Helium

In this final episode of the show we sat down with our advisor Mark Wiesner. Mark is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a long time Department Chair at Duke University. He also has directed of the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology for 10+ years where he worked with Christine. Mark has shared insights about trust and building relationships throughout your career. This is the perfect capstone to the show. Please consider heading over to Patreon and supporting Helium Podcast so we can pay to keep the show online and on the podcast servers.

Courtney joined us in episode 6 as she was driving across the country to her new position at Washington State University. She rejoined us so we could learn how things shaped up in her first year+ of teaching, advising and grant writing. There is lots of reality in this episode, but a bunch of hope for those hoping to land a faculty position someday or starting one soon. She did not hold back telling it like it is and we appreciate her candor.

We take stock of the past 32 episodes and plot a course for future episodes of the show. We both work in roles where we help integrate teams and enable them to co-create knowledge, and we are going to focus on sharing more of those insights going forward. After a paternity leave for Matt we will return with the show later in the Fall. We will have a few longer interviews of academics but mostly focus on shorter 15 minute episodes centered on teams.

Is your brain more important than your teeth? Do you have daily mental hygiene habits? Author Matthew Kent joined us for this episode based where we discuss his Medium article 5 Ways Your Technology Is Destroying You (and What to Do About It) We get into just how addictive multi-tasking can be and how you brain pushes you to believe you should do more of it. We also talk about the importance of scheduling your brain to have off periods so that your work can be much more creative and productive. We hope this episode helps you as much as it helped us!

Dr. Richard Huysmans joined the show to discuss how to develop and nurture relationships with industry. These relationships will lead to more well-rounded mentoring for your students, more research collaboration opportunities and possible sponsorship of you work. How do you start? Ask your senior mentors to introduce you to their industry collaborators. Develop a LinkedIn profile where you talk about what you are passionate about in your research life. Avoid jargon on social media platforms if you intent is to connect with members of industry. Project the type of collaborator that you want to work with onto those platforms.