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This special issue comprises a series of papers written by former PhD students, as well as friends and colleagues, to celebrate the career of Alayne Street-Perrott, who is currently Professor of Physical Geography at Swansea University. Alayne's research career has been exceptional, marked by novel, cutting-edge research of the very highest quality in several disciplines, which addresses ‘big’ questions in Quaternary Science. She has promoted the importance of tropical environments through international cooperation and leadership, and developed fundamental concepts. She has made an immense contribution to our understanding of global change in the Quaternary, raising the discipline to new levels of scientific rigour.

My research career started with snakes. For a year, from 1965 to 1966, Claes Hellerstrom and I worked together in herpetology (the branch of zoology that deals with amphibians, including frogs, toads, and reptiles). We joined forces with an SAS pilot, Captain Florin, who, between the flights to Los Angeles, was chairman of the Uppsala Herpetological Society. In his spare time, he collected rattlesnakes in the Californian deserts, transported them in the cockpit of his plane, and delivered them to us. Our second supplier was a herpetologist located close to Arlanda airport. Vipers on demand—as we needed snakes, he went out into the forest and collected them for us. Why snakes? In histology textbooks from the 1950s, the pancreatic islets were described as being composed of three cell types: alpha (A), beta (B), and delta (D). It had long been known that the beta cells produce insulin. Although a substance with hyperglycemic properties—glucagon—had been detected in pancreatic extracts as early as 1923 (1), it was not until the early 1950s that it was discovered that alpha cells produce glucagon (2). In 1960, Claes Hellerstrom and his PhD supervisor Bo Hellman described a silver impregnation technique that made it possible to distinguish between two types of alpha cells, which they termed A1 and A2 cells (3,4). They made the case that the A2 cells were the glucagon producers. The question then remained: what is the function of the A1 cells? This is where phylogenetic studies, including those on reptiles, came into the picture.

Objectives/Hypothesis Development of an academic career easily follows a clinical course for which there are multiple role models; however, development of an academic research career involves few role models, and rarely do instructional guides reach out to the new faculty. The purpose of this article is to present the cumulative experiences of previously and currently funded authors to serve as a guide to young as well as older faculty for developing their research careers. Study Design Cumulative experiences of research-dedicated faculty. Methods This article is the result of lessons learned from developing a Triological Society National Physician-Scientist Program and Network, as well as the cumulative experiences of the authors. Results Table I illustrates key elements in developing a serious research career. Table II records the career courses of five surgeon-scientists, highlighting the continued theme focus with theme-specific publications and progressive grants. These cumulative experiences have face validity but have not been objectively tested. The value added is a composite of 50 years of experiences from authors committed to research career development for themselves and others. Conclusion Crucial elements in developing a research career are a desire for and commitment to high-quality research, a focus on an overall theme of progressive hypothesis-driven investigations, research guidance, a willingness to spend the time required, and an ability to learn from and withstand failure. Level of Evidence 5.

How to balance a long-term illness and a research career. How to balance a long-term illness and a research career.

This article gives a personal overview of a research career lasting from 1970 at the University of Sheffield to 2020 at the University of York with stops at Syntex California, University College London, The Open University and The University of East Anglia in between. Selected research group highlights are summarised and placed in context. The Perspective concludes with some reminiscences and reflections about an academic research career in the UK over the past 50 or so years.

Prof. Rudolf Emil Kalman passed away on July 2, 2016 at the age of 86 years old. I learned this sad news in an email from my friend Tryphon Georgiou. The news made me reflect for a while on Kalman's enormous achievements and also on his influence on me and my research. Without his guidance and supervision, my research career would never have been possible, and I am eternally grateful to him (Figure 1).

Larry Royster was a dedicated scientist and engineer whose recognized contributions in the area of noise control and hearing conservation were by no means his only interests. After retiring, Larry's amazing mind was free to follow his fancy into a wide variety of topics. He measured countless phenomena and graphed the results, read nonfiction prodigiously and rated what he read, and wrote summaries for the public about what he was learning. He took up golf and amateur radio with zeal. Liberated from responsibilities that he had always taken quite seriously, he teased his friends and laughed with them. He also reflected on qualities of character that drove him throughout his teaching and research career. In this presentation I will share sides of Larry that were not obvious to many.

