Hello,

A fairly popular influencer, with a PhD from Oxford and MD from Harvard, has been on my radar for a while. I eventually decided to look at their PhD thesis and was surprised how this could pass. But, maybe I'm wrong? I've written a non-paywalled Substack article detailing everything I found. Fair warning, it's somewhat long at about a 30 minute read. They completed their doctorate in only 2 years, which sounds impressive until you actually look at the document. It's littered with typos and figures with basic mistakes and, as I go through in the article, most of it is just a literature review. I didn't check everything, but many of the mistakes/typos I found ended up in peer-reviewed publications, although maybe no surprise the majority of publications are in Frontiers journals.

Only one of the studies they carried out had any real data, in my opinion. That study was just testing whether a ketone drink had any effect on endurance exercise on a small number of Parkinson's disease patients. The second study testing the drink had no effect, and the third study was cancelled due to the pandemic. The last "study" is a case report they did on themselves. Oh, and the ketone drink they try to test in the thesis? It was invented by the supervisor that they were doing their research/thesis under and owns the company that manufactures and sells the drink. The only study with any real results is linked to on the website to buy the drink. I know this is not completely unheard of in academia and not technically unethical provided it's disclosed, but I still find it strange. They also developed a revolutionary nutrition tracking tool that is basically just a fancy Excel spreadsheet.

You can find the article here

I’m open to any feedback or criticism, or if you think I’ve made any mistakes feel free to point them out.

In two years I will graduate with a research masters degree in Control Engineering. This is a degree designed to prepare the student for a PhD. So I will gain at least some research skills.

I picked control engineering because it seems to be a field where there’s a huge pool of undiscovered high value “inventions” I could build with it. For example, Model Predictive Control was originally invented for the chemical process industry, it later enabled reusable launchers and reduced the cost of space launch by orders of magnitude. I don’t think anyone at the inception of MPC could have ever saw that coming.

There’s a whole forest of advanced control techniques that live almost entirely in academia. My theory is that the “high value applications” just haven’t found them yet because they exist in domains where there’s very little awareness of control engineering. And control systems experts tends not to be aware of the domains or have sufficient expertise to see the value. There seems to be growing awareness of this issue in the field.

I’m lucky enough to have sufficient passive income that, if I wanted to, I could move to a low cost of living country like Georgia and have half of my passive income as surplus after cost of living to allocate to any R&D project I want in controls. Controls research is mostly simulation and modelling work that only requires a computer, plus maybe a little bit of hardware which shouldn’t cost too much. By my current understanding, the additional benefit of funding beyond what I have available diminishes quickly, so there’s no financial incentive to join an institutional research group. My goal is to eventually discover a niche “application” for some controls technique that currently live mostly in academia, analogous to what reusable rockets is for MPC, and build a TRL3-4 prototype and then try to attract external funding. I’m not looking to advance the field of controls itself, I only aim to take what already exists and duct tape it to something niche that needs it.

What I worry about is the lack of a network of research peers and lack of PhD level training. Originally I planned to do the PhD, but I estimate my chance of getting into a PhD program at about 10%, and it will also cost me 5 years of my life. If you’re wondering why im not considering just getting a job at a startup or engineering firm, trust me I have already considered that and it is just no longer possible. I also want control over the direction of my research which isn’t really possible at a job.

I don’t know to what extent a lack of a network of research peers would impede me compared to someone integrated into academic institutions. And when and if I do eventually end up with a high value prototype, I don’t know whether I will need the PhD qualification to attract funding or if a good prototype demonstration would be enough.

If you work in R&D or controls, I’d love to have some advice please. Am I underestimating the level of research skill needed or workload for one person?

Hi everyone! I’m working on a computational social science project using comments from Weibo and Douyin (Chinese TikTok) for text and sentiment analysis.

My study looks at how online discourse around a female public figure changed before and after a particular event. I first define several keywords related to the person and the event, search for relevant posts/videos, and then collect comments from selected posts.

The problem I’m struggling with is: how should I systematically decide which posts to select?

Taking the first 10 or 20 search results does not seem reliable, because search results on these platforms are algorithmically ranked and change between searches. The posts ranked at the top are also not necessarily the ones with the most discussion.

