, if you now apply the criterion of rapid completion, then certainly not. But when it comes to intellectual growth, then I would say yes.
Yes, and above all, you have now described it in such a way that you have developed strategies and methods that can be continued and are conceivable in the future, perhaps only as a supplement, which you would not have thought of before. Fortunately, there was no pandemic during your own doctorate. What was the biggest challenge you faced during your own doctorate?
Well, I already had one child when I started my doctorate and then had a second and then my scholarship came to an end at some point. And then I had a full-time job in the last year in another city and basically finished my doctorate on the train. I don’t think that was so easy in retrospect. But I think that might be a good thing, because I can then show my doctoral researchers that it’s possible. So yes, perhaps as a positive example, even if ideally everything is a bit easier.
Of course I didn’t know that, that you did your doctorate with two children. Perhaps you have some special advice for doctoral researcher parents?
Very difficult. My general impression is that parents are better organized in their doctoral studies. I believe that the procrastination time is simply not there. In other words, if I can shovel four hours off, then I work more concentrated during those four hours because I don’t know exactly when I’ll have time again. That’s why I believe that doctoral researcher parents, if they have a good support network, are actually not in such a bad position. And of course you have to ensure a work-life balance somehow, find a balance, allow yourself to do nothing for a day. So I think that’s the biggest problem anyway, that a lot of time is wasted being ashamed that you haven’t done anything. That’s okay. And then you might feel refreshed and get a lot more done. And it’s not just assembly line work. There are days when creativity doesn’t flow and it’s difficult. And then it’s okay to say, okay, I’ll take a break for today and pick my child up from daycare earlier and do something nice and then things will work out better tomorrow. But all the small and big disasters when the child gets sick and there’s a deadline, how to deal with it successfully, I don’t think there’s a magic formula. Unfortunately.
I am a great advocate of taking regular vacations and days off. I mean regularly, every week – not the vacation, but the days off, to simply recharge the batteries and then move forward better and with more energy. How do you see it? Have you ever had to send a doctoral researcher on vacation? Do you say that’s their responsibility? Or how do you talk to your doctoral researchers about the fact that time off can perhaps also be an important thing, and one without a guilty conscience?
Of course, I can’t send anyone on vacation, but there have been situations where doctoral researchers who are extremely exhausted, especially during field research, have given feedback that they can’t do any more. And then, of course, I’ve told them to take a few days off. I see it the same way you do. It’s extremely important. You can’t be creative and productive 24/7. And that’s why these recovery phases are immensely important, especially for creative ideas. I think a lot of people, myself included, have the best ideas in their free time and not when they’re staring desperately at a screen.
Yes, I absolutely agree with you. Is there another important point, an important area that I forgot to mention, that we should definitely talk about today?
Yes, I think it is perhaps important for doctoral researchers, when they are desperate, to simply remember again the passion with which they started the project and the curiosity. I always find it helpful to perhaps take another look at the first synopsis. Most of the time you end up there again in a roundabout way anyway, which I find very interesting. So I think it’s always good to remember why you started, even if it’s difficult at the time. The most important thing is not to lose your passion and enthusiasm for the project.
I think that’s a very nice thing to say at the end. Thank you very much, Professor Reiher, for this interview.
Thank you very much.
OUTRO If you enjoyed this episode, please listen to the other episodes as well. For example, there are more interviews on the topic of good doctoral supervision that you can listen to and also an episode in which you can find out what you can do as a doctoral candidate to build a good relationship with your supervisor. This was Dr. Marlies Klamt for the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School of Freie Universität Berlin.
This interview was conducted by the co-host of our podcast Dr. Marlies Klamt
In this episode, Prof. Kevin Pagel was one of the two winners of the Supervisor Award 2022, which is an award presented annually by the Dahlem Research School for exceptional supervision of doctoral researchers. Prof. Pagel talks about what makes a good, but also a bad doctorate relationship, what he himself experienced during his doctorate and what one would have to do to win him over as a supervisor. He also talked about many other things, including micromanagement, answering emails outside of working hours and what doctoral researchers can do on their part to ensure a good relationship with their supervisor. Enjoy listening to the interview!
AUDIO
This interview was conducted in November 2023.