Claude DetrazClaude Detraz was born 20 March 1938 in Albi (Tarn), France. An alumnus of the Ecole Normale Superieure, he started his research career at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi...

This is the second in a series of papers that provides an historical record in this journal of contributions made by the most influential researchers in the field of fluency disorders. The present paper reflects on the long and productive career of Ehud Yairi, outlining his many contributions to the field of stuttering, and his outstanding achievements and accomplishments. The paper is based on interviews with him during 2020, after the conclusion of his research career. His visionary, lifetime work has advanced our understanding of the nature, origins, and epidemiology of this disorder.

Research demonstrates consistently how the route to professor is gendered. Structural inequalities within academic systems can make it hard for women to achieve the status of Chair. It has been argued, for example, that women academics may be judged on their ‘maternal bodies’ (or their potential for reproduction) rather than on performance. Relatedly, women’s commitment to the academy might be questioned due to unfair and unsubstantiated institutional assumptions that female scholars may at some point in their career prioritize parenting over employment (irrespective of whether they are in practice mothers). It has been shown, additionally, that women are less likely than men to be invited into career-advancing networks. Yet should women seek to pursue their own career advancement, they may be treated as ‘pushy’. Nevertheless, despite such structural barriers to career progression, some do reach professorial level. In this chapter, I share advice received from good colleagues, as well as some personal learning which helped move forward my research career. Acknowledging how some of these opportunities were serendipitous rather than strategic, I nevertheless embed such experiences within existing research on women in management, offering some personal thoughts on what might prove helpful, including the benefits of not waiting to be asked.

This perspective describes some of the milestones in my career working with echinoderm gametes and embryos, and especially the questions that remain to be answered. Techniques have evolved and our approaches are now often very different than they were even a decade ago, but the fascination with and excitement for scientific discovery remains.

We focus on the role that domestic and international mobility play in achieving a business academic’s career outcomes. We seek to advance existing research by taking a morenuanced approach to the study of mobility. Using a sample of 376 tenured faculty members from 20 highly research-visible European business schools in 10 countries, we explore different patterns of mobility and highlight their link to research-career capital and the speed of academic promotion. Our findings show that mobility has a positive impact on research-career capital, but multiple moves delay academic promotion. In making decisions about international mobility, it is important to know that moving internationally for one’s first post-PhD job undermines research productivity. However, moving internationally between year 2 and year 7 post-PhD is better than moving later on. The ability to move between countries is deeply rooted in gender, with female faculty less likely to access international mobility. Female academics also take longer to be promoted to a tenured rank and to full professorship. Our findings have implications for academic researchers who consider domestic and international mobility, and for PhD supervisors whose duty it is to prepare their students for successful careers in academia.

Obtaining grant funding is a fundamental component to achieving a successful research career. A successful grant application needs to meet specific mechanistic expectations of reviewers and funders. This paper provides an overview of the importance of grant funding within medical education, followed by a stepwise discussion of strategies for creating a successful grant application for medical education-based proposals. The last section includes a list of available medical education research grants.

Universities have been called upon to integrate research experiences into early, introductory courses to better prepare our STEM workforce. This call is primarily based on short-term studies that link research experiences with knowledge and perception gains. However, the influence of pre-existing student characteristics has not been fully disentangled from the research experience, and the long-term stability of these gains is uncertain. To address these issues, we integrated a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) into randomly assigned sections of a required freshman-level biology laboratory course. We previously reported that this CURE resulted in immediate targeted knowledge and perception gains. Here, we evaluate the stability of these gains as students progressed through a biology degree program. At sophomore year, the impact of the CURE on student perception was still apparent. When compared to controls, students who participated in the CURE perceived a greater understanding of what researchers do and an increased interest in pursuing a research career. However, by senior year, these positive perceptions had fallen to levels shared by control groups. Targeted knowledge gains persisted throughout this study. Our results support CURE logic models predicting that multiple CUREs will be required to sustain perception gains.