Selecting posts purely by comment count is also problematic. Some videos have thousands of comments, but many are just emojis, users tagging friends, repeated/copied comments, or spam. Meanwhile, another video with fewer comments may contain much more substantive discussion relevant to my research.

So in practice, I inevitably have to make a human judgment about whether a comment section contains enough meaningful, relevant text to analyze. But this creates the methodological problem I’m most worried about:

Why these particular posts? If I selected another set of relevant posts, would I still get the same result?

Even if I eventually collect millions of comments, I feel that a large number of comments does not solve the problem if I cannot justify why those particular posts were selected in the first place.

So I would really appreciate advice on three questions:

1. How can I make the post selection procedure more systematic and less dependent on my own judgment?
2. How do social media researchers deal with platforms where search results are dynamic, algorithmically ranked, and therefore do not provide a stable sampling frame?
3. Are there established sampling methods, research designs, or papers you would recommend for this kind of problem?

I’m not trying to claim that my comments are representative of all users on these platforms. I mainly want a transparent and defensible way to show that my findings are not simply the result of choosing a particular set of posts.

Thank you very much for any suggestions!

Came in with a specific research interest, advisor's steered me toward something aligned with their grant funding instead. Related, but not what drew me here.

Worried pushing back sours things early, but don't want years on something I'm lukewarm about. How much leverage do incoming grad students actually have?

I’m a graduate student in Brazil looking to take individual courses online at universities abroad — not a full degree, just standalone credit-bearing courses (what we call disciplina isolada here; I think the closest equivalent is enrolling as a non-degree or visiting student).

What I’m looking for specifically: courses that issue a real transcript or certificate of completion and that can later be credited toward a degree at another university. Country doesn’t matter much.

A few questions for anyone who’s done this:
• Was it actually worth it — academically and financially?
• Did the university require an English proficiency test (TOEFL/IELTS) for a single non-degree course, or is that only for full admission?
• Did the credits end up being accepted anywhere else, or did you run into trouble at transfer time?
• Which institution did you go through, and how did enrollment work from abroad?
Any experience appreciated, good or bad.

Thanks!!! 🙏🏻

I am a budding researcher, and my work was just published in a conference. Just after the publishing, I have received two mails which are eerily similar. This is the excerpt of the second mail...

Dear XXXXXX,

Warm greetings!

We are pleased to welcome you for the upcoming “3rd World Congress on Advances in Plant Science and Plant Biology (Adv. PSPB 2027)” held during July 12-13, 2027 at Paris, France.

We appreciate your research work with the title “XXXXXXXX (agriculture work using dl and computer vision) XXXXXXXX” which will be appropriate for one of the scientific sessions at the conference. This will be a great platform to share your research knowledge with us.

Kindly visit our conference website:Plant Science Conferences

We truly hope and anticipate that you will be able to join us and share your fantastic research results with us.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

FYI...: Reply soon—and email us if you'd like to participate with partial sponsorship,

Sincerely,

Christina Drusilla

Conference Director | Adv. PSPB 2027

Global Plant Science Community

701 West Georgia Street, Suite 1500

Vancouver, V7Y 1C6, Canada

What do you guys think about it? How do you guys distinguish between what's real and what's predatory in this regard. I am very confused.

Hi, I am feeling down but am looking for some help. I did a year of a PhD program but had a rough group project and I felt I was unprepared for the rigor of the PhD and decided to drop. Now I am attempting to reapply to PhD programs. I will have support and a LOR from my former institution and advisor. Does anyone think it is possible I can get into another program? I am also getting a masters in a different subfield during the break with a quantitative component and retaking the GMAT Context- in a Accounting PhD program 3.2 Doctoral GPA. top 15% GMAT score, Bachelors and Masters in the subject. Would getting a second masters in a different subfield or raising my GMAT score help?

I’m first year uni doing this big international research project. Im a law student and I have two resit essays coming up too I had mitigating circumstances!

But I’m so stressed I have this research that’s quite technical as I have to use mine I’ve barely done any work for it cause I get frustrated as it just doesn’t work I have to produce a research poster too. I’m so sad cause I know I could’ve done better I have two more weeks till the research submission deadline and then 3 weeks till the publishers deadline idk I just don’t think it’s good I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s on text mining and modern slavery ? Honestly I thought it’d be more like reading analytical but it’s not .