HIGHLIGHTS
„I’m not just here to give lectures, but one of my central tasks is to supervise doctoral students. And to turn them into real scientists with solid specialist training.“
„In the natural sciences, you have to realize that if someone starts their doctorate and after about a year and a half doesn’t understand more about the subject than the person supervising them, then something has gone wrong.“
from our interview with Prof. Pagel
TRANSCRIPT
Intro
Welcome to the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and today I am interviewing Professor Dr. Kevin Pagel. Mr. Pagel was one of the two winners of the Supervisor Award 2022, which is an award presented annually by the Dahlem Research School for exceptional supervision of doctoral researchers. The special thing about this award is that doctoral students nominate their supervisors themselves. If you also have an outstanding supervisor, you can find the link for the nomination in the show notes. I talked to Prof. Pagel about what makes a good, but also a bad doctorate relationship, what he himself experienced during his doctorate and what I would have to do to win him over as a supervisor. But we also talk about many other things, including micromanagement, answering emails outside of working hours and what doctoral researchers can do on their part to ensure a good relationship with their supervisor. And now I hope you enjoy listening to the interview!
Interview
Professor Pagel, could you please briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Kevin Pagel, I am a professor of bio-organic chemistry at the Free University of Berlin. In our research, we mainly deal with the structural investigation of complex biomolecules, especially carbohydrates and sugars, which we look at more closely using various methods. In particular, we use mass spectrometry methods to determine the weights of the molecules.
And you also supervise doctoral researchers.
I also supervise doctoral researchers. At the moment, there are eight students in my working group who are aiming for a doctorate.
You are one of the two winners of the 2022 Supervisor Award from Freie Universität Berlin. What was your first thought when you found out that you were receiving this award?
Well, first of all, I was delighted to have received this award because I actually knew that it existed. And above all, I knew that my own students had to nominate someone. And of course it’s a very special honor when your own people nominate you for such an award. It has twice the impact.
This prize is awarded for exemplary supervision of doctoral researchers. In your opinion, what constitutes good doctoral supervision?
Well, I think the most important thing when supervising doctoral researchers is to strike a balance between mentoring and providing support, but at the same time giving them enough freedom. Nobody comes to a university for a doctoral position like this who isn’t intrinsically motivated anyway. And that’s why I’m not a big fan of giving people too many guidelines. First and foremost, it’s about really getting the best potential out of everyone. And that includes giving students a certain amount of freedom. At the same time, of course, you have to make sure that no one drifts off course and that everyone keeps their focus. And that really is a big challenge. So taking good enough care, but not taking too good care.
Yes, I definitely agree with you. When you think back to your own doctoral studies, what experiences did you have with your doctoral supervisor? Perhaps there was something that you particularly appreciated about your supervisor or perhaps something that you remember negatively, where you say I want to consciously distance myself from them today?
In my own doctorate, I actually experienced exactly what I am now trying to convey to my own students. Because I had an incredible number of opportunities. I had a great deal of academic freedom and I was also able to determine the topics I worked on to a certain extent. But what was always there was the infrastructure and the resources to actually carry out the experiments. And that was very, very productive. Because, as I said, as a young person in particular, you are bursting with ideas. It would be downright stupid to cut it all off and limit it and not let people do it. And that was definitely the case during my doctorate. I was able to express myself very, very well and had a lot of academic freedom.
I asked you what you think makes a good doctoral relationship. What do you think constitutes poor doctoral supervision?
Well, I think the fine line between too much supervision and too little supervision cannot be overestimated. You really have to find a fine balance. I see it more often in my day-to-day work that supervisors go into micromanagement and then make really, really detailed specifications about what should be achieved when, what should be written down and how, and so on. And that often leads to any creativity, which is the greatest asset of the young people we work with, simply being cut off. And that’s exactly what we really need to prevent. And then the whole thing can become very, very productive.
You’ve already mentioned the balance between providing support as a supervisor and at the same time giving doctoral researchers their freedom. What problems can the doctoral researchers you supervise turn to you for help with and where do you perhaps also say that this is the limit, that this is something they have to manage themselves?
In my experience, one of the biggest problems that students have in their day-to-day work is writer’s block. This is really the thing that occurs most frequently by far, that the data is there, the experiments are done, everything looks great. We’ve had presentations and meetings about it and now the publication can actually be written and then it starts to get tough. And that’s exactly why we’ve actually established a kind of master plan, a kind of system for how to ultimately turn the data into a publication. This follows a relatively clear pattern of what should be written down and when. In other words, it usually starts with a concept sketch, then the illustrations are created, then you have a meeting with everyone involved, then the illustrations are used to knit a red thread for a publication, which is then underpinned with the appropriate words in the next step in order to turn it into a publication. In my experience, this is very, very helpful for students, especially those who have major problems with writing. And in my opinion, that really is the biggest challenge for doctoral researchers at the moment.
