LAB MANUAL

This is our Lab Manual to give you an understanding of how the HAT Lab works, our research philosophy, and commitment to collaboration. We see this as a collective agreement about how we build a thriving intellectual community.

Our goal is to make the world a better place. Of course, when one deploys the adjective better, it can be quickly followed by the question: better for whom and what? Often these questions are not easy to answer, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Making the world a better place is a lofty goal (particularly for academic research) that we will most likely fall short of. But if we do not try, how can we even get close? Research with such high aspirations can be difficult, frustrating, and challenging, but for us, it must not be a grind. We want to build questions out of human inquisitiveness and a fascination about the world in which we live, but most importantly we endeavor to do research with a welcoming smile, a belief in equity, a large dosed of humility, and copious amounts of humor. If we can mostly agree to this, we can create a fruitful and supportive research group invested in our collective success.

If you talk with Ray, there will be a moment when he asks: what’s your question? Please do not take this as a challenge or an attack. Ray just loves interesting questions. That’s just one of the many ways he engages intellectually. All this is to say, you do not need to have a good answer to the question…at first.

Expectations & Responsibilities

For Us:

  • Work on the things that move you. The things you cannot stop thinking about, in good ways. The thinks you want to share with random strangers.

  • Try hard, fail harder, and forgive even harder. That is, ask tough questions of yourself and the world. The reward is worth it!

  • Believe in yourself because we all believe in you.

  • Share what you know. We collaborate because as individuals we only know a little bit, and what you know may change our lives.

  • Be a good lab citizen. Support and respect your fellow lab members. The HAT Lab, as a multifaceted community, sustains itself by collective commitments.

  • Embrace the three-dimensional reality of people’s lives. Research is a portion of one’s life. It is not and should not be the most important or valuable aspect of someone. People are wonderfully complex and complicated, and it is important for lab members to be themselves fully.

  • Humans are far from perfect. If anything is amiss or you have an issue/problem with someone or something, please speak up. If you feel you do not want to talk with Ray, please contact Stephanie DeCaluwe (stephanie.decaluwe@northwestern.edu) and she can direct you to the best resource.

For the Lab:

  • Treat it with respect. It is a bit of a home away from home, all be it in the Frances Searle Building.

  • Clean up after yourself.

  • If you are sick, please stay home. In our post-pandemic moment, I believe you know why.

Expectations of Graduate Students

  • Develop your dissertation research. Ask questions that you are not sure that you can find an answer for.

  • Dissertation research over everything. Coursework, GAing, TAing, and RAing are valuable, but your research will open the doors to an advanced degree and a new future.

  • Continue to work. Graduate school can be a struggle and will invariably be difficult at some moment, but do not let the difficulty overwhelm you to a point where you cannot work.

  • Lean on others for support. You are not in graduate school alone. We are all here to help you find a pathway that works for you. Let us help.

  • Mentor undergraduate students. You were in their place. Replicate the best elements of the mentorship you received. Do the mentoring things you wish you would have received.

  • Share your work with the lab, the department, the school, and the university.

  • Share your successes and achievements. Do not be shy. Please share the full spectrum of your successes from the smallest to the largest. It’s important to show others what is possible because you never know what you’ve done that will change someone’s life.

  • Apply for fellowships, conference funding, and awards. It’s powerful to have your own resources. Please talk to Ray. He greatly enjoys the puzzle of strategizing and applying for awards.

  • Meet with Ray annually to talk about your future plans. Again, similar to the “what’s your question” question, it is not intended to create anxiety. Ray enjoys the process of mapping out multiple potential life pathways. The earlier you start the discussion the better.

Expectations of Undergraduate Students

  • Learn everything you can. The toolbox metaphor is useful for thinking about undergraduate research. That is, build a robust set of intellectual tools to keep in your toolbox. You never know when you might need to access something buried in your toolbox at some point in your life. Working in the HAT Lab affords you an opportunity to join a project and contribute to it by learning. We appreciate researchers who bring their knowledge to the HAT Lab, so please embrace the freedom to learn new stuff.

  • Have fun! You only have one life, make the most of it (not in a Northwestern doing the “most” way, but in a smelling the flowers make the most of it way).

What you can expect of me

I will do my best to:

  • Support you–research, financially, and emotionally–to the extent that I am able.

  • Give you feedback on your research activities (project ideas, conferences, talks, manuscripts, proposals, etc.) in a timely manner.

  • Be a mentor in whatever way you need a mentor to function.

  • Be available in person, and via e-mail or Zoom on a regular basis, including regular meetings to discuss your research (and anything for that matter).

  • Advising and sharing my perspective on how you can achieve your future hope and dreams.

  • Support your career development by introducing you to other researchers in the field, promoting your work, writing recommendation letters for you, and supporting your research as the HAT Lab finances permit.

  • Care for your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I want you to be whole, so this may mean suggesting that you take a leave of absence.

Meetings

We will have at minimum one quarterly all-hands HAT Lab meeting to share with others our project development and progress.

We will also have project specific meetings. All will be sorted the first week of each quarter based on student schedules.

Engagement & Publicity

Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to work on some things that are timely, relevant, or interesting to a wider public. If someone reaches out to you about our work, please loop in Ray.

The HAT Lab’s social media policy: use social media for good, if at all.

Boundaries and Social Events

We strive for the HAT Lab to have a relatively flat intellectual structure. Meaning that no one’s ideas automatically supersede another’s, and anyone can ask a question of anyone else without concern for repercussion. We hope to build a collegial environment where we are pleased to be in each other’s company. But this does not mean that power, privilege, and authority is exempt from the HAT Lab ecology. Ray is the HAT Lab director and as a tenured professor is responsible for the lab and it’s research, but he is also responsible to the university (such as being a mandatory reporter). Thus, it is important to remember that personal connections, friendships, and mentorships are part and parcel of the HAT Lab experience, but this can seemingly blur the boundaries between and among our varying institutional roles (PI, advisor, co-author, employer, employee, student, mentor, mentee, union member, etc.). Unfortunately, the university does not see the blurriness. Therefore, we ask that you please remember and respect these boundaries as you enjoy all the wonderful things and the people that the HAT Lab offers.

Final Thanks!

A huge shout out to Dan Larremore whose lab manual provided the guide/basis for this document. Please take a look at his Lab’s Nature paper showing that “80% of all domestically trained faculty in our data were trained at just 20.4% of universities. Moreover, the five most common doctoral training universities—UC Berkeley, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford—account for just over one in eight domestically trained faculty,” and his Waterman Award talk on this research.