Drilling down what to focus on
With Dr Catarina Henriques
Not many people can claim they visited embassies to figure out where to study at university, but Catarina did. Before the internet made information readily available, exploring educational opportunities required courage and perseverance. With the support of the British Council, Catarina discovered various Genetics degrees offered across UK universities.
As an undergraduate, Catarina was on a promising path, with a degree in genetics, ample laboratory experience, and strong recommendations. However, personal circumstances required her to return to Portugal to support her family. This detour didn't deter her from her goals.
Determined to work on telomeres, Catarina reached out to anyone involved in related research, leading her to a cancer research group. She maintained connections with a Principal Investigator (PI) at The University of Glasgow, collaboratively developing a PhD project that bridged her interests and academic relationships. Although her PhD project wasn't directly on telomeres, she kept her eye on developments in that area.
After completing her PhD, Catarina stayed in Portugal, joining a new research group transitioning from yeast to zebrafish as a model organism. This period was instrumental in building her confidence to develop her own research team.
She didn't wait for her fellowship to end to explore future opportunities. Instead, she networked and visited research groups to identify potential hosts for a fellowship. Despite an initial unsuccessful fellowship application, her groundbreaking research showing that zebrafish age similarly to humans caught the attention of The University of Sheffield.
A group at The University of Sheffield was at the time looking to recruit a senior academic for zebrafish research; they contacted her PI who put her in touch with the Sheffield team. She was then recruited via some MRC funding that the department held.
The timing worked in her favour as the institution at the time was running a round of internally funded fellowship recruitments which she was encouraged to apply for and was successful in gaining. This was an exciting period, as Catarina really felt that people were interested in her work and were prepared to help her, but also she was surrounded by many other researchers with expertise in zebrafish. Her momentum in building her research niche could be fuelled by colleagues in her department.
More about Catarina
Dr. Catarina Henriques is a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow at The University of Sheffield. Her journey into a research career was ignited by a TV documentary on telomeres she watched as a teenager, which fueled her enduring interest in the biology of aging. Transitioning from Portugal to the UK to pursue her research ambitions involved numerous daring conversations.
Lab website:
http://cmhenriques-lab.weebly.com
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:
Do you know what brings you energy in your research life?
What would be the risk in focusing on key research activities instead of scattering yourself and feeling overwhelmed?
How do you handle conversations about research ownership?
Some reflections to ponder on the transition to being a Principal Investigator
Embracing Uncertainty and Authenticity
Even with a fellowship, there is a long journey to feeling secure in research careers. Learning to live with this level of uncertainty is a challenge.
Research fellows in their attempt to secure more permanent positions will contribute to their departments in many ways from admin roles to teaching. Excelling on all front is challenging. Knowing whether we have done enough is difficult to assess.
For Catarina, like many early career academics, there is a risk of throwing yourself all over the place in your academic activities because you may feel that it is what the department wants. Understanding what the department will want to see from you to consider you for promotion or to offer you a position at the end of your fellowship can be a bit of a guessing game.
Academic assessments are subjective, so what constitutes “good enough” to be in a good position to be promoted will vary greatly. This lack of clarity in assessment requirement often leaves early career academics with the perception that they need to contribute to as many things as possible in their academic activities. It so often leaves them drained, overworked and frustrated when their efforts are not rewarded.
The wisdom that Catarina has gained is to understand who she is at her best and what she needs to be her best. This has allowed her to have more empathy to herself and accept it is not sustainable to do everything in academic life.
Choosing to focus her academic activities towards what gives her energy, what sustain her enthusiasm and where she can be her best self is bringing some ease in how she is navigating the research environment on her own terms.
o What activities in your academic career give you energy and sustain your enthusiasm?
o How can you align your academic activities with your strengths and passions?
o What strategies can you use to manage the uncertainty and subjective assessments in your research career?
Early Conversations About Research Ownership
Early in her career, Catarina experienced the challenges of delayed conversations about research ownership. These difficult discussions highlighted the importance of early and clear communication about mutual expectations in new working relationships. She now emphasises the need for open and honest conversations with PhD students/postdocs to build trust.
PhD students and Postdocs may feel that they can only tell their supervisors what they want to hear about their career aspirations. They may worry that by being more open this creates a risk of not being fully supported or being stopped in some ways. Of course, there is always a risk in being open, but I firmly believe that more honest conversations about our career aspirations with those who supervise us allows us to be our authentic self instead of pretending to be someone we are not. This openness will invite support that can become more tailored to the directions you wish to move towards.
o How can you initiate early conversations about research ownership with your supervisor or team?
o What are your career aspirations, and how can you communicate them openly to your supervisor?
o How can transparent discussions about mutual expectations improve trust and collaboration in your research group?
Navigating Fellowship Transitions
When someone gains a fellowship, it may take quite some time before they are in a position to build a team. Many fellowships come with limited budget meaning that as a fellow you are likely to continue working on your own for a long time before you can recruit students to start working on your project.
The negotiation part of the fellowship transition is something we don’t speak often about. Maybe this is because each institution and department has very different approaches to their package offerings for new research group leaders. An independent position either via a fellowship or a lectureship does not mean that you will systematically get a PhD student when you start for example. This would probably be the exception. Modes of access to PhD students vary greatly. This is something you will want to discuss when you are seeking a fellowship host. Try to understand their approach to handing PhD studentships.
For fellows, it is likely that the first few years you will continue to work on your own. For Catarina, she was fortunate enough to be able to access a research assistant when she started. This is something she probably needed to negotiate carefully. These positions will only exceptionally be offered to you. Negotiating your recruitment package is something that you may be reluctant to do but is well worth being prepared to do as this could make a significant difference when you start building your group.
As Catarina started to build her team, she continued to train students directly, giving close instructions, challenging their thinking and seeing how they analyse their data. This close and carefully supervision is a slow process of building trust. Until now, Catarina has continued to spend the majority of her time in the lab long after she started her position. Research groups rarely expand quickly.
o What strategies can you use to negotiate a favorable recruitment package for your fellowship?
o How can you manage the initial period of working independently when initiating the start of your research group?
o What do you need to know about an institution regarding their support for new fellows when choosing a fellowship host?
Building a Supportive Network of Mentors
Because of the research lab set up, Catarina ended up having laboratory space on two different locations on her campus. This meant engaging with academics from different departments. Two academics from these departments who were both interested in Zebrafish became her mentors.
These mentors were particularly important because as a Portuguese researcher moving into a PI role in the UK, there were many issues that Catarina had never come across, that she needed to negotiate. Having these mentors really interested in supporting her, meant having allies who could make her aware of important things to think of ahead. There are many unwritten rules to navigating the research landscape, so having a pair of trusted academics who have your back and make you aware of challenges ahead allows you to be more strategic and to better prepare any negotiations that are worth engaging with.
o Who can you ask to be your mentor (maybe in addition to your academic host)?
o If you are changing countries, what do you know of the rules of the academic games in this country?
o Do you know how to engage in negotiation (using the necessary cultural awareness of the country)?
o What is negotiable when discussing your starter package?
“I need to choose the things in my life that give me energy, that are positive and that foster my enthusiasm because that’s all I have…I don’t think I have any superpower to succeed in this career. In fact, I’m not sure I will succeed. But the one thing I have is my passion and, so I need to find the things that foster that and don’t detract from that.””