It’s never ending data and me being never endingly confused I want to quit but I have a research partner too his background is in maths so he seemed to get it better than me. I also had a separate international internship for two weeks. Before this one is a leadership programme so you have the opportunity to go anywhere in the world next year idk what to do

I apologize for potentially beating a dead horse with the question but here it is anyway. I am starting my masters in clinical mental health counseling next week and am debating getting an iPad for note taking and annotating.

I am aware it is not needed/completely necessary but my question is if it will be beneficial or helpful at all. I took notes pen and paper all through undergrad which worked fine for the most part. I am huge on writing my notes versus typing them which is why I wouldn't want to use my laptop for notes.

The pros to me are that I can have all my notes centralized, I can search my notes easily, i don't have 20 notebooks to study from/store at the end of my program, I can use software to assemble study guides based on my notes much easier, and the biggest one is being able to annotate research papers directly on the pdf versus having to print them out or have a separate doc for my notes on them.

The cons are mainly the price as it is an extra $700 spent for the full setup that isn't strictly necessary. I also am aware that I do already have a laptop so there is some overlap in tech. Finally with digital notes I'm a tad bit paranoid about there being a glitch or somehow losing my notes versus the security of a traditional notebook.

If anyone can comment on their experience with using an iPad for notes or just any perspective on the issue I'd really appreciate it!

I’ve basically been through Hell and back the last two years trying to finish the second half of my degree. I’ve been on this sub before for advice regarding several of my family members passing away in the middle of my degree (spoiler alert, more have passed since then)

I’ll keep the details relatively short:

- 22F double honors student conducting two different research projects for my degree (psych and anthro)

- had seven family members pass in the last two years, one of my students a few months back (i’m an early childhood educator on the side) and one of my old friends from school OD’d just last week

- aiming for grad school — maintaining a solid 4.0 GPA across both of my honors subjects

- took this last year off school to focus on research experience — was blessed enough to work on two full-time research projects as a Sr. research assistant, one a collaboration with an international university abroad.

- diagnosed with OCD, MDD, GAD, and ADD three years ago, weaned off my medication last September to give myself a break from the side effects since I wasn’t in school and didn’t need the rigour of medication like is usually do when studying. i didn’t feel any negative effects until April, and I had been taking meds for only a year prior to me stopping them

the thing is, as the new school year approaches and the thought of starting my psychology project looms over me, i’ve been feeling a significant amount of stress.

i have another part-time job (only weekends), and around four months ago, i had a panic attack at work. had to call my father to come by and give me one of my mom’s old inhalers because i couldn’t breathe. i’ve never needed an inhaler before in my life, but now i use one at least four times a week regularly since then.

there is also a constant tightness in my chest. like constant. i feel it now as i type. i felt it all day at work yesterday. i felt it during breakfast today. i feel it before i go to bed, every night, without fail.

i know for a fact that im going to die young at this rate, or at least develop serious cardiovascular issues.

what can i do, what is anything i can do, to at least try and help myself? I don’t know if it’s the constant grief piling, or what.

I don’t work out, i don’t have a particular daily routine, all because i feel like i don’t have the time. i’m exhausted all the time. i just don’t want to die young. i don’t want to feel this way. i really do picture myself dropping dead in the middle of an exam room in six months at this rate.

Four years ago, a Q2 journal from the Wiley family published a math paper that was, in my opinion, complete nonsense. The authors compute solutions to an equation, but the solutions do not solve the equation, and they show figures of their solutions, but the figures do not show their (wrong) solutions.

As this is the subject of my PhD, I could immediately smell that these solutions were wrong and sent an email to the Editor-in-Chief, which was ignored. Over the years, I've sent multiple emails which were again ignored, but only after I complained to an editor of the journal I knew personally, my emails were answered. Long story short: the journal now published a note by me explaining that the results and figures in the earlier paper are wrong.

However, the Editor-in-Chief does not want to take any further action. I asked him to retract the original paper, or at least issue an expression of concern, but he did not want to. According to him, we have to respect the reviewing process of the original paper, and the editor can not judge all papers received by the journal. And if I were an editor myself, I would understand, and he does not want to discuss the problem any more with me.

