How to correspond with academics as a young researcher in high school?

Researchers tend to be very busy advising their own students, and often don't have much free time to commit to supervising others. Recognize that you are asking someone who is very busy to spend some of their limited time on something that (1) may or may not be interesting to them, (2) is not part of their "official" professional responsibilities, and (3) is likely to take time away from their "official" professional responsibilities. (That is why "talk to your advisor" is a common response; they aren't brushing you off, so much as they are redirecting you to someone who is personally responsible for helping you, and has committed to investing that time in you.)

For this reason, emails to researchers asking questions that they don't feel personally responsible for answering, often go unanswered.

You also wrote that you believe the answers to your questions are not going to be immediately obvious, even to an expert:

  I have frequent contact with a professor at my local university, who has taught a class on this subject but has not published any papers or done any research in this area. He and I worked on a few of my questions and were able to solve them, but he couldn't figure out any of my other ones. Although that doesn't preclude "common knowledge to any expert", I am pretty sure it isn't.

which suggests that you are asking for a fairly substantial time investment.

And you are asking for an open-ended commitment in your email:

  I was wondering if perhaps we could start a short correspondence to help me understand what I'm writing about, and to gain more knowledge of class field theory.

I would be extremely reluctant to say "Yes" to this without any clue of how advanced you are in the topic, what you are expecting from me, and whether it would be an interesting or useful correspondence for me.

It would, however, be appropriate to send a short, actionable email, on a question that is directly related to the researcher's published papers. For example:

  Hello Dr. *****,

  My name is *****. I'm 14, and I live in South Carolina. I am working on a research project related to Hilbert class fields of global function fields.

  I was wondering if you could answer a question about your paper, [name of paper]. [Specific question that you are looking for an answer to.]

  With gratitude, ****

  P.S. Would it be OK if I asked some further follow-up questions on this subject?

See

When asking research-based questions, what are some good practices to maximize the rates at which people reply to emails?
Increase chance of reply when e-mailing an eminent researcher?

for additional suggestions

For questions that are not related to a specific paper, but are more general questions about the field or your own work (that you and your advisor are unable to answer), I suggest Mathematics Stack Exchange.  People are more likely to invest time in answering a stranger's questions for no professional benefit on a platform where that's what they do.


Combining research related work and dissertation topic en route to PhD

It sounds like it's time for you to have a chat with one or more possible advisors to start exploring possible research areas.  One of the most important roles a PhD advisor plays is helping the student find and define a research topic.

Looking in my crystal ball at your future, here's what I see: a very small chance of being able to kill two birds with one stone.  It could happen, if the stars all align in a very fortunate way; but please don't count on it.  For thesis research, you have to be free to follow your nose.  You can't afford to box yourself in.

You may want to consider a somewhat different approach from the self-funding idea, and apply for a teaching or research assistantship (and quit the job), or get your present company (or some other company) to pay at least your tuition, with an agreement that you will work for them for x years after graduating.


Should I include funny pictures in my slides?

Human cognition is a strange thing, and I won't pretend I know it well enough to give you a guide, but I will suggest that you simply consider your audience and how you want them to move through the information.

A dense, heavy talk with few breaks will tire most audiences.

A light talk that doesn't require much thought will result in many people letting their mind wander.

A talk which carefully weaves the "story" with a variety of dense to light moments, may actually improve retention.

Adding levity in the form of a joke or humor, if the joke is very relevant to the talk, can actually increase retention, as long as it isn't too much of a distraction.  Placing it appropriately is key, though, and I wouldn't do it at the end, because that's what people will remember.  The last few sentences should be a quick summary of the talk and should be memorable.

Placing it in the middle, during a transition - for instance between the problem statement and the methodology - could be good, and allow a release of tension if the problem statement was pretty densely packed.

Starting off with it, as an into to the topic and a method to get attention is also a pretty good choice.

In all things, though, consider your audience first.  What is the journey you are taking them on, and when would be an appropriate point for a rest break, a transition, a wake-up, etc.


What is the career roadmap for a physicist?

I was trained as a physicist, and slightly changed direction towards theoretical physical chemistry during my PhD.

Money depends on where you are in the world. Some places have scholarships or state funded loans. In addition to that, I have taught physics and math at almost all imaginable levels, everything from high schoolers cramming for exams, to TA'ing at my university. Money becomes a bit easier when you get to the PhD, as most places will give you a salary or a grant you can live off of.

