Plant Science: The Science of Life, The Future of Life Despite plants being everywhere, we often ignore their importance. They are crucial for life on Earth, supporting ecosystems, providing the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat, and renewable resources for our society. Climate change, food shortages,…

The journey so far You finish high school, then a bachelor's degree, then a master's, and eventually a PhD. Each step can feel like the natural continuation of the one before it. Along the way, you collect the moments that remind you why you chose science: the smell of a greenhouse after watering,…

A job application asks you to provide a teaching portfolio, and you are stumped. Never fear! This short blog will walk you through the basics of compiling your very own teaching portfolio, provide links to additional resources, and offer helpful tips to make this process as pain-free as possible. (Note:…

You have gone through years of training, landed a grant to start your own lab at your dream university, and now you are standing in an empty lab space full of equipment thinking, "Wow! Now I actually need to hire people to help me do science." Given it is conference season (we had an amazing Plant Biology…

What does it mean to fail in science? In scientific research, what we call “failure” does not always mean the same thing. While some failures arise from technical issues, others stem from the scientific process itself. In the first case, experimental problems due to procedural mistakes, inadequate…

It was a cold Tuesday afternoon in my second year when my advisor sat across from me and said, almost gently, "I think we need to reconsider the direction of your project." I had spent the last year optimizing the phenotyping protocol for drought response in a specific Arabidopsis mutant line. I had…

Competition for scientific job positions is increasingly fierce nowadays. That pressure is felt even more strongly in the global south, where stable and well-funded jobs for highly trained scientists are limited, often available in a select few cities (Kent et al, 2022[1]). Major employers include…

Importance of collaboration Collaboration has become central to contemporary science. The 2024 Physiology Nobel laureate Victor Ambrose remarked that “two people talking about something they’re really interested in is more than just twice one person. Because the exchange of ideas can be catalytic.”…