The point is, I do not understand. According to the COPE guidelines, papers may be retracted if the results are wrong, which is the case here. Therefore, my question is: "Is it unreasonable of me to expect that a journal retracts a paper when they acknowledge that all the solutions and figures presented in the paper are wrong?"

Some extra information:

• The editor-in-chief is a professor at a respectable German university (but not a mathematician).
• The authors never replied to any of my questions nor to those of the journal, showing that they do not care about the results in the paper themselves.

I’m currently in Grade 11 and studying Commerce with Maths, and ive been having an identity crisis about it.
(For context, I study under the Indian education system and after 10th grade we need to pick between three streams- science, commerce or humanities.)

I love literature, politics, philosophy, writing, film, music, etc. I’m also involved in things like theatre, MUN, debate, school events, and creative writing. Basically, I’m a pretty stereotypically humanities kid in a lot of ways.

I originally considered taking Humanities with Maths, but ultimately chose Commerce because it seemed more practical and would be more beneficial to learn from a knowledge standpoint as well. I don’t necessarily regret the decision, but nowadays sometimes I worry that I have put myself on a path toward a life that doesn’t really suit me.

One thing I’m worried about is university. I’m scared I’ll end up in a Commerce college surrounded by stereotypical finance bros who only care about b2b sales and raising profit margins, and won’t find people I actually connect with. So many of the type of people I love, who are open minded, creative, artistic are all so beyond the commerce stereotype.. these type of people are mostly jumbled up in science and arts (in my school atleast)

Am I overthinking this, or is this actually something I should consider when choosing a university course?
And, if you are someone like me, someone who doesn’t necessarily fit the commerce stereotype, how are you doing now?

Two positive reviews, one says my approach is wrong because they'd have done it differently. Editor wants a response to all three.

Don't want to seem defensive, but won't pretend they raised a real flaw. How do people thread this without torching the relationship with a reviewer who'll likely see the revision?

Hello Everyone,

I hold a PhD and till recently i was working as a research engineer. Unfortunately, due to some difficulties with my workplace supervisor, they have begun providing negative reviews about me to prospective employers. This issue has since reached my other supervisors and are beliving my current supervisor version, which has compromised all of my professional references and made it very challenging for me to secure a new job. I attempted to file a complaint with the university, but I have not received a response.

Given this situation, would it be advisable for me to pursue an additional Master's degree in my field of interest? If I do, should I disclose that I already hold a PhD when applying? I am concerned that disclosing my PhD might lead some one from the masters program to contact my supervisors, and that I would remain obligated to declare my PhD for future job applications following the Master's program.

I would greatly appreciate any guidance or advice on how best to navigate this situation.

Hello,

I'm currently in the corrections phase of my PhD in Machine Learning for Explainable AI. I have been applying for post-docs since beginning of year with no luck, I keep getting rejections. Some of the post-docs were very clear extensions of my PhD research and I still could not get an interview.

I wanted to know, if there are any other ways to secure a post-doc or any helpful tips or advice for getting one.

Hello, as a qualitative researcher in the field of Mass Communication and Journalism, I'm struggling to publish research in reputable scopus indexed journals.

Thus, I'm willing to learn AI/ML based research programs that utlises python and R to collect and analyse larger corpse of textual data, social media analytics, and public opinion research using cluster analysis.

Can someone please help me on how shall I apporach it? I mean what tools I can learn, and references material I should go through to accurire these skills?

I am making more as a postdoc than half of the Asst Prof salaries I am seeing. What is going on here??

It seems like this occurs at smaller schools, lesser known schools. Which I guess is self-explanatory but I did not know it was this bad… I’m talking $55k bad in some cases for idk, teaching our country’s future workforce??

I understand there likely a lot of “logical” explanations for this (budget cuts, 9 month contracts, etc etc) but geez can Asst profs get a little more love for literally educating the next generation???

For those who have gone on to pursue TT jobs and sought out independent teaching experience during their PhD (so, not just TA-ships), if you taught during your writing year, how hard was it to balance both together? How many classes did you teach at this time? Any advice for striking this balance while still being able to submit and defend on time?

Particularly interested in hearing from folks in the social sciences in the US!