Life of (a) PI

From the movie Life of Pi – which is quite different from the Life of a PI.

This may come as a surprise for the PhD students and postdocs in the audience, but professors work too. We just do it differently than you. I know, it may seem as we are busy doing nothing, but in reality, we constantly juggle many tasks, some small, some large – some important, some superfluous. And many – to be honest – quite boring. Importantly, we do a lot of stuff so you don’t have to do them. Even if it doesn’t always seem so, we strive to make your life easier.

My main task is to make sure the research and the research group is functioning. This means setting overarching research goals, bringing in money, equipment, provide national and international contacts and all other things that allows students and staff to go about their business. It also entails a lot of hiring decisions, mentoring and scientific guidance – but equally much at the personal level, keeping folks happy and to be a partner in discussions of science and life.

But it doesn’t end there. Most professors teach (usually around 40-50% of their time), and even if lecturing is part of it, most time is plowed into planning courses, oversee curriculums, answering shitload of emails, meetings with colleagues, students, and the high and mighty folks at department and faculty levels. On top of that, there are the administrative duties, participating in various boards, special committees, answering questions, make budgets, report to agencies, sign invoices, hunt down people, etc.

But what about the science? Don’t professors do science? Well, we do, but not to the extent you may think. I rarely am the first author these days, rather I am the last and corresponding author. This means involvement in planning of the study, scientific guidance during the experiment, advice on stats and writing, steering the communication with coauthors, polishing of language, deciding which journal to submit to, and other things that needs to be done. It is also my responsibility to foster the larger context, the cooperation with other groups and apply for grants – and to train my students in the arts of becoming independent scientists.

Science and education thus make up the two main pillars of a professor’s duties. But there is a third, too, namely communicating science to the public. This is the aspect that varies most between professors: some do tons, some do little, and some do none. I kind of like doing it, which includes hosting this blog, but also to give lectures, or write popular pieces for ornithological magazines. It also includes expert advice to different government bodies, and answering media questions.

This mix of things sometimes make you feel you don’t do anything, or at least that you don’t do enough. So, as a part of inner reflection, I took a look at what I did yesterday. A Monday, just an ordinary Monday – one of many in the life of a PI.

A good way is to look at the emails, of which I received 70:

• 1 was a confirmation of a submitted article (Yay!)
• 10 dealt with the organization of an upcoming conference we are hosting (Check it out here)
• 9 were from proMED (an invaluable resource for keeping abreast with disease information)
• 1 dealt with a course that just started
• 20 were either spam from fraudulent publishers, press-releases or commercials (delete, delete, delete)
• 13 were from our traveling agencies regarding tickets for me and two of my incoming postdocs (no PA for professors)
• 2 were from the HR department, dealing with hiring issues
• 1 was from a research proposal from a collaborator in Bangladesh
• 2 were from EFSA asking me whether I could participate in a panel on IAV (Parma is nice!)
• 3 were from postdocs or postdoc candidates
• 3 were from colleagues at the department on various small things
• 5 were from admin staff to organize events to raise students (important, but not so yay)

Apart from dealing with these emails (I sent 22 emails, myself), I gave a short lecture in a course, wrote an advert for a position as lab technician, read two papers, looked over a poster for a conference, had a meeting with the Head of Department, spoke with three colleagues on different work-related issues (including hiring a PhD student), investigated why a grant hadn’t been paid, discussed the progress of postdoc project, tried to contact a funding agency (but didn’t succeed). All in all, quite a few things, but not much actual scienceing this day – more logistical/management stuff. This was just one day, and every day is unique. Most days I do more writing, be it grant writing or actual science – and other days I do more teaching. But at least you get the gist of it: a professor does many things. Even if frustrating at times, it still is the best job I can imagine.