I married at 22 and had my first kid at 24. Way before any of my classmates and later colleagues. At the time people asked how I would manage my career having kids so early. I thought it was nice to be able to have the flexibility of a student when she was a baby. Now the same people are struggling with post docs and a lot of travel, with infants at home.

I got my Ma at 27 and PhD at 31, making me slightly older than average. This does not bother me too much. I have seen people graduate with PhDs being 10 years older than me and do fine. Although they have to face some negative bias going through the hiring process for junior positions.

I still learn new things all the time, and even though I have the relevant degrees, I don't consider my training as a physicist done. It probably never will be.

What to take from all this?

There is no perfect time to graduate. If you want to study, study, no matter your age.

There is no perfect time to marry or have children. But wait for too long, and it might be biologically challenging.


Is there anything wrong with faculty socializing with grad students?

I suppose it depends on whether one views grad students as hoi polloi who need to be kept on the other side of a "class boundary" (as the CHE comment put it), or whether one views them as colleagues who just happen to not be as far along on their academic journeys.  I prefer to see them as colleagues.

For what it's worth, when I was a grad student my advisor often had us (his research group) over to his house for dinners and drinks, and I'd often play racquetball with one of my dissertation committee members.  This made us feel appreciated and made it much more palatable to put in crazy hours when needed to meet a proposal or paper submission deadline.  And now, as a tenured faculty member, I take my students out to lunches and dinners and beers and hiking trips (alas, I'm too old for racquetball now).  I enjoy getting to know my students as whole individuals, and find that the socialization engenders a sense of community that makes things more pleasant for everyone.

Socializing with students is very different from being "buddies" with them: the relationship between a professor and an advisee is very different than that between friends.  But IMHO this is no different than any other professional relationship with any other colleague: there are some things that are fine to share and others that are best left unexplored.


Effect of "D" grade in PhD-level course on job prospects

Its not the grade that you get that determines gets you the job.  It's your ability to apply what you have learned to new and challenging fields that ultimately determines your qualification for a job.  This is best measured not by grades, but by the quality (and possibly quantity) of publications.   In rare circumstances, as @aeismail suggests, employers look closely at your GPA.  I do not believe this is the norm though.  Most institutions that employ the highly educated look more highly upon strong letters of recommendation and publication history.  As long as you have that, you should not have any problems with this grade on your record.

The ultimate impact of your "D" really depends on the policy of your school.  As @BenNorris indicates, some graduate programs have a minimum performance requirement such that a low grade in a class may impact your retention in your program.  It is best to speak with your advisor, the graduate chair, and possibly even your department chair to discuss the circumstances surrounding your performance, how it will impact your retention, and if there is anything you can do about it.  Immediate dismissal is extremely rare.  Most institutions place the student on probation (and may make you repeat the course in question).


Every published work has at least a few sentences that criticize previous published work or a collection of them. They are often constructive, in the sense that they generally point limitations and how to build upon them, in sentences that are similar to Dawn's comments.

Now, I have no idea what kind of criticism you made, but a common pitfall for junior academics (and I am one myself) is to end up over-generalizing a claim, both when discussing their own results and when criticizing other's work. The other student may have fallen into the former trap, by over-generalizing their result (you said they presented incorrect conclusions). But you may be falling into the latter trap by being overly critical and, maybe, not having sufficient data to back up your claims that the other student's conclusion is wrong. Your advisor may have detected it by simply glancing over your text, which is easy with enough experience.

In general, I advise people to be very cautious of what they are criticizing, especially if it is not a limitation of the other study, but something they got wrong. It is often a better idea to talk to the other person before openly criticizing them. The other person is likely to know their work much better than you do. If you manuscript falls into their hands for review (which probably won't be your case, but still), and you are wrong, it's a strong argument for rejecting it.

Now, if you still feel that you are right, that you are not over-generalizing, that you have sufficient data to back up your claim, that it would be relevant to include it in your thesis, then ask your advisor. Explain how this criticism would be important to your thesis (or paper in preparation), and ask how you should include it without being overly critical.

If it is not relevant to your work, it would be weird to see an unrelated note/section discussing how someone else's unrelated work is incorrect, even if you spent 18 months on it (which is a lot of time, and certainly unfortunate, but these things happen, and you should talk to your advisor and other people about how to avoid spending large amounts of time without progress).


