Can a POI be too young/new?

[lypiphera]

I have interviewed with my POI at one of my top choice schools, and it went very well.  Our research interests are closely aligned and I feel like we would be a great fit. The one thing that I'm trying to decide if I should take into consideration is the fact that he is a very new professor, having received his PhD only a few years ago.  This is is first year at the school.

 

I fee like there are both pros and cons to this situation, and I'm not sure how accurate these ideas are or how much each matters.

Pros:

-Likely doesn't have other graduate students (yet), which would mean more time and attention to my work, and more opportunities for me to be on his research projects

-More recently out of graduate school, so may understand it more?

 

Cons:

-I've heard from people that new, non-tenured faculty will be so focused on their own research and getting tenure that I would have less opportunities for authorship.  I would imagine this depends greatly on the personality of the professor.

-Less established background, networking, publications in the field, etc.

-May not know as much about being an advisor.

 

Any other Pros and Cons that I am missing?  To me, the fact that we seem like such a good match and I really like the school will likely way out any potential cons, but I would appreciate any input/comments/suggestions from both prospective, current, and past graduate students!

[Usmivka]

I'm having trouble finding the most appropriate links, but I feel like a lot has been written on this. Anyway, summarizing what I think I remember, you have some of the salient points, but are missing a couple big pros:

1. You get to help develop his mentoring in a way that works for you

2. Probably driven to get work done for tenure consideration, so you will likely get a lot done as well (coattails effect). I'd argue that a lot of papers are better than a couple, even if most of them are second authorship, but there is no reason to think that a fast pace wont mean you don't also get lots of first author pubs, which will benefit your adviser as well.

 

As always, the adviser fit and relationship is the most important thing, regardless of age or career status.

[BerenErchamion]

When would you expect his tenure review to be?

 

If he's denied tenure before you graduate, and is forced to find another position elsewhere, what will you do?

 

Not saying it should be a deal-breaker, but it might be worth having a backup plan just in case.

[Bearcat1]

When would you expect his tenure review to be?

 

If he's denied tenure before you graduate, and is forced to find another position elsewhere, what will you do?

 

Not saying it should be a deal-breaker, but it might be worth having a backup plan just in case.

I know someone this happened to, and it was a mess, so definitely something to consider. Often, however, when professors move they can work out a deal to bring you with (I believe there's another current thread about this) so you may be able to keep working with them. Although that would mean a move. 

[Usmivka]

If the PI is truly that young/new, his tenure consideration period is unlikely to come up before the OPer graduates. You can just ask about the timing, either him, or the department chair or admissions officer.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Usmivka

[Usmivka]

Also, here is a link with essentially the same question: some answers.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Usmivka

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

Cons:

-I've heard from people that new, non-tenured faculty will be so focused on their own research and getting tenure that I would have less opportunities for authorship.  I would imagine this depends greatly on the personality of the professor.

I would assume the opposite. The assistant prof that I work with aims to churn out a lot of research in order to get tenure. He encourages me work on my research constantly. I get a lot more attention from him than my other mentors who are both full profs and much less motivated to churn out pubs.

[TeaGirl]

I don't know if works the same since I'm in a STEM field, but I did my Master's with a non tenured assistant professor. He was working hard to get publications done and putting out a lot of research to get the tenure, but I still got a lot of mentoring and personal attention to my work. They really get swamped especially if they're taking on several new projects, as a result, even though I was only a Masters student, I was asked to write a couple of papers and got the chance to present at a conference. I got almost half a dozen publications out of it, and my name first on a couple.

 

It depends what your long term goals are though and how it works in your particular field. They may not be able to provide a strong network like someone who's been there a while, but seeing as you're a PhD student, I'm sure you could get to know some other older professors as well to build those networks.

[juilletmercredi]

I would say it depends, but yes, there are pros and cons.  The biggest con is his lack of a network, both in the field as a larger whole and in your department.  But even that varies - my department just hired a new prof who is a rising superstar in the field, so lots of people are familiar with his work, plus he was a postdoc here so he knows people in the department.

 

I actually don't think new profs offer less opportunities for authorship - on the contrary, their focus on pushing out papers may get you more opportunities, since they are actively collecting data and may have 2-3 or more projects going on at once.  My advisor is just a year away from tenure, but when I first arrived in 2008 he had only been here 3 years.  We have a variety of data sets for me to choose from in my areas of interest.  Some of them I am second or third author on, but I can also select my own topics and write to get first authorship (and my first ever paper was a first authored paper in a top journal in my field).  He's also a great mentor, despite his "inexperience" in terms of having had doctoral students (there was only one before me, and there's another who came in at the same time as me).

 

I thought about the tenure thing, too.  For me, if my advisor were denied it would be late in my PhD (at this point, if he were denied his last year would overlap with my last year, so it wouldn't matter) so my decision was to stay and finish and be mentored from afar.  But I also developed relationships with other professors who could mentor me if necessary.  My other mentors are more senior, so I benefit from their networks as well as the frenetic productivity of my primary advisor.

[Tall Chai Latte]

I fee like there are both pros and cons to this situation, and I'm not sure how accurate these ideas are or how much each matters.

Pros:

-Likely doesn't have other graduate students (yet), which would mean more time and attention to my work, and more opportunities for me to be on his research projects

-More recently out of graduate school, so may understand it more?

 

Cons:

-I've heard from people that new, non-tenured faculty will be so focused on their own research and getting tenure that I would have less opportunities for authorship.  I would imagine this depends greatly on the personality of the professor.

