people who come to seminars given by early-career researchers

[pax_athena]

Heh, so I guess I can now officially say that I've been to a dinner with a nobel prize winner? One with four people on a small table in a nice place in Cambridge (Boston), MA, that has since been damaged in a fire but hopefully re-opened (I really should ask my former colleagues about it).

Anyway, all the articles you read about Rai Weiss (who got half of this year's physics prize for his contributions to LIGO and the detection of gravitational waves) portraying him as the nicest person ever are true.

There is this article on Weiss in Science (from more than a year before the Nobel Prize and thus from around the time of my dinner) "Meet the college dropout who invented the gravitational wave detector" where it says: "As a junior faculty member, he says, he published little and didn’t worry about advancing his career. MIT’s Shoemaker says Weiss probably got tenure only for his teaching—and wouldn’t get it today." (He likely would indeed not. I've seen too many people go down this way. Great people who do not fit a certain pattern that is definitely not good for science as a whole.)

So here is my bit of the story: when we've been running a seminar series (with another postdoc who is now faculty there, huh ...), there would be the usual pattern: when the speaker was a big name, faculty would turn up. If they were not but a mere early-career researcher, they would not. Except Rai, who would often be there regardless of the seniority of the speaker and ask amazing question and generally be awesome.

I guess what I want to say is this: there are amazing people in science and I am honored to be able to have met some of them and glad that the right person won the Nobel Prize.

Comments

[giallarhorn]

Hooray on having dinner with a Nobel prize winner! Although I guess retroactively, but who's counting at that point.

I've seen too many people go down this way. Great people who do not fit a certain pattern that is definitely not good for science as a whole

There's a new TT prof here who managed a Science paper in his PhD, but since he spent a good chunk of his post-doc focused on coaching/teaching, it slowed him down in landing an actual position.

Ha. I'm not too surprised by that, since a lot of faculty tend to be more wrapped up in their own things that they care less about the subject and more the name at a point.

[pax_athena]

In a way, it's even cooler, along the lines of "I knew of this before everybody else did". Well, not true, because everybody was expecting Rai to get it!

I'm seeing a pattern of most ruthless people getting the jobs and the ones who care more about teams and less about presenting themselves and alpha wolves (but often do better jobs, just are less loud about them) being left behind.

Part of it is also that talking to a big name is a plus for them but talking to a more early-stage person is something the early-stage person needs more than the faculty person they are talking to. And back to the alphas and people only interested in pushing themselves ... :S

[giallarhorn]

Well, everyone in the field of physics and maybe some of the other sciences, but I'd be hard pressed to guess that the normal non-scientist person would know it :P

Yeah, there was a prof in the US who was complicated in a scandal (or something?) where he was misappropriating grant funds for personal use, ie he hired an escort as the lab manager. But he flew under the radar till recently when someone made a big fuss, got the attention of the NIH, but he's still now a consultant at Columbia, so. It's a bit of a troubling trend (results over anything) that I think is a propagation of the publish/perish mindset, mixed with the utter lack of TT positions.

the early-stage person needs more than the faculty person they are talking to.

Huh, I didn't think about it like that. I'd think that it'd be offset if there's interesting ideas bouncing around, cause collaborations mean you can share the cost of things, but I suppose ego might drive it more at this point :|

[luna_puella]

Not gonna lie, I think it's really cool you had dinner with a Nobel Prize winner.

[pax_athena]

:D :D :D