How do I use lemmas that are probably already proven, but including the proof myself is quicker than looking up a source?

You do need to make some effort to find in the literature a result you think is known, but after that what you propose is common and I feel is fine.  I do it sometimes.  In such a situation, I tend to say ``the following is probably known, but we include a proof for completeness.''
Even if you find the all your background lemmas in the literature, it might still make the reader's life easier if you include some or all of their proofs.  It is really annoying to have to request seven obscure papers by inter-library loan, and then figure out all the different authors' notation, just to fill in a few pages of proofs.


How to write a letter declining a supervisor offer?

A few suggestions:

Don't mention the order of events or the fact that you listed B as the prior, unless A asks. That is, something like "I had applied for this grant listing several potential supervisors, as both yourself and B are able to supervise this work. etc. etc." ; if A asks why you didn't list him/her as the prior, then mention the timing.
If there is the theoretical possibility of you asking for a change of sueprvisor for the grant from B to A, you will (sort of) need to justify why it is you're not doing so.
If co-supervision is an option, you'll need to either ask for from A, or explain why it's not relevant.
I would try to organize some sort of visit with A, or suggest other ways you might collaborate or that you might be useful to him (although there might not actually be such an option, in which case forget about it).


How to deal with a student who harasses the (inexperienced) teacher during class?

As a first step you could ask one of your more experienced colleagues to observe your teaching. Let the students know the colleague is there to evaluate your teaching. While it is obviously not a formal evaluation, it is an evaluation of how you handle a difficult teaching situation. You want to tell the students that you are being evaluated so that the trouble makers feel like they can sabotage you. If they do not know why they are being observed, the trouble makers may behave better. The goal is not to "catch" the student behaving badly, it is to have an example of bad behaviour so you and the evaluator can work through possible responses after the class.

Hopefully the trouble makers will try and "undermine" you and act out. With first hand knowledge the colleague may have specific suggestions of how to deal with the student. If the student does not act out you can then discuss the types of behaviour the student shows with the colleague.

Ideally the observer would be from your department, but if it is difficult to find someone, the observer does not need to be from your department nor understand the material you are teaching. They do not need to commit to the entire lecture, 15-30 minutes is often enough. The key thing is they need to be experienced enough to be able to provide suggestions and someone you respect enough to take the suggestions on board. If they understand the material even better, but you want someone that you respect with the needed experience.


Do you need permission to use readability formulas in research?

It's very doubtful that you'd need permission to use either formula. In any case, I'm not sure who you'd even ask. The formulae are simple, unpatented, and widely published, and both Gunning and Flesch are dead.

Both formulae were published by their developers, who actively encouraged their use (Gunning in his 1952 book The Technique of Clear Writing, Flesch as quoted by the University of Canterbury, NZ). The formulae are part of the existing literature, and it was clearly the authors' intention that these formulae be disseminated and used for relevant purposes.

The formulae, among others, are implemented in several pieces of software (including copyright-averse free software like LibreOffice) and online calculators. Even if there were some restriction on their use (which there doesn't appear to be), it is clearly unenforced, and hasn't been for a very long time.

It may, however, be appropriate to cite the work of Gunning and/or Flesch, depending on the norms of your field.


Master in humanities as a software engineer

The usual term for this is either pre-master or 'schakeljaar' (Dutch for transition year)
Most universities in the Netherlands offer pre-masters. I think you always need to contact the institute you want to attend if you can follow the pre-master and they can tailor the programme to your background. Since these are often tailored, it would be possible they could work with you to follow this part-time as well.

Some example links from universities in the Netherlands (some in Dutch):

https://www.ru.nl/opleidingen/master/filosofie/pre-master-en-hbo-minor/pre-master-wo-studenten/
https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/premaster/2018-2019/geschiedenis#study-description
https://www.rug.nl/feb/education/study-programmes/pre-msc/
https://www.uva.nl/onderwijs/master/soorten-masters-en-schakelprogrammas/schakelprogrammas/schakelprogrammas.html


Should I argue with the conference chairs in this situation？

If you submitted a month ago and already got rejected, was the new venue truly a "conference" or another workshop?  And, as @Pete L. Clark said, was it published before or only submitted and rejected?