-Less established background, networking, publications in the field, etc.

-May not know as much about being an advisor.

 

Any other Pros and Cons that I am missing?  To me, the fact that we seem like such a good match and I really like the school will likely way out any potential cons, but I would appreciate any input/comments/suggestions from both prospective, current, and past graduate students!

 

Another pro is that your POI is young and ambitious, which is a plus for you because you two will be lifting your career at the same time. On the other hand, a rather senior POI can be not as enthusiastic/eager about publishing their work, because he/she doesn't need it anymore. Getting along with younger POI is easier since you will be closer in age.

 

Some of the cons you mentioned do happen elsewhere, but I am in no means implying anything about your POI. I've seen a young assistant professor in my department puts himself as first author on higher-impact publication, and names of his post-docs and students come after. Another thing to consider is new POIs are still learning how to develop ideas into executable projects, it could happen that you get stuck with a project that goes nowhere and force you to switch projects. This wouldn't feel good if you already devote significant amount of time in your work.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Tall Chai Latte

[iowaguy]

 I've seen a young assistant professor in my department puts himself as first author on higher-impact publication, and names of his post-docs and students come after.

 

Whereas with a tenured prof the students/post-docs usually get first authorship if they do most of the research, no?

[rising_star]

Here's something that I don't think gets talked about too often. There's the chance that your PI could come to view you as a competitor if your research interests are really similar and then actually give you less help/assistance in terms of mentorship, research, publications, etc. so that s/he doesn't have to compete with you in the future. Not saying that it happens often but it does happen from time to time.

[selecttext]

I've never understood how people get into the position where they are robbed of their first authorship. If you have conducted the research and written the paper, then put your freaking name first! I have seen prissy graduate students who think they should be the first author but haven't written a damn thing - or their writing was so bad that their MS had to be entirely re-written.

[Linelei]

Another thing to consider is that, as a gross generalization, younger/newer PIs tend to have more breadth in their particular research interest, while older, more established, tenured profs are more likely to have focused in on a direction and are doing fine-grained, in-depth research on that particular area. Obviously there are many exceptions, but just a thought. And there are pros and cons to both. If you like the idea of getting to explore various avenues of research within the area, younger might be better, but you might not become as specialized. Older could give you a more thorough understanding of a specific aspect of the area but you might miss out on the big picture.

 

Again, generalizations, but looking over publications can give you an idea if this trend is true for your POIs.

[selecttext]

I disagree. I find new faculty to be very focused on their own research.

[Tall Chai Latte]

Another thing to consider is that, as a gross generalization, younger/newer PIs tend to have more breadth in their particular research interest, while older, more established, tenured profs are more likely to have focused in on a direction and are doing fine-grained, in-depth research on that particular area. Obviously there are many exceptions, but just a thought. And there are pros and cons to both. If you like the idea of getting to explore various avenues of research within the area, younger might be better, but you might not become as specialized. Older could give you a more thorough understanding of a specific aspect of the area but you might miss out on the big picture.

 

Again, generalizations, but looking over publications can give you an idea if this trend is true for your POIs.

 

I agree with this. Young PIs are interested to try all kinds of things, even tangentially related to their strong suit because they want to expand their research. Being their students, you may be forced to do experiments that no one in the lab knows how to do, not even the PI. You might become jack of all trades, which has pros and cons. But pros could be bigger than cons, given science is becoming more and more interdisciplinary nowadays. You can make up the lack of specialization by doing a postdoc in a lab, with the technique forte you want to learn. 

 

To reply the authorship question, yes the students/postdocs did most of the work, but their finding means really big to the field. I guess that's why PI took the credit. Older profs will let students/post docs take first authorship if they did all the experiments and wrote the manuscript.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Tall Chai Latte

[Tall Chai Latte]

Here's something that I don't think gets talked about too often. There's the chance that your PI could come to view you as a competitor if your research interests are really similar and then actually give you less help/assistance in terms of mentorship, research, publications, etc. so that s/he doesn't have to compete with you in the future. Not saying that it happens often but it does happen from time to time.

 

This is the thing I don't understand. I can see how the PI feels threatened if the mentee is a post doc, but it takes a student several years to become the PI's equal... How does the PI see his/her own students as competitors?   

[ShortLong]

One things that has not been mentioned, but I am pretty sure that one of the factors that is looked at when determining if an assistant professor gets tenure is how many PhDs they have graduated as well as how many papers. This would mean that they would want their first few to graduate pretty quickly to reflect well on them.

[asdfx3]

Whereas with a tenured prof the students/post-docs usually get first authorship if they do most of the research, no?

Really it shouldn't matter. If anything a non-tenured professor should have a greater reason to put themselves last and their mentee's names first because a high impact paper by their post-doc/graduate students reflects well on their abilities as a mentor, which is what their job is. By putting themselves first they are basically regressing to the post-doc level in the eyes of the scientific community and the tenure committee. A last author pub shows they're doing their current job well, a first author pub shows they're doing their last job well (which the school knew already).

 

IMO the biggest risks of joining a new(ish) lab are:

#1 Risk of the prof not getting tenure, if the tenure review is coming up during the years you'll be doing your PhD

#2 In a new lab everything is new and needs to be set up more or less from scratch. The projects are new and exciting, but also uncertain because you don't have years of established methods and results that built up to it. There are some established professors that can basically list off several potential projects for their students that they know (or as close to know as you get in science) will work out and lead to a publication. You don't have that kind of confidence with a new lab, which can be frustrating but also rewarding because your work will largely be your own.