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A practical guide for postdoctoral fellows and new faculty on the essential management and leadership skills needed to establish a successful scientific research program in an academic setting.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
As a brilliant scientist transitioning into your first independent faculty role, you'll quickly discover that running a lab requires a completely different skillset than the one that earned you your Ph.D. 'Making the Right Moves' is the essential manual you were never given in graduate school, designed to bridge that gap. It provides a comprehensive roadmap for navigating the complex challenges of an academic career, from obtaining and negotiating your faculty position to achieving tenure. The book offers practical, actionable advice from seasoned investigators on leadership, staffing, mentoring, project management, securing funding, and publishing your work. It demystifies the structure of universities and helps you build the managerial competence needed to run a productive, well-funded lab, ensuring your scientific vision translates into a successful and fulfilling career.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- The reader is a highly trained postdoctoral fellow or a new tenure-track faculty member in the biomedical sciences. They are brilliant at the bench but are now facing the daunting transition to becoming an independent principal investigator. They want to establish a successful, well-funded, and productive research laboratory, publish high-impact papers, and ultimately achieve tenure.
- The problem
- The new principal investigator must simultaneously set up a lab, hire staff, secure grant funding, publish research, teach, and fulfill service obligations, all while the tenure clock is ticking. They feel overwhelmed, unprepared, and anxious, fearing they lack the necessary management and leadership skills to succeed and that they might make costly mistakes that could jeopardize their career.
- The plan
- Learn how to successfully find, negotiate for, and set up your faculty position and lab.
- Develop your skills in laboratory leadership, team building, and mentoring.
- Master the practical mechanics of running your lab: staffing, time management, project management, and data management.
- Secure your lab's future by learning how to get funded, publish your work, and increase your professional visibility.
- Navigate the broader academic landscape of university structure, collaborations, technology transfer, and teaching to build a successful career and achieve tenure.
- The payoff
- Your lab is well-funded, productive, and running smoothly with a motivated and cohesive team. · You are publishing high-impact papers and becoming a recognized leader in your field. · You are confidently balancing the demands of research, teaching, and service, and are on a clear path to achieving tenure.
See our guide
Additional reading
- Tomorrow's Professor: Preparing for Academic Careers in Science and Engineering · R.M. Reis
The book recommends this text specifically for its excellent discussion on finding academic jobs and handling start-up package negotiations.
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People · S.R. Covey
The author directly incorporates Covey's Time Management Matrix as a core tool for teaching P.I.s how to prioritize their overwhelming tasks.
- Finding and Keeping Great Employees · J. Harris and J. Brannick
This book is cited for its insights on workplace culture, hiring, and creating an innovation-driven environment, aligning with this book's focus on personnel management.
- Never Good Enough: Freeing Yourself from the Chains of Perfectionism · M.R. Basco
The author recommends this book for a deeper analysis of perfectionism, a trait identified as a potential double-edged sword for scientists.
- At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator · Kathy Barker
The author refers to her earlier book for details on the physical side of lab management, indicating it is a companion volume for more granular, bench-level topics.
- Creativity, Inc. · Ed Catmull
Provides a real-world account from the CEO of Pixar on managing the tension between creative projects ('Ugly Babies') and established franchises ('the Beast'), which directly parallels the book's loonshot/franchise dynamic.
- Science: The Endless Frontier · Vannevar Bush
This 1945 report to the President is the foundational document for the book's model of organizational and national research, outlining the principles that inspired the 'Bush-Vail rules'.
- How Life Imitates Chess · Garry Kasparov
The book uses Kasparov's approach to chess analysis to introduce the critical distinction between an 'outcome mindset' and a 'system mindset,' a key principle for improving organizational decision-making.
- As We May Think · Vannevar Bush
This 1945 essay laid out the vision for a personal information device called the 'memex,' inspiring future innovators with its concepts of augmenting human intellect, hypertext, and personal computing.
- The Whole Earth Catalog · Stewart Brand (editor)
This counterculture catalog celebrated 'access to tools' and helped merge the hippie movement's communal, anti-authoritarian ethos with a belief in technological empowerment, fueling the do-it-yourself spirit of the personal computer revolution.