That sounds great. So I can imagine it as a kind of handbook?
There’s even a PDF and a presentation.
And you get that right at the beginning of the doctorate or only when you start writing?
No, I give this presentation in the working group seminars at regular intervals, also elsewhere. And the students can of course also download it from the website. And it exists here, it’s all over the internal folders. And people are familiar with it and know that it exists.
Yes, great. I think it’s a really great idea, because I know that writer’s block can be a real hindrance and can drag out the doctorate unnecessarily. Even if the supervision is going well in principle, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any conflicts. After all, a doctorate is a time when there are numerous challenges and often crises. How do you deal with it if there is a crisis between you and one of the people you are supervising?
I actually try to resolve conflicts relatively openly. In this context, resolving conflicts openly also means that everyone is allowed to have their say. It’s not always easy, but there’s little point in carrying such conflicts around forever. And I then usually try to have a clarifying conversation with the people concerned. This has actually always worked quite well so far because, as I said, intrinsic motivation is inherent in all doctoral researchers, which is why it has always worked quite well. Occasionally there is friction between the members of the working group, but this can usually be resolved relatively easily.
In other words, you would invite the relevant employees to a meeting and try to clarify this together at the table?
Exactly. A meeting is then arranged and then you try to talk to each other and solve the problem. It’s actually relatively trivial things that are usually involved. It’s about authorship, about publications. It’s about who gets to go on which business trip or who is nominated for which award. But all of that can usually be resolved. So it’s rare for really deep conflicts to arise.
And do you sometimes have to make decisions that you think I would rather not have made?
Well, there are decisions that can be unpleasant because sometimes you just can’t decide things properly. That’s just the way it is. I would say that I’ve never had to make a decision that really made my stomach hurt. Not even afterwards.
Assuming I wanted to do a doctorate with you and asked you to supervise me, what would I have to bring to the table for you to accept me as a doctoral candidate?
As a rule, the requirements are actually relatively low, because you have to imagine that if you dive really deep into a research project like this, you usually don’t know what it’s about beforehand anyway. So there are no experts at doctoral level, at least when the students are just starting out. That’s why the skills, methodological and analytical skills are very, very important to me. In other words, the basic knowledge should be halfway there and creative thinking and so on should also be present. As far as the actual techniques are concerned, you learn everything on the job. You don’t have to bring too much with you.
You mentioned methodical and analytical skills and creative thinking. How do you check that this is present in a person?
As a rule, almost nobody in my working group starts a doctorate without having seen the person in a different context beforehand. These are either research internships that people complete as part of their studies. These are presentations at conferences. You’ve talked to the person in question in other ways. And you get a really good feel for whether it works and whether people are capable of doing it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving applicants any tests to find out what they are particularly good at. I don’t think that would do the job justice either.
Do you occasionally accept people via initial applications? In other words, people you haven’t been in contact with before at conferences or who you don’t already know from your Master’s degree, for example?
Yes, that has actually happened several times. There has also been a situation where we advertised a position and several suitable people applied. And then there were two new doctoral researchers and not just one. That was actually quite good.
Great, if you have the funds to hire both of them, all the better. One question I’m always asked is, if I apply to someone now, to a professor who doesn’t know me yet, and I’d like to do my doctorate with that person, should I send them a fully prepared exposé? Or do I first write who I am, maybe send a CV and then ask if there are any projects I could work on? Of course, this is also subject-specific, but what about you? Do you prefer more concrete ideas or is it more important that the person fits in with you and your working group in principle?
It’s actually unusual to come with fully developed ideas, but it’s more the case that you develop ideas together and also try to decide together where the person fits in best based on their own skills. So it’s actually more the case that I talk to suitable candidates, give them a short presentation and simply show them what topics we are researching in the working group. And then we try to identify a topic together and work out together in which direction it could go. Of course, you often have guidelines from larger research projects as to which areas to research. However, these positions are advertised in such a way that they explicitly state what the doctoral position is for.
And what do you do if you have a person in front of you and you say that the CV fits well, the skills fit well, but I somehow have a strange gut feeling or I don’t like the person, I can’t say exactly what it is, but something bothers me. Would you still put them on the shortlist or would you say that’s a direct exclusion criterion?
