How to Ph.D. (subjective collection of words)

1. How to Ph.D.(subjective collection of words) Dmitri Nikonov dmitri.e.nikonov@intel.com (feel free to e-mail)

2. What qualifies me to advise ? • Personal experience • Ph.D. – 4 years • postdoc – 2 years • Intel (development, manufacturing, research) – 10 years • adjunct associate professor at Purdue– 3 years in parallel • Bragging about successes • Remorse about failures • Disclaimer: • everybody’s circumstances differ; • times changed since my Ph.D.; • financial crisis – it is a new world out there; • listen to everybody, apply a critical filter. Purdue University

3. The meaning of it all • Graduate school is NOT about • having great time; • exploring scientific mysteries; • fostering your individuality. • Ph.D. is about LAUNCHING YOUR CAREER • do not expect to land the dream job right away; • but you need to keep you career momentum. • Academy or industry: • there is no firewall, people go back and forth till retirement; • research and mentoring are valued in industry; • a professor and a group is a small business; • required skills are similar. Purdue University

4. Components of your life success science discipline health luck mentor team networking officepolitics communicationskills presentationskills writingskills Learn it all during your Ph.D. Purdue University

5. intent effort result impact What is rewarded ? “Work, finish, publish!” – Michael Faraday “Imagine you succeed in your research beyond your wildest dreams. Will anybody care ?” – George Halmar (?) (DARPA) YOU are responsible for picking topics with real impact on peoples’ lives. Purdue University

6. Thesis topic choice • What your advisor got funding for. • What the scientific community cares about. • What has economic impact (LEDs are better than Bose-Einstein condensation). • Stay away from too theoretical or mathematical dead ends (e.g. quantum computing, string theory, low temperature physics, …) • Make a topic out of 2-3 subtopics. When one is on hold, you work on another. Too many is bad – you cannot focus and accomplish things. • Find a topic where you can write papers – “publish or perish”. • Sadly, very few people will read your thesis (I spent too much effort on it). Purdue University

7. Communication • Talk to your adviser more often (I did not). • Ask for help from your teammates. • “Have you ever seen a successful hermit ?” – Mario Paniccia, Intel Fellow, Purdue Ph.D. • “If you cannot explain your work to the janitor, you do not understand what you are doing” – re-phrased Albert Einstein. • Un-communicated achievement is not an achievement. Make your work known. • Young researcher who is a role model http://physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/lukin.html • Present, present, present. Be an actor and a writer. • Not a native English speaker? Learn or bust. Purdue University

8. Working • Be productive. Make a plan and track yourself. A small victory every day. • Do not confine yourself to one occupation (theory, simulation, fabrication, measurement). Learn what you are bad at. You will not have a chance after the Ph.D. • Having multiple skills will help you in your job. You never know what you will do in your profession. • A negative result is valuable in industry, but unfortunately not in academia. Still do not deceive yourself and others. Find some use of your negative result. • Do not investigate mistakes or deception of others. There is not credit for it. You need to think about your career. • Listen to criticism, do not get blind spots (theory is not applicable to your case, simulation method is inefficient, fabrication does not produce what you think it does, you measure a different effect from what you theorize, …) Purdue University

9. How to get a job ? • In academia – I have no idea. In industry: • just sending resumes rarely works (but you need one written well, ask me how). • you need to “know the guy who knows the guy”. Jobs mostly obtained by personal connections. • therefore NETWORK. Meet people at conferences, reviews. Ask them questions, about their experience and what they are working on. “One sure way to remain stupid is being afraid to look like one.” – Marlan Scully. • get an internship ! • be competitive (see above “components of your life success”). • moreover, have a skill valued in industry (complex extensible simulators with C++, specific fabrication method, specific characterization method, …) Purdue University

10. Reading recommendations • R. N. Bolles “What color is your parachute?” (Ten Speed Press, 2008). Must read if you want to find a job. • Richard Hamming “You and Your Research” – ask me for the file. How to be successful in science. • Andrew S. Hirsch (2006), "Scientific Ethics and the Signs of Voodoo Science," http://nanohub.org/resources/1898. How to fight crooks. • Beasley, Malcolm R.; Supriyo Datta, Herwig Kogelnik, Herbert Kroemer (September 2002). "Report of the Investigation Committee on the possibility of Scientific Misconduct in the work of Hendrik Schon and Coauthors". Bell Labs. http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/DocumentStreamerServlet?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=Corp_Governance_Docs/researchreview.pdf How NOT to do science. • R. Stanley Williams “How We Found the Missing Memristor” http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec08/7024. Trial and error in science. Purdue University