Welcome to the Tissue Immunity and Immune Priming Lab!
This document represents my best effort to clearly communicate my expectations and my interest in having a great relationship with you, please take time to read this document in its entirety. To make the Tissue Immunity and Immune Priming Lab (TiiP Lab), a better place for science, I seek to continue to clarify and improve these expectations based on your input. If anything seems unclear or unreasonable, or if you have suggestions on how to improve the document or expectation, please let me know. Our joint effort can help us to uncover new knowledge on how an individuals’ immunological history and/or interactions with genetic factors can influence their response to subsequent insults. This requires a concerted team effort from a diverse group of individuals.
Science: Read – Think – Experiment – Communicate
As a member of TiiP Lab, I expect you to bring your enthusiasm and curiosity about science to our lab. I expect the highest level of scientific integrity, great vision, a positive attitude, and hard and efficient work. Please be your own toughest critic, point out all the caveats you can think of, take the time to reproduce important results, and where possible, use two independent methods to support an important claim. I expect you to push your limit and maximize your full potential. Of course, along the way, there will be technical problems, failures, and mistakes. I expect you to speak up about your problems, frustrations, and insecurities to help each other grow and enjoy the training phases. I do not accept any form of selfishness, dishonesty and undermining of an individual’s efforts in the lab. I expect lab members to adhere to protocols (update them as necessary) and safety regulations and maintain the highest ethical standard.
Reading the literature is essential to forming a framework for understanding the broader question in biology, as well as the specific advancements in the current project that you are working on. Please take the time to become an expert in the literature surrounding your project. Reading papers is hard at first. It may take a long time to get through one paper. Be critical. Do not believe everything you read, make them convince you. In 6 months to a year, I expect you to become an expert in the theory and practice of the techniques that you use.
As a member of the TIIP lab, you will have a central project/task that you will be working on, I expect you to make substantial contributions to project, not only technically but also intellectually. For the initial stages, I will ensure that I work with you and train you on the appropriate techniques that would be necessary for any experiment (or refer you to subject matter experts either within Department or within Penn). Please, ask your other lab members for help if necessary for an experiment/technique if they have the skill sets to be able to help you, we are all in this together. In 6 months’, you should be able to a robust conversation about the project you are working on.
Please take charge of your career path and decide what and where you want to go after your program. However, I intend to work alongside with you to help make your experience in the lab, improve your competitiveness for your next career stage. Remember, I am your mentor, advocate, and supervisor. Talk to me about your plans and even when they change (perhaps quarterly). When it is time, I will also be happy to write fair and honest reference letters and help you advance your career.
Work Ethics
I expect you to be self-motivated such that the number of hours worked is not an explicit issue. As a member of the TiiP Lab, you should put in the hours necessary to move your work/project forward but need not linger in the lab for appearance’s sake. I expect significant working hours, from 9am- 5pm everyday (except on public holidays), to stimulate scientific discussion and help each other. If you have an experiment that is directly related to the project you are working on, it is expected that you stay till the end of your experiment for that day before leaving. This is part of taking ownership for your project. On days when you finish your experiment late, it is OK to come in a bit later the next day depending on your task and schedule for the next day. Sometimes, based on the project, you might be required to come on the weekends to be able to move forward the project, this is part of our job as a scientist and should be accommodated.
Vacation helps us recharge and can increase overall productivity: Everyone is provided with time off according to UPenn policy for their position (See details here for guidelines guiding vacation times at Penn here (Benefits At A Glance). As a general guideline, please give a week’s notice if you need to take a day or two off; and a month’s notice if you need to take a week or more off. This will allow us to coordinate ongoing projects around your time away. If you take unplanned time off, I expect you will communicate with me as soon as possible.
Use of AI for writing and data analysis: Artificial intelligence is a new tool set in this 21st century that we can’t deny and has come to stay with us. If you want to use AI for any part of your writing or for data analysis, please let me know and let us have a chat about this before you begin. I believe writing is mostly a creative and intellectual process so the use of AI for this process should be very limited, if used at all for editing purposes, and if used further than that, should be acknowledged. Please let me know before you use it, in case this is contrary to the journal guidelines! If using AI for analysis, please don’t share any private data set, PII, or metadata, and follow NIH and UPenn guidelines concerning the use of AI for data analysis.
Productivity and Wellness
As scientists, we work hard for long hours, and balancing personal life needs and work can be challenging. Even though we have high expectations, we should still have a well-rounded life outside the laboratory. Our physical and mental health is the foundation of our productivity and career advancement. Please constantly take care of your physical and mental health, regardless of approaching deadlines. Personal Hygiene is imperative to the respect of others in a workspace such as labs where multiple people spend many hours near each other. So please make sure you clean up after yourself at the end of your experiments!
If you are struggling with any emotional and mental health issue, please refer to Penn HR website for UPenn wide resources to help with this – https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/wellness-worklife. We believe that building community is critical to ensuring a sound and productive mind.
Publications and Authorships
As scientists, we work hard for long hours, and balancing personal life needs and work can be challenging. Even though we have high expectations, we should still have a well-rounded life outside the laboratory. Our physical and mental health is the foundation of our productivity and career advancement. Please constantly take care of your physical and mental health, regardless of approaching deadlines. Personal Hygiene is imperative to the respect of others in a workspace such as labs where multiple people spend many hours near each other. So please make sure you clean up after yourself at the end of your experiments!
Ethics, Values, and Diversity
UPenn is an equal opportunity employer; as such, ALL members of this lab shall abide by all laws and regulations that ensure that everyone’s opinion, perspective, and thoughts shall be respected and valued, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or political affiliation. In the same vein, we would ensure to work together as a team to ensure that every member of the team feels valued for their contribution, regardless of their race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, handicap, educational background/status, where they are in their journey in science, etc. No toxic behaviors such as gossiping, bullying, backbiting, and/or undermining of any team members’ contributions shall be condoned in this lab. Key values that we would endeavor to practice in this lab are honesty, generosity, and kindness to one another and towards others. As humans, it is normal to have conflicts as individuals work together. In case of conflict, in this lab, our first line of action would be to communicate with one another first, with the intention of letting the individual know and resolving the issue amicably between ourselves. This means our first line of action for any issue should be discussing among ourselves to resolve the issue, and if required, we would be ready to let people in a position of authority know as necessary.
Tissue Immune and Immune Priming Lab 