Well, if the person is suitable and there are no formal objections, then it definitely makes sense to shortlist them. There are rules about that. There doesn’t always have to be perfect harmony in a working group. There can also be… Minor conflicts can also be managed. That’s not the problem. Everyone doesn’t always have to be a perfect match. And in any case, you should also take such applicants into account.
For whom are you not the right supervisor?
What’s problematic is when people really expect very, very detailed supervision every day. I know there are colleagues who do this, who issue very, very detailed guidelines, where it is really clear week after week what the students have to do. I can’t do that and I don’t want to do that either, to be honest, because it’s far too restrictive for me. In other words, if someone really needs a very, very detailed work plan and supervision, then I’m probably not the right person to talk to. I provide resources, I provide the monetary means to carry out the experiments, but I’m not going to check exactly what people are doing every day.
How often do you talk to your doctoral researchers about their projects that are relevant to their doctorates?
Well, of course we have a working group seminar. That’s what everyone does. We get together once a week. There’s usually a presentation and we talk openly about topics. I meet with the doctoral researchers at least once every six months and keep a record of the whole thing with a plan. But of course we also try to exchange ideas as best we can in our everyday lives. That means I also go to the lab or to people’s desks and talk to them and try to get a feel for where things are going wrong and where they are not. It’s actually a habit I picked up a bit from one of my postdoc’s supervisors. She was very busy, had a very, very large working group and still managed to go round once a week and talk to everyone for five minutes. And that really is a great thing. I also really appreciated that.
In other words, you actually always have an overview of who is standing roughly where and can then also see if things are stuck somewhere and the person is simply not making progress.
Yes, absolutely. I mean, you have to. It’s relatively important, because the end result should be a doctorate and a failed doctorate doesn’t just reflect negatively on the doctoral researcher, but also on me. It’s actually my job to make sure that the students can complete their doctorates properly and quickly.
In an ideal world, definitely. Unfortunately, the experiences that my coachees have with their supervisors are not always like that. Especially in doctorates in the humanities and social sciences, it can sometimes happen that you don’t have any contact at all for two years if you are doing an external doctorate. From this point of view, a weekly exchange, even if it is only short, is of course very ideal and very good for the doctoral researchers.
Yes. It has to be said that many of the doctoral projects in my department are directly linked to larger third-party funded research projects. And there is always a kind of reporting obligation for these. This means that if the doctorate doesn’t work, the research project won’t work either. And then, of course, you get into trouble at some point when these reports have to be written. That’s why it’s in my own interest to make sure that something sensible comes out of it. The most important thing is that you see it as a bit of a job. I mean, that’s why I’m here. I’m not just here to give lectures, but it’s one of my central tasks to supervise doctoral researchers. And to turn them into real academics with solid specialist training. And of course you want to do that well. And you have to think about the best way to do that.
And what does that give you on a personal level?
Above all, it’s really nice to see how people mature. They often come to me when they are just starting their Master’s degree, at the beginning of their Master’s degree and have very, very good theoretical knowledge and are totally fit. But in many other areas, academic writing, thought structures and so on, they lack a bit of experience. And when you really supervise people for three, four or five years, sometimes over these different stages, it’s really great to see, especially when they then go out and acquire major funding projects themselves, take up great positions and write great publications. One of my first doctoral researchers has actually become a junior professor. That’s really great to see, of course. It’s a bit of an accolade.
Now, a good relationship between doctoral supervisors and doctoral candidates is a two-way street. Perhaps you have a few tips for doctoral researchers on what they can do to build a good relationship with their supervisor and then maintain it. So what can I do specifically as a doctoral researcher to ensure that my supervisor is happy with me and what should I perhaps not do?
In any case, what is always very, very useful is to seek contact, to seek discussions. Not all the time, but I think it’s very important to keep in touch. What always goes down very, very well is actually developing your own ideas and concepts. I also see this with my colleagues. It’s something that goes down very well everywhere if the doctoral researchers really immerse themselves in the topic. In the natural sciences, you simply have to realize that if someone starts a doctorate and after about a year and a half doesn’t understand more about the topic than the supervisor, then something has gone wrong. And interaction often takes place on this basis. And that’s really great fun, because you’re dealing with experts once people have got to grips with a topic.
Does that mean you still learn a lot from your doctoral researchers?