In this chapter, the authors outline key steps and considerations to take into account when entering into the realm of quantitative research. The primary question guiding this chapter is the following: “How does one conduct quality quantitative research as a novice researcher?” Several equally important questions are subsumed within this general question, such as “What are the first steps to conducting quantitative research?” and “What are the best statistical methods to use?” The authors address each of these questions based on their experience with quantitative research in academia. The authors include senior and junior professors as well as senior doctoral students, each of whom began their research career with as many questions and concerns as any novice beginning their research journey is likely to have. That said, the authors aim to help novice researchers explore how quantitative research in mathematics education requires several sequential and coordinated steps and to outline tips and precautions to take as well.

After 9 years of post-secondary education in sociology and a decade of studying workforce trends, chapter author Mary Walshok began her journey of integrating the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship into her discipline. As a young dean at a new, aggressive research university, Walshok already had much on her plate when she began to interact with David and his body of research. In this chapter the author describes how David’s work gave her a framework that not only has shaped her research career but has allowed her to be a resource to civic leaders and policy influencers as they try to renew regional economies.

Dr. Zvi Drezner’s research career has touched on many areas of location analysis. We devote the first part of this chapter to summarizing Zvi’s vast contributions to the studies of the minimax and the maximum facility location problems. His relevant publications are grouped in terms of the characteristics of the problems investigated, including space, the number of facilities to locate, and completeness of information. In particular, we provide an overview of Zvi’s work in the deterministic planar minimax problems. The second part of the chapter is our own paper on a network median problem when demand weights are independent random variables. The objective of the model proposed is to locate a single facility so as to minimize the expected total demand-weighted distance subject to a constraint on the value-at-risk (VaR). The study integrates the expectation criterion with the VaR measure and links different median models with random demand weights. Methods are suggested to identify dominant points for the optimal solution. An algorithm is developed for solving the problem.

In this chapter we will approach three broad topics: your passion, your values, and your work style. As described in chapter “ The Framework for this Book: The Socioecological Model,” these topics are part of the innermost circle of the socioecological model, which is the individual (YOU, baby!). Each of these aspects of who you are is interlinked and affects your research career. Each requires you to focus on yourself to best understand what and how you want to lead your career as a scientist. In each section we will ask you to reflect and define what your passions, values, and work style are or will be. These are topics you will return to throughout your career, to reaffirm or strengthen and to modify or redirect. Consistent periodic self-reflection will best allow you to move forward in your career and really rock science to its core.

Research, by its very nature, can have a degree of trial and error about it. We must acknowledge and represent the error as well as the trial. Research engagement and impact are always evolving. One solution can often become a trigger for new challenges. In my research career, I have approached engagement as a life-long activity in much the same way that anthropologists and linguists do, by building relationships with a community over an entire professional life. This allows me as a researcher to observe how social change occurs over time and allows me to develop frameworks that reflect changes. To demonstrate the way that research within a community can be a rewarding, challenging and evolving endeavour, I return to my home village in Ghana where the launch of an historical research project spun off into two directions of impact—one positive and one negative—and caused me to reflect on the research relationship I had developed and nurtured in my home community.

The study is aimed at identifying barriers to the research career of women in the academic environment of a technical university. The authors present the results of their study of the women’s status in the academic community. The study is based on a quantitative (questionnaire survey) and qualitative (biographical interviews) analysis of the opinions of students and teachers of STEM disciplines of a technical university about the features and problems of women’s professional careers. It is established that women of the same university evaluate the presence and degree of influence of barriers to the research careers differently. In some cases, women assessing their professional status note that they do not feel professional discrimination on the basis of gender. In general, the analysis revealed that women who received a STEM education use a strategy of avoiding a research career and choosing alternative career options: either outside the academic environment, or by transitioning to teaching as a way to circumvent gender barriers in grant and publication activities. © 2019 Moscow Polytechnic University. All rights reserved. Russian Foundation for Basic Research, RFBR Russian Foundation for Basic Research, RFBR: 19-011-00252 in the framework of the project «Comparative analysis of social effects and the impact of institutional conditions on the professional training of engineering specialists», implemented with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research – RFBR (grant № 19-011-00252).