If published in a workshop (or accepted for publication), substantial portions can't be reused in another workshop.  Portions can be reused in a conference IMHO, but as @Pete said, you have to disclose and cite.  If not, it's self-plagiarism.

If the new venue is a workshop, then it can't be reused that much unless the earlier one was rejected.  In which case the reviewer shouldn't hold the earlier publication against you, unless they meant to say "I saw this before and it was rejected because it had flaws, and now I'm seeing it again".


For any specific thesis, you should check the regulations of the institution the thesis will be submitted to. There are often strict rules about the formatting of the title page.

I've not come across the advisor being listed first. The format I'm most familiar with would be something like the following:

  Why there are no Frogs on the Moon

  Neil Armstrong

  Advisor: Dr Thomas O. Paine

There's no need to write a word before the author's name. It is understood that any title page will contain the title and the author so any name that is not explained as being something else (e.g., "Advisor:", "Editor:") must be the author. You see the same with academic papers: the authors are usually not explicitly described as authors; it's just implicit that the list of names below the title is the list of authors.

Note also that the name(s) of the author(s) usually come before any other people who have contributed to the document. Authorship is regarded as by far the most important contribution.


Do American universities generally sponsor H1B visas for staff?

Yes.  A simple google search for "H1-B university staff" links to a bunch of federal and school-specific policies.  It goes without saying these roles are reserved for people with "specialized knowledge," etc.  Also a link to a similarish question about faculty is here.

You asked "what type" and I missed that the first time around.  Here is a link to a page that explains H1B jobs open at NYU.  Not all but mostly faculty positions.


If a paper gets rejected two times (in two different journals) is that a bad impression if I try to submit in a different journal?

No. In fact most of the time you do not need to (and should not) tell the editors of the new journal that your manuscript had been rejected elsewhere.

Of course, you should figure out why your manuscript was rejected and fix the issues if possible. For example if a referee says your manuscript is not acceptable because you need twice as much data to make your claims, then you should try to get twice as much data before submitting it to another journal.


What should/can I do on finding an error in a published article?

Here's what I would suggest:

First, alert the authors to the issues. Wait to see how they respond, or do not respond. But in all cases, they should be the first you write to.
If the issues do not severely impact the correctness of the work or its utility, stop there. It's probably not worth making a fuss about something most readers will either not use, or can easily correct themselves.
If you publish something on the topic yourself, especially if you build on the authors' equations or otherwise use them, you should make a note of the issue in your article.
Finally, if you believe the issue is important and/or the equations are widely used, you should contact the journal's editor and ask for guidance.

Errata are “authored” by the original authors. Publisher's corrections also exist, when the responsibility for the issue (typo in equation, misprint in figures, etc.) is that of the publisher.


Conversation between freshman from senior high school and retired professor who suffers from Alzheimer's disease

One of the things that helps Alzheimer's patients the most is routines - especially routines from earlier parts of their lives (such as when he was a full-time faculty member). Keeping the brain active by thinking through number theory is also very helpful in staving off further progression of his dementia.

So if it was part of his routine when he was active faculty to go to lunch everyday in the dining hall and then to lecture, then you have now become a living part of his past and current world and helping him (and his family) stay functional.  As long as you are both enjoying it, there is no reason not to continue.

As gnometorule says, I think his daughter would be heartened to hear that 1) you enjoy this and 2) you would not have known he had Alzheimers had she not told you.  As gnome says, though, I would keep her apprised if you notice any changes.


What are universities asking for when they demand a "financial resource statement"?

The purpose of the financial resource statement is to determine if/how much aid you will need to complete the program. Most of the time, the most important things will be:

Any grants/scholarships/fellowships you will use to pay for your education.
How much in student loans you will use, and if they have already been approved (not common, but may happen).
Personal resources—including family support—you will use to support yourself.

Usually, a list is all that is needed, to show that you realize the costs of attending the program, have accounted for them, or are requesting appropriate assistance from the school. You don't necessarily have to show that you have the entire cost covered, either, especially if you are requesting aid from the University, as long as you show that you know the correct amount you need. Whether it hurts you or not in the application depends very much on the policy of the school.

If a school requires something formal, they will usually have a form you have to fill out. I would not provide any banking data, unless absolutely required. You don't know who works in the administration office.