Absolutely. So it’s not just the subject matter, but sometimes it’s simply the creativity, the train of thought that is completely different from my own. And sometimes you scratch your head and ask yourself, what is this actually about? And then at some point you realize it’s a really great idea, let’s do it.
How do you deal with the fact that you are now working on publications together with your colleagues, for example, and you have different working styles or different approaches? For example, if you have a deadline for a paper, there are people who do everything at the last minute and others who try to finish as far in advance as possible. How do you deal with this when you have different approaches?
Yes, I actually adapt a bit to the needs of the doctoral researchers. I actually experience this on a daily basis. There are students who come to me with their manuscripts four weeks before the deadline, simply to have enough time, and I then try to process them quickly. But if the house is on fire and a paper has to be finished within three days at the very end, then I get stuck in too. It’s just very different. I actually try to meet everyone’s needs in that respect.
How do you handle communication after official working hours, i.e. in the evening, at weekends, on public holidays?
I actually saw this once from a colleague in England. I don’t have this in my own email signature, but I tell my employees this and they all know it. Sometimes it suits me very well to send an email at nine in the evening. But that doesn’t mean that I expect it to be answered at nine in the evening. Just because it suits me doesn’t mean I expect the others to do the same.
In other words, you also rely on clear communication in this case and say that I do it and don’t set an implicit example, which is what it is in principle when you set an example, but I make it very transparent that it’s something I do because it fits into my daily routine, but that I don’t expect anyone else to do the same.
Exactly, that’s how I actually communicate it. Everyone in my working group actually knows that too. Especially when you have a family, you often have to answer certain things in the evening. Or you’re on a business trip and you quickly reply from the train and so on. And everyone knows that I don’t expect anyone to reply to an email at eight o’clock on a Friday evening. That’s clear to everyone. If I get an answer on Monday morning, that’s perfectly fine.
Do you see a change in the role of doctoral supervisors? I’m thinking of a longer period of time, such as the last 10 or 20 years, but perhaps also the last few years due to covid.
Yes, I think the trend over the last 10 or 20 years is that hierarchies have generally become much flatter. In the past, it was often seen as my doctoral student. Today, the view is actually more that you work together with the doctoral students and that you build things up for each other and so on. And that’s not just the case in my working group, I think it’s the case everywhere, that it’s all becoming a bit flatter. Due to covid… We’re not even feeling the direct effects so much here at doctoral student level. We’re seeing it more with Master’s students, because they’re just slowly finishing up. And it’s mainly the practical skills where more supervision is needed at the moment. That is noticeable.
How do you explain that?
It certainly has to do with the fact that far fewer practical courses could take place in the laboratories themselves during the coronavirus period. Practical work was already massively restricted. Another major problem was that students were no longer able to interact with each other as actively because they no longer saw each other. There’s simply a difference between making appointments by phone or online and simply meeting in the corridor and talking about things. And that already leads to major restrictions and especially the research internships, which are quite common here, where students sometimes work on a topic in a working group for 15 weeks, were already extremely limited during the corona period. And you notice that.
Mr. Pagel, is there another important point that we have forgotten that we should definitely address?
I think it’s really important… At every stage of academic training, there are certain criteria that are used to measure or evaluate. It’s about publications and grades and things like that. And I sometimes have the feeling that one aspect that is much, much more important in other European countries is falling behind, namely the ability to organize your own funding. In my opinion, this is actually still a little underdeveloped in Germany. I know this from international colleagues, where it is quite common for doctoral students to be much more actively involved in writing applications, in writing their own grant applications and so on and so forth.
Is that something you are also trying to actively promote?
Absolutely. I also help people to write their own proposals. This skill becomes extremely important later on, especially if you want to stay in science, because a great proposal that you get through sometimes counts as much as five good publications or ten. This is a very, very important criterion for your future academic career. And you can’t start practicing this early enough.
Is that also a point that you address at some point when someone tells you that they have decided that they would rather go into industry after their doctorate, that they just want to get it over with as quickly as possible, or that they are really aiming for a professorship, that you then also try to support people in different ways and provide different kinds of assistance?
Absolutely. Of course, it’s really important to focus a little on the professional goals of the person in question. Sometimes I even assign topics in this direction. So it does happen that someone comes to me and says I want to do a doctorate and then do this and that in industry. Then we sometimes even select the topics where the whole thing would fit well. Because the research that is required in industry or the skills that are required there are not always completely the same as in an academic laboratory.