He grasped its significance immediately, and I’ve always thought that right there before my eyes he changed the direction of his own research career. Spin resonance was pushed into the background, and he moved strongly into what was to become nonlinear optics and a whole new chapter in his contributions to physics. John Armstrong, Ph.D. student supervised by Bloembergen from 1958 to 1963.

As scientists, we develop technical expertise and design experiments to support (or refute) our hypotheses. With experience, we appreciate that science can be conducted in a variety of ways — each with different key questions. All are critical for advancing biomedical research.

The overall focus of this brief book is on answering the question: “How can I find money to support my research?” In this chapter, we present funding options, and add perspective on how you can level the playing field. We start by discussing why you might wish to apply for government and foundation grant and contract awards, why you might prefer grant or contract funding, then overview various ways to use outside funding to propel your academic career, support your students, and build your research career.

Julian Schroeder’s research career might have unfolded differently if he had not run into Linus Pauling in the coffee room. Schroeder was a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen, Germany, and was torn between attending a seminar on plant science and a speech by Linus Pauling on nuclear disarmament. As he pondered this dilemma, Schroeder took a break to grab a cup of tea. “I opened the door to our lab’s coffee room, and who’s sitting there? Linus Pauling!” says Schroeder. Pauling was by himself, and Schroeder got to discuss everything from nuclear disarmament and physics to chemistry. Julian I. Schroeder. Image courtesy of Erik Jepsen (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA). Copyright Regents of the University of California. Thanks to his chance encounter with Pauling, Schroeder decided to forgo Pauling’s speech and attended the plant science seminar, which would set the ball rolling for a long and fruitful career studying plants. Schroeder has spent most of his career characterizing plant ion channels and elucidating the mechanisms by which their regulation helps plants resist environmental stresses. He has described the signaling pathways that regulate stomatal guard cell movements and has improved our understanding of how plants protect themselves from drought, high salt, and heavy metals, with practical implications for improving crop plants. Now a Novartis Distinguished Professor in Plant Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, Schroeder was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015. In his Inaugural Article (IA), Schroeder describes a mechanism by which guard cells sense carbon dioxide, which is relevant for understanding how plants cope with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (1). Schroeder says his mother instilled a sense of self-sufficiency in him. She became separated from her Bulgarian/Czech family in Bulgaria during …

I, Sahiti Kunchay, am a student of the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at The Pennsylvania State University, enrolled in the IST's PhD program's Fall 2018 cohort, with the expected date of graduation being May 2023. My undergraduate background in Computer Science and Sociology offered me the unique perspective of identifying and investigating pressing issues through the combined lens of research methodologies in computing as well as social sciences. As a part of my research career, I have been involved in multiple projects, which yielded publications accepted at workshops co-located with conferences such as ACM CHI, ACM SenSys and ACM MobiSys. Along with being awarded the Student Travel Grant by SIGMOBILE, I have also been awarded the ACM-W Scholarship to present my work at the aforementioned venues.

In this Button Prize speech, the author will review the long journey, spanning over his entire research career, from far-infrared to THz.

A hobby or passion is an important tool that can help you in your research career, says Manasi Kulkarni-Khasnis. A hobby or passion is an important tool that can help you in your research career, says Manasi Kulkarni-Khasnis.

Caroline Harwood is a microbiologist working to decipher pathways of biodegradation, signal transduction, and biofuel exploration at the biochemical and molecular levels. In addition to her research career, she is also an excellent writer and mentor whose enthusiasm for sciences fosters a truly collaborative atmosphere. This chapter by Rebecca E. Parales and Margaret McFall-Ngai covers Dr. Harwood’s career and personal reflections from the authors as well as a number of her mentees from over the years.

Despite the disapproval of her family and the criticisms of male faculty, Millicent “Mimi” Goldschmidt earned a Ph.D. in microbiology in 1953 and went on to have a profound impact on the U.S. Space Program, including the development of microbiology techniques that would be used on the moon. The Apollo Program helped Mimi recognize a severe lack of rapid diagnostic tests in microbiology, to which she would dedicate her research career. Along the way, Mimi became a pioneering advocate for women in microbiology and inspired generations of students to careers in microbiology.

