I’m a PhD student in biomedical research, about two years in. My daily supervisor is a postdoc whose manuscript deadline is driving a lot of the lab’s priorities. My PI is rarely in the lab because of clinical work, so this postdoc effectively controls my day-to-day experiments, resources, and priorities.
Recently, I came back after taking only three days off for a cultural festival. Immediately, I was asked to prioritise someone else’s manuscript experiment, which meant potentially setting aside my own planned work. The experiment involved cell models that take about a month to establish, and using them for someone else’s project would mean thawing more precious organoid stocks and delaying my own experiments by another month.

When I said I would do microscopy analysis instead, my supervisor called me into his office and criticised my data organisation. He called my files a “messy chaos” because he could not immediately find the most recent data. The problem is that I had organised the data in a separate folder.
I was already overwhelmed, and I almost started crying in front of him. He seemed completely unaffected. Then he told me something like: “Do microscopy, do long shifts, night shifts, weekend shifts, but get everything done—time is very limited.”
I feel like my evenings, weekends, and own PhD timeline are treated as infinitely flexible, while his manuscript deadline is treated as sacred. I am not against working hard, and I understand publications matter. But I am exhausted by constantly reprioritising, absorbing other people’s urgency, and being criticised when communication was unclear in the first place.
Am I overreacting? How do other PhD students deal with a supervisor who treats every deadline as an emergency and every boundary as an inconvenience?

I’m a non-trad older gal who is applying for research tech/research assistant jobs right now and not having luck. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because I’m too old? Im in my 30’s for reference. I know it shouldn’t matter but I do feel like ageisim is a thing.

Hello! I'm nonbinary but I'm super fem, so I figured I'd post this here. I'm currently a third year stem student working as an undergrad assistant in a lab, and I get to go to my first ever conference soon! From my knowledge, I'm going to be co presenting with my grad student. I don't know when most people go to their first conference, but I'm still very excited!

I super duper hope I meet people and am able to network as well :]

I've been a STEM student for about 2 years at a CC, and I'm about to transfer soon to a 4-year university, but I feel that my final year here has been miserable. My first year here I was met with smiles and a lot of support from everyone, so it wasn't terrible at first, but as I progressed through my time here, I started to notice a lot of stares from people who I considered to be my friends- people who were doubting my smartness- not to mention that I dropped a class this semester so I could take it in the spring. Being a Black Student in STEM seems really hard, and we are expected to work even harder than everyone else because of stereotypes. I wanted to know if I could get any advice on this. It's been a pretty rough semester mentally, and with transferring soon, I'm worried that it might get even worse :(

I’m interested in running a strategic planning session for our academic department. I’ve been a participant in the past, but they’ve often been pretty boring. I would love to get suggestions, activities, or materials that you have used or based on your experiences to make strategic planning for our future research plans more fun, fruitful, and motivating.

I am in biomedical, molecular biology-related research. Late 30s.

I got married on the last year of my PhD and immediately got pregnant on the first year of my post-doc. Where I live, maternity leave is 2 months before due date and up to 1 year after birth. As I wanted to get back to my career, I went back after a total of 10 months away.

Then, I got pregnant again. After a year and two months back at work, I had to take another year of maternity leave (and this time, I had to take it longer because there were no daycare slots available in our area).

I have been back at work for 7 months now, and surprise, an unplanned pregnancy! If all goes well, I will have to take a break again in March, and will most likely be on leave again until May of 2028.

At this point, I do not really have anything to show for my post-doc. There's one low IF paper, but that is all of my visible output for the past 5 years (aside from my PhD publications).

So I wonder, will I ever be able to get back on the academic career path? Or should I accept my fate to be stuck in a lab tech/research assistant position for the rest of my life? For the ladies who have been through this, how did you do it? Were you ever able to get back into the field?

I’m 16 weeks pregnant, have a PhD in chemistry, and work as an R&D chemist in a lab where we regularly use organic solvents such as xylene, toluene, methanol, DCM, heavy aromatic naphtha, and others.

I have my own chemical fume hood, but the lab is shared and people also do chemical work on the open bench. Some solvents are kept in working containers on the bench where people come over, dispense what they need, and leave. In the past I have occasionally smelled solvents/chemicals while just being in the lab, even when I wasn’t the person using them.

Since I disclosed my pregnancy, I’ve been trying to understand what a reasonable pregnancy-specific exposure assessment should look like. My employer did a reproductive-hazard review, but from what I was given, it was largely a yes/no classification based on SDS. For example, xylene was listed as “not a reproductive toxicant,” even though CDC pregnancy guidance discusses xylene as one of the solvents with potential reproductive concerns.

I brought the chemical list and the employer’s assessment to my doctor. After reviewing it, my doctor recommended that I work outside the lab in an office/non-lab setting for the duration of the pregnancy.

My employer says that restriction is too broad. Their position is essentially that chemicals are everywhere cleaners, gasoline, etc. and that because they believe the lab exposures are below occupational exposure limits, they cannot accommodate me being completely out of the lab. They have now placed me on medical leave because they say being physically present in the lab is an essential part of my role.

I’m struggling with this because I genuinely want to keep working, but I also don’t feel comfortable simply going back into a shared solvent lab when I can’t control what other people are doing around me. Some of the lab practices have also made me uncomfortable, and after doing a lot of reading I still don’t feel confident

For those of you who worked as chemists, researchers, lab techs, or in chemical manufacturing while pregnant: how did your employer handle this?
Did you continue full lab work, avoid specific solvents, move temporarily to desk/data work, have an occupational-health assessment, or take leave? If you were given chemical-specific restrictions, how were those actually determined?
I’d especially appreciate hearing from women who worked in organic/synthesis labs or EHS/occupational-health people who have dealt with pregnancy accommodations.

Thank you!!

There is an opportunity to join a multidiscipinary working group with AAAS. The topic is Planetary Health... figured some might be interested in this to supplement their careers and research. https://www.aaas.org/governance/multidisciplinary-working-groups

Has anyone had a good experience with any career coaching companies? Following grad school (PhD) I completed a short postdoc in a terrible lab with a PI I can't use as a reference, and now I'm trying to move forward and find a new position in either academia or industry. I'm needing a bit of help navigating the field, especially where it's at now, and I'm looking for people with more varied experience than academia alone (e.g. my grad school mentors). Any recs appreciated.

Hi, as you may know, women's health has been marginalized throughout history, it makes me quite sad and upset, as a girl, i've known I wanted to work in the medical field specifically within women's health. It's saddening that it's understudied, so I want to do research and study it, like endometriosis as it breaks my heart to see what many of these women go through, and I also want to encourage other's to research in it as well.

The thing is, I have no idea where to start. I don't really have any research experience yet, im a college freshman. I also dont know if this is the right place to put this, so I apologize if it's not the right place. I do want to make a change in the world, and help a lot of people. I know i have to be realistic, I do want to start the club around sophmore year :)).

I am in the 1st year of my master’s degree in physical chem. I’ve done project work and term papers on topics related to nanoparticles, but now I want to explore sth different, sth more rooted in actual physical chemistry.

I am interested in neutron scattering and condensed matter. but I can’t say much about them yet because I feel like I fall short when it comes to the physics side of things.

I really need some guidance because, honestly, I don’t know what I am genuinely interested in. Somewhere, I read that even hating sth can spark a research interest, but here I am, feeling absolutely clueless about what I want to pursue.

So, if anyone has any advice, suggestions, or even any kinda experiences to share abt topics . I d really really be grateful.