Mr. Pagel, thank you very much for this wonderful interview.
Thank you very much.
Outro
After this very informative conversation, I would just like to remind you once again that you can also put your supervisor in the running for the Supervisor Award. This happens once a year and we provide information about the deadlines on the website and in the newsletter. So it’s best to register directly so that you don’t miss the next round. On the website for this episode, we also link to the Supervisor Award page, where you can see who has won the award since 2011, if you’re curious.
This interview was conducted by the co-host of our podcast Dr. Marlies Klamt
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ole Schulz-Trieglaff about his experiences doing his doctorate at the International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Genetics and the Freie Universität in Berlin and about his transition from academia to industry. Dr. Schulz-Trieglaff earned his doctoral degree in 2008 and now works at Illumnia in Cambridge in the UK.
Audio
Download or listen to the audio version of the podcast here.
This interview was conducted in February 2023.
Highlights
„… I mean I would say sort of like getting getting stuck it’s just part of the experience and trying to get out of it that’s I think the whole point of doing a doctorate, I guess, you know, you – it’s just not sort of like one straight line from start to end, that that’s what I would say. It’s just sort of like getting stuck occasionally and then making mistakes and then finding a way out again. This is part of the experience. So I would say don’t despair, it’s very common -„
from our interview with Dr. Schulz-Trieglaff
SUMMARY
English:
In this episode, Dr. Ole Schulz-Trieglaff talks about his journey from earning a PhD to becoming a software developer and bioinformatician in the UK. He describes his PhD experience as collaborative and appreciates the support of his primary advisor, though he believes having a second mentor would have helped.
Dr. Schulz-Trieglaff discusses the challenges he faced during his research, including unexpected setbacks. He encourages others to see challenges as part of the learning process. Post-PhD, he struggled with job applications, feeling that early rejections were personal, but he later recognized this as a normal phase of life. He emphasizes that his doctorate taught him patience and resilience, as research answers are often complex.
He details his transition from academia to industry, noting his advisor’s influence in prompting him to look at a growing company near Cambridge. After receiving a job offer, he accepted and experienced significant career growth. Currently, he leads a small team focused on innovative work and has worked on various projects.
When comparing academia and industry, Dr. Schulz-Trieglaff observes that academia involves shorter-term positions that may hinder long-term planning, while industry generally offers more stable job prospects, allowing for a stable lifestyle. He highlights that in academia, researchers often work alone on projects for tenure, while in industry, collaboration is expected, and project direction is usually determined by the company.
In dieser Folge spricht Dr. Ole Schulz-Trieglaff über seinen Werdegang von der Promotion bis hin zu seiner Tätigkeit als Softwareentwickler und Bioinformatiker in Großbritannien. Er beschreibt seine Promotionszeit als von Zusammenarbeit geprägt und schätzt die Unterstützung durch seinen Hauptbetreuer, merkt jedoch an, dass ein zweiter Mentor hilfreich gewesen wäre.
Dr. Schulz-Trieglaff erörtert die Herausforderungen, denen er während seiner Forschung begegnete, einschließlich unerwarteter Rückschläge. Er ermutigt andere dazu, Herausforderungen als Teil des Lernprozesses zu betrachten. Nach Abschluss seiner Promotion hatte er Schwierigkeiten bei der Jobsuche und empfand frühe Absagen zunächst als persönliche Zurückweisung, erkannte später jedoch, dass dies eine normale Lebensphase ist. Er betont, dass er durch die Promotion Geduld und Resilienz gelernt habe, da Antworten in der Forschung oft komplex seien.
Er schildert detailliert seinen Wechsel von der Wissenschaft in die Industrie und hebt dabei den Einfluss seines Betreuers hervor, der ihn auf ein wachsendes Unternehmen in der Nähe von Cambridge aufmerksam machte. Nachdem er ein Stellenangebot erhalten hatte, nahm er dieses an und durchlief eine erfolgreiche berufliche Entwicklung. Derzeit leitet er ein kleines Team, das sich auf innovative Aufgaben konzentriert, und hat bereits an verschiedenen Projekten mitgewirkt.