Diana Downs is a microbial physiologist who exemplifies the application of creativity and persistence in research by challenging paradigms through elegant incorporation of genetics and biochemistry to dissect metabolic pathways. Focusing on the robustness of one essential pathway, Diana’s research has unraveled metabolism while defining function of numerous enzymes. Her approach to research has shaped her unique mentoring style, which encourages students to challenge ideas and preconceptions, to temper excitement and curiosity with rigorous and creative experimentation, and to develop independence. Her approach has inspired many of her female students, including me, to be confident in our work, find our passion, and build successful careers in both academia and industry.

In the recent years, there has been a decrease in the number of medical professionals dedicated to a research career. There is evidence that students with a research experience during their training acquire knowledge and skills that increase the probability of getting involved in research more successfully. In the Degree of Medicine (University of the Basque Country) the annual core subject 'Research Project' introduces students to research. The aim of this work was to implement a project-based learning methodology, with the students working on microbiology, and to analyse its result along time. Given an initial scenario, the students had to come up with a research idea related to medical microbiology and to carry out a research project, including writing a funding proposal, developing the experimental assays and analyzing and presenting their results to a congress organized by the University. Summative assessment was performed by both students and teachers. A satisfaction survey was carried out to gather the students' opinion. The overall results regarding to the classroom dynamics, learning results and motivation after the implementation were favourable. Students referred a greater interest about research than they had before. They would choose the project based methodology versus the traditional one.

Introduction Despite high faculty attrition and challenges to expanding the number of clinician-researchers, career development to heighten trainees' pursuit of an academic research career remains a relatively understudied topic. Completing peer-reviewed publications during medical school increases a trainee's likelihood of becoming a future faculty member. There is a lack of educational content to guide trainees in selecting research activities, publishing, and gaining self-efficacy to pave a path towards a clinician-researcher track. Methods The Kern model was applied to create a multimodal workshop that would heighten trainee awareness of various research opportunities, skills for conducting research, best practices in publishing, and also help them develop a personal plan to pursue research. The workshop included a presentation, reflection exercises, and a case scenario. The workshop was implemented among trainees attending professional development conferences at nine medical schools. A questionnaire assessed participants' change in self-efficacy in completing research scholarship and pursuing an academic research career. Results Sixty medical students and seven residents participated in the workshops. Paired-sample t tests indicated a statistically significant increase in participants' perception that academic medicine would allow them to engage in research work, and in their self-efficacy to publish and succeed along a clinician-researcher track. Discussion The workshop not only exposed participants to a variety of research activities but also provided a sense that all research types are valid, aiding some participants to identify new research opportunities. In addition, participants gained clarity on how to publish and develop a research path, which may help maintain interest in a clinician-researcher track.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd Aim: To consider clinician researcher career frameworks and propose a new pathway, integrating university and health service components to support research career progression within nursing and midwifery practice. Background: Hospitals with research-active clinicians report fewer adverse events and better patient outcomes. Nursing clinician researcher career development is therefore an international priority, yet positions and expectations associated with this are not always well articulated, with nurses and midwives challenged to accommodate research and clinical careers. Design: This discussion paper describes nurse/midwife clinician researcher career frameworks and a new pathway that aligns academic and nursing role descriptions. Data sources: The new framework was informed by a brief literature search for international framework documents, three Australian state-based Nurses and Midwives Awards: the Australian Qualifications Framework, publically available University Academic (Research) Award schedules and academic staff descriptions, and state health department and health services publications. Implications for nursing: The implementation of research-based practice is a key element of nursing and midwifery roles and “advanced practice” position descriptions have well-defined research expectations. This paper considers structures to support their achievement. Conclusion: This paper provides a blueprint for clinician researcher career development. It elevates the research domain as an equal alongside clinical, managerial and educational clinical career development.

