"Affiliation" when changing schools

[beccamayworth]

Hi everyone!

 

I've graduated from an MA program at school X in May. In April, I submitted my thesis' abstract to a Conference that will happen in October and it got accepted. In August, I will be starting my PhD at school Y.

 

Now, they've contacted me and asked me what is my "affiliation". I feel school X is the way to go because that's where I did all the work. However, at the time of presentation I will be studying at school Y... and it feels a bit deceiving to use the other school's name. Is there a good way to go about this? Can I have both schools under my affiliation?

 

Thank you!

[rising_star]

Ask them if you can have both schools listed. Some allow this while others do not. But, for the record, it probably doesn't matter where you did the research because people are often concerned with your current affiliation over anything. For example, when I present/publish on my dissertation, I list the affiliation of my job, rather than my PhD school...

[TakeruK]

I agree with rising_star--for the purposes of a conference presentation, you'll want to list where you are at the time of the meeting, if you know it. In my field, when you do publish the work though, I would list the affiliation as the place where I did the work. 

 

If you can only list one for the conference, I'd list your new affiliation if possible. If you are presenting a slideshow or a poster, you can put both schools on that.

 

Sometimes conference registration happens far in advance of the actual meeting so it's not too rare for someone to have moved so that their name badge is no longer up to date. Or, someone might be close to graduation and are planning to start a new job somewhere else that fall. It's pretty common to see that someone has taken a sharpie to their name badge and write like "University X --> University Y" (or do so on their title slides/posters).

[beccamayworth]

thanks guys! 

[fuzzylogician]

What about for manuscripts? I"m submitting a manuscript while at school X but if accepted, it will be published when I'm at school Y (editor specifically told me the issue is planned to come out in January). Since I'm first author, I need to put my contact email. If I put my current school's email address, I'm not sure how much longer I'll have access to it.  It seems weird to put my personal email on a publication, so that would leave my new school's email address which I already have access to, but it seems odd to list my affiliation as school Y before I'm even there (and all the work was done here). 

 

All the manuscripts I currently have under review and that I'm submitting in the near future have my current affiliation on them, even though starting in about a month and a half my affiliation will change, and I'm certain that nothing I have under review will be published before then (the process is very slow!). The plan is to update my contact info once I have a new affiliation. Normally you get a chance to make changes like that to your manuscript during the revision process or once it's accepted.

 

In your case, I'd suggest writing the editor to ask which email address to give since you expect your current academic address to be deactivated soon. The solution may be to give your personal email address just for communication purposes and change it to an academic one once the paper is accepted. As long as it's possible to change the information you give now later in the process, I'd say give your current info now and change it once you start at your new school.

[TakeruK]

I agree with fuzzy, especially about determining how long you can have access to your old email account. I still have full access to my institution email account from my last grad school, and according to the IT staff, I can continue to access it indefinitely, without charge. At my undergrad, we can keep our school email addresses only if we pay a certain annual fee, though.