Beim Vergleich zwischen Wissenschaft und Industrie merkt Dr. Schulz-Trieglaff an, dass in der akademischen Welt oft kurzfristige Anstellungen vorherrschen, die eine langfristige Planung erschweren können, während die Industrie im Allgemeinen stabilere Berufsaussichten und damit einen beständigeren Lebensstil bietet. Er hebt hervor, dass Wissenschaftler:innen im akademischen Umfeld oft allein an Projekten arbeiten, um sich für eine Festanstellung (Tenure) zu qualifizieren, wohingegen in der Industrie Zusammenarbeit erwartet wird und die Ausrichtung der Projekte meist vom Unternehmen vorgegeben wird.
In this episode, we interview Dr. Michael Love, associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Department of Genetics at UNC. Dr. Love earned his doctoral degree in computational biology in 2013 from the Freie Universität and the Max Planck Research School for Molecular Genetics in Berlin.
Audio
Download or listen to the audio version of the podcast here.
This interview was recorded in January 2023.
Highlights
„…the advice I would give to, to myself going back in time is that I think it’s – it’s, you will not appreciate the random interactions you have during your PhD and how those will inform you later on. So, you know go to talks that make no sense to you. Don’t worry about the fact that they make no sense to you. You know, write down the words that people say a bunch and that seemed to be important so you could look them up later.“
„You cannot plan ahead and understand how small conversations […] will be highly relevant for your research program and will be like future directions that you take […] pursue – just like, pursue your curiosity even if you have no training in that area.
from our interview with Dr. Michael Love
SUMMARY
English:
In this episode, Dr. Michael Love from UNC Chapel Hill shares his academic journey, detailing his PhD in Computational Biology in Berlin and his postdoctoral research in Boston before joining UNC.
Dr. Love discusses the balance between academia and industry in developing data analysis tools and appreciates the collaborative environment in his department. He highlights the differences in academic systems between the US and Germany, particularly regarding structured coursework and research focus. He also stresses the importance of mentorship and soft skills in computational fields.
When asked about his experiences with advisors, Dr. Love suggests that students should view their advisor relationships as collaborative, managing both sides effectively. He aims to connect computational students with experimental teams for better collaboration and detailed data analysis. He believes students should learn the language of their interdisciplinary peers and engage with underlying questions of data, but also acknowledges the role of luck and networking in academic careers.
Dr. Love advises those interested in working in academia to diversify their research areas, as it increases appeal to job committees. He reflects on the value of seemingly random academic interactions, encouraging future PhD students to embrace curiosity and attend diverse talks, as these experiences may later inform their research direction.
In dieser Folge berichtet Dr. Michael Love von der UNC Chapel Hill über seinen akademischen Werdegang; er schildert seine Promotion in Computational Biology in Berlin sowie seine Postdoc-Forschung in Boston, bevor er an die UNC wechselte.
Dr. Love erörtert das Verhältnis zwischen Wissenschaft und Industrie bei der Entwicklung von Werkzeugen zur Datenanalyse und schätzt das kooperative Umfeld an seinem Institut. Er hebt die Unterschiede zwischen den akademischen Systemen in den USA und Deutschland hervor, insbesondere im Hinblick auf strukturierte Studieninhalte und Forschungsschwerpunkte. Zudem betont er die Bedeutung von Mentoring und „Soft Skills“ in computergestützten Fachbereichen.
Auf die Frage nach seinen Erfahrungen mit Betreuer:innen rät Dr. Love Promovierenden, die Beziehung zu ihren Betreuern als partnerschaftliche Zusammenarbeit zu begreifen und die Interaktion von beiden Seiten aus aktiv zu gestalten. Sein Ziel ist es, Studierende und Promovierende aus computerorientierten Bereichen mit experimentell arbeitenden Teams zu vernetzen, um die Zusammenarbeit und die detaillierte Datenanalyse zu verbessern. Er ist der Ansicht, dass Studierende die Fachsprache ihrer interdisziplinären Kolleg:innen lernen und sich mit den grundlegenden Fragen der Datenanalyse auseinandersetzen sollten; gleichzeitig erkennt er jedoch auch die Rolle von Zufall und Networking für eine akademische Karriere an.
Interessierten an einer akademischen Laufbahn rät Dr. Love, ihre Forschungsgebiete breit aufzustellen, da dies ihre Attraktivität für Berufungskommissionen steigert. Er reflektiert über den Wert scheinbar zufälliger akademischer Begegnungen und ermutigt angehende Doktorand:innen, neugierig zu bleiben und verschiedenste Vorträge zu besuchen, da solche Erfahrungen die spätere Forschungsrichtung maßgeblich beeinflussen können.