In late November 2017, the ADFM Research Development Committee reported on a proposal made to and approved by the American Board of Family Medicine to create a pilot program for a Family Medicine Physician Scientist Pathway (FM-PSP).[1][1] In that commentary, we shared background and planned

Cardiologist and molecular and cell biologist Gerald Dorn, MD, has built his research career crafting interesting questions and teaching himself techniques needed to find answers. Using approaches including genetic and physiological manipulation in animal models, development of mini-mouse technology to elucidate cardiac mysteries, and human genetics/genomics, Dorn is helping to unravel cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying cardiomyopathy and heart failure.1,2 Gerald W. Dorn II Dorn, 57, is founding director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, where he joined the faculty in 2008. As a teenager Dorn sped through high school, starting college two years early. He earned his medical degree and trained in internal medicine, pharmacology, and clinical and interventional cardiology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, where two key mentors sparked in him a passion for patient care and research. After a couple of years at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Dorn moved to the University of Cincinnati, where an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award kick-started his research program. From 1990 to 2008 Dorn rose through the ranks at Cincinnati, capitalizing on the institution’s strength in mouse cardiac transgenesis. Dorn’s current interests include molecular mechanisms of cell death,3 microRNA regulation of cardiac genes,4 and mitochondrial dynamism5—work that has expanded to Parkinson’s disease. Building on an upbringing that valued lifelong growth, and drawing from his own broad experience, Dorn now leverages the holism of systems biology to fill in what he calls his field’s “infinitely large shades of gray.” My father was a career naval aviator. Whenever he moved, we moved. So I’m not really from anywhere. We spent a lot of time on both coasts. As a child I lived, in addition to …

Small research grants can provide a funding source for novice physician-scientists during residency or as junior investigators. However, it is unknown if emergency medicine (EM) grant recipients benefit beyond the immediate monetary infusion of these modest awards (

The modern educational and professional system favours specialization within each individual, while encouraging collaboration amongst people of diverse backgrounds. More often than not we find ourselves working with a team of experts trained in different domains. Although such an environment promotes creativity, peer learning, and productivity, it also poses boundaries for individuals of different disciplines to overcome. In this essay, I reflect upon the time of my doctoral research, during which I worked on an interdisciplinary topic and interacted with people of very different training from mine. These experiences helped me gain insights into the potentials as well as difficulties in a multi-disciplinary situation, which has proven useful in my scientific career. I believe similar principles can apply in many other settings, and by sharing these thoughts I hope to show the readers various ways to look at interdisciplinarity that we may all encounter in of our lives.

Engaging pre-college youth in authentic field research experiences is important for supporting entrance of young people into the environmental sciences. Here, we describe a model and outcomes for integration of career exploration programs into the research and restoration imperatives of a university field station and a nature reserve. A progression of two partnered programs provide St. Louis area pre-college youth with field skills and then the opportunity to apply those skills in assistance to scientists on current research projects. The model provides for early entry into the ecological research career pathway for the youth and creates beneficial connection of professional activities to broader impacts outreach for the scientists. Importantly, the model differs from many other ecology outreach efforts because the youth programs are integrated into research rather than operating as separate outreach programs.

Howard Dalton was an outstanding microbiologist who, after his remarkably productive DPhil work in the Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory at the University of Sussex, and a short period in the USA, spent his research career at the University of Warwick. He devoted himself to the elucidation of the process of methane oxidation by bacteria that use this relatively inert gas as their sole source of carbon and energy. He discovered two completely novel multicomponent monooxygenase enzymes responsible for the initial oxidation of methane to methanol. He then continued to elucidate their functions, mechanisms, regulation and structures. Their wide substrate specificity led to his interest in using these and related enzymes for biocatalysis, biological transformations and bioremediation. While remaining at Warwick University he also acted as a highly appreciated Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government at the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra). Howard was a highly effective scientist, a down-to-earth, self-effacing man, outgoing and witty, an inspirational colleague who above all else made science fun.

