Rhee Lab Policies and Expectations

1. Start your path to independence. You are expected to lead and ‘own’ your projects, whether you developed it from scratch, inherited from a former member, or assigned a problem when you start. Think hard and critically about the problem you develop to work on and understand why it is the most important problem to solve. No one, including me, will think as hard about your project as you. Your goal should be to be the world’s expert on what you are studying. I, and others, will throw ideas at you. You must make sure that those ideas are sound before pursuing them at length. If you are not sure, consult me or anyone in the lab, your cohort, former collegues, online discussion boards, etc. Create your own advisory board to help your professional and personal development. Depending on prior experience, this path to independence will take different amount of time to reach for different people. Learn to identify and solve problems on your own by using resources in the Web, asking labmates and colleagues near and far, or consulting me. I expect to see some degree of independence in all lab members within six months.
2. Communicate. I encourage you to talk with people around you as much as possible to get the most out of your research experience. Everyone in my lab collaborates with others (mostly other lab members but also members of other labs) and most of the collaborations are initiated by the trainee. Be open to others’ ideas and keep an open mind about different ways of looking at your results. Let me and your labmates know, constructively, if you think we are wrong about something scientifically. At the same time, don’t worry about saying the wrong thing. Everyone knows different things and has different strengths. It is fine to not know something. We are all here to help each other and maintain a rigorous, engaged scientific community. Constructive criticism is key to improving ourselves and helping others. Openness is also a secret to a great research environment. Don’t keep your data a secret within the lab. Openness in the lab comes with an understanding that it is privileged information that you should respect and keep confidential within the lab. Be generous with your ideas, your time, and your expertise. You learn the most by teaching others. Being a researcher is a privileged occupation and you must give back by helping others. I meet with most of my trainees weekly or biweekly. The meetings are an opportunity for you to discuss your progress, failures, and needs. Consider me as your pro bono consultant. It works best if you come prepared. Don’t expect me to remember all the details of your project and where our conversations ended last time. Start with the big picture (project management chart, overall project objectives, or the main problem at hand in the context of the big picture, etc.).
3. Be safe, courteous, respectful, helpful, proactive, grateful, and neat. You must be considerate and respectful of your labmates and colleagues. We want to have only good citizens in our lab. Always treat others how you would like to be treated. Strive to do more than your share to keep the research environment in safe, clean, working order. In the least, keep your own work bench and desk area clean and participate in lab chore responsibilities. Taking initiatives and being proactive are highly valued in our lab. If you notice something broken or not right, notify the appropriate person immediately (lab manager, facilities manager, safety officer, or me). Double your courteousness when you are borrowing others’ space or equipment. Unless you have been told otherwise, you should always ask to borrow a piece of equipment or reagent, even if you have used it before. No profanity, whether directed at oneself or others, is allowed. Always be grateful and courteous to each other and especially to the support staff.
4. Keep good records. If you haven’t written it down, you might as well not have done it. Be prepared to show me your data. Back-up your electronic data daily. Regularly enter verified constructs and seeds in the lab spreadsheet and other repositories. You agree to keep all lab data private and confidential unless we discuss making the data public or sharing with others. Document your software, scripts and pipelines thoroughly and keep them up to date. We often publish our codes online before publications and it is essential that the codes are fully debugged and well documented.
5. Don’t be afraid to fail. Science is full of failures. You will not be discouraged from or reprimanded for failing in this lab. Talk about your failures with others and let me know if something is taking longer than expected because the experiment, algorithm, or simulation didn’t work as expected. The most important thing is to not repeat the same mistakes and to learn from the failures. Think of every failure as an opportunity and come up with something positive.  
6. Give credit where credit is due. Authorship will be based on established guidelines by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html). I generally communicate with the first author(s) to establish authorship and order to reach an agreement.
7. Set your own schedule. You are responsible for making sure that your projects and other responsibilities are not overly disrupted by your absences. We follow vacation and sick leave set by Carnegie. I am flexible about work hours so long as you work full time (40 hours a week excluding lunch, commute time, excessive/numerous breaks) and you overlap sufficiently with others in the lab. Working off-site is permissible as long as it’s not too frequent. A longer period of off-site work time is allowed upon request on a case-by-case basis. We ask that people note their absences in the lab Google calendar.
8. Attend scientific conferences. Funds permitting, I would like everyone working full-time to have the opportunity to attend a conference a year. For the most part, attending a conference will mean that you have something worthwhile to present. Please be sure to leave plenty of time to prepare for conference and other presentations. All abstracts and posters should be approved by me before submission.
9. Be a leader and engage. I expect people in my lab to participate and lead in lab, department, and institution-wide activities or other types of activities that bring their research to a wider audience. Attending our weekly lab meetings and Friday department seminars is required. Examples of engaging widely include organizing seminars or journal clubs, participating in professional societies, recruitment activities, or dept-wide programs such as summer internships or organizing work parties/social activities. We foster a culture that emphasizes boldness, creativity, diversity, empathy, equity, flexibility, freedom, innovation, respect, scientific rigor, and transparency.
10. When you leave. I expect a postdoc to commit to at least 3 years in the lab and an RA for at least 2 years. I expect a Ph.D. student to graduate within 5-6 years. I encourage each trainee to discuss career plans and professional development with me every six months. Depending on their plans, I am flexible about incorporating off-site training such as internships and courses into their tenure in the lab. I am fine with trainees taking the projects they developed in the lab so long as we communicate and agree on the scope and nature. Solid documentation and organization of materials and data are expected at least 2 weeks before departure.