Paul Fatt made discoveries that are fundamental to our understanding of synaptic transmission in the nervous system. He grew up in the USA and saw service in World War II, but came to London in 1948 as a research student supported by the GI Bill. His seminal work with Bernard Katz at University College London (UCL), John Eccles in Canberra, and Bernard Ginsborg at UCL was carried out during an intense period between 1950 and 1960. His work with Katz demonstrated for the first time that neurotransmitter is released in small packets, or ‘quanta’. His work with Eccles (and Katz) provided an understanding of the mechanism underlying synaptic inhibition, and his work with Ginsborg identified voltage-gated calcium currents for the first time. Furthermore, in the early 1960s his electrical measurements of the muscle transverse tubule system contributed to the early models of excitation–contraction coupling in muscle. The final period of his research career was spent working on phototransduction in the visual system.

We present here the life and research of V. S. Rama Das, a distinguished Indian botanist who specialized in photosynthesis. He was the first to purify chloroplasts that were free of mitochondrial contamination. He then studied C4, C3-C4 intermediate and CAM pathways, as well as their taxonomic distribution in tropical climates. His most valuable legacy is that he, as a philosopher, inspired and guided many students to pursue their research career in India. Also see Narayana and Pullaiah (Eminent Indian Botanists: Past and present: Biographies and contributions, pp 394-401, 2010) and Raghavendra and Reddy (Curr Sci 101:798-799, 2011) for further information on Rama Das.

Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is the visceral fat of the heart, sharing many of the pathophysiological properties of other visceral fat depots. EAT is a metabolically active paracrine and vasocrine organ that causes local cardiac inflammation and is strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of coronary atherosclerosis. This article highlights the findings of recent observational studies in patients on haemodialysis that link the quantity of EAT to increased rates of cardiovascular and coronary artery disease and review the proposed methods of pathogenesis and the possible role of EAT quantification to improve cardiovascular risk assessment.Increasing volumes of EAT in patients on haemodialysis correlate with increased inflammatory mediators, higher rates of cardiovascular disease and coronary artery calcification, independent of general adiposity. EAT is an independent predictor of mortality and a potentially modifiable target for therapeutic interventions.EAT is likely to play a central role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in patients on haemodialysis, adds incrementally to conventional cardiovascular risk stratification models and is a potential target for therapeutic intervention.

This invited reflection paper offers suggestions for early career researchers—both graduate students and new assistant professors—that are grounded in my own experiences during my quest to launch a research career. Topics include developing both topical and methodological expertise, identifying informal and formal mentors who have experience leading others toward research-based careers, cultivating a network of colleagues capable of offering insights for improving one's research, and managing other responsibilities in ways that do not supplant productive research activities. Recommendations for graduate students and new assistant professors are offered throughout.

I recall sweet memories of Professor Hideo Tanaka during my academic research career on fuzzy theory, as well as elaborate on how his applied works have inspired me on my subsequent theoretical research concerning fuzzy modeling and decision-making.

Laureate Professor Aitken’s research career began with a PhD in reproductive biology from the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge under the supervision of RV Short. Following postdoctoral positions at the Institute of Animal Genetics, University of Edinburgh and the University of Bordeaux, he joined the World Health Organization in Geneva, where he managed two WHO task forces within the Human Reproduction Unit. In 1977, he was appointed to the Medical Research Council’s Reproductive Biology Unit, University of Edinburgh, to establish a research group in gamete biology with clinical outreach into male infertility. In 1998 he moved to the University of Newcastle, NSW, as Chair of Biological Sciences and, later, as Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development. He is currently Pro Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Medicine. John has published over 500 research articles and his work has been cited >27 000 times. He has received numerous awards including the Simmett prize for reproductive biotechnology and in 2012 was named as NSW Scientist-of-the-year. John is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of New South Wales and the Australian Academy for Health and Medical Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and President of the International Society of Andrology.

The path to a successful graduate and research career is a complex and difficult one. Early career researchers (ECRs) have myriad choices and tasks to prioritize and complete as they build their CV but are often confronted with unfamiliar situations in which advice from more senior researchers can be extremely valuable. Here, we summarize a recent workshop held for ECRs by the Canadian Aquatic Resource Section of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) with support from the Education Section. Sessions touched on (1) getting published, (2) science communication and outreach, (3) scoring a job or grad school position, and (4) working within the science–policy interface. The decades of collective experience brought to the table should be shared with the broader readership of AFS because it may prove useful to ECRs as well as stimulate meaningful conversations on these important and timely issues.