Ways to demonstrate ("show-off") contributions as an undergraduate in research

A recommendation letter is the way you get credit for this kind of work. I'm not sure why you think you're only 50% likely to get a letter out of this, it would be very unusual for a professor to be willing to work on a research project with you but to not be willing to write a letter for you.  As long as you're taking it seriously and professionally I think you should have close to a 100% chance of getting a letter out of it.


Withdrawing a journal article after acceptance?

Editors are people too. Contact them and explain to them as much of your situation as you feel comfortable sharing. All journals are different, so ask what their policies are on extensions or postponements. Also, ensure that it's not a predatory journal.


I successfully completed degree called Aspirantura from Russia. is it equal to PhD in Europe and US?

Apparently you don't have a Kandidat Nauk degree (otherwise you should have wrote about it), so by no means it is equivalent to PhD. Aspirantura without a Kandidat Nauk is not valued even in Russia.

Traditionally, Kandidat Nauk dissertation and degree was almost the only outcome of study in aspirantura. However, completion of aspirantura by itself did not automatically result in dissertation defence and awarding a degree. There were and there are a lot of people who do not submit and defend a dissertation while in aspirantura, so they would complete aspirantura without getting a degree. In this case they usually would not even get any diploma. (Some of them would defend a dissertation later, some would outright drop.) There were no final exams in aspirantura, and often no advanced curriculum; and in this sense, aspirantura was more kind of a bureaucratic device that allowed to get funding, give 'legal status' to aspirantura students, not an education institute itself. The main aim of aspirantura was not to give education to students, but to allow them to do research.
However, in recent years, Russian government (Ministry of Education, I suppose) decided to fit aspirantura into the main framework of Russian Federal Law on Education. In particular, AFAIK, aspirantura students are now awarded some diploma on successful completion of aspirantura. It is not tied to Kandidat Nauk dissertation, and has much less requirements, and mainly signifies that some person has indeed studied in aspirantura, and completed some aspirantura courses, and maybe some simple final exam. Even some thesis may be required, but I guess that requirements for such thesis are much lower than for a candidate dissertation.
This aspirantura diploma is not really valued in Russia. (On contrary, it can be a somewhat negative signal, because successfull aspirantura students will defend a Kandidat dissertation and thus will have Kandidat Nauk status, so if somebody has only aspirantura diploma and not a Kandidat Nauk one, this means that they tried and failed). The only use case of aspirantura diploma that I have heard of is when one has to prove that he had received a specific number of years of education, usually when they apply to some position in another country. For example, I've heard it used when one applies to European medical PhD programs. They require that applicants have, e.g., 8 years of medical education (the figures are approximate), while Russian medical universities only provide e.g. 6 years, so additional 3-4 aspirantura years make for the difference.
So if you only have an aspirantura diploma (and defended some thesis required for this diploma), then it is not a Kandidat Nauk degree, and thus absolutely not a PhD equivalent.
Disclaimer: I do not have any direct relation to Russian science in recent years, so my knowledge is based on rumors and information from my friends, many of whom are still working in scientific institutes, and some study in aspirantura, and so the information above may be not exactly correct.


If you're trying for precision in the information that is provided to a reader in this list, the ideal solution would be to list the whole page range that is spanned by the table.

If that is not possible, then I think that it would be appropriate to think about this with the same logic that is used for pointers to other multi-page items such as chapter: point to the beginning, since that's where the reader should be starting.

Better yet, however, if you have to have a multi-page table, why not remove it from the "flow" of the text entirely and turn it into an appendix or a supplementary document?


Who can peer-review articles?

Anyone competent enough to be asked in the first place.

For conferences (e.g., in engineering or computer science), peer-review is conducted by a Programme Committee. To be invited to be part of a Programme Committee (typically done by Chairs or Senior Programme Committee in larger conferences), you need to have a reasonable track record of research and a solid reputation in the area in question. I have seen PCs of reputable conferences in CS with many senior PhDs (I was in PCs myself as a PhD student).

For journals, you are invited to review by a member of the Editorial Board. They would weigh your experience and track-record accordingly. Again, you may get asked to review journal papers as a PhD student (I was also asked to review various journal papers as a PhD student).

Last but not least, you may be delegated a peer-review by someone who was asked to do a review (where that person was asked by the EB of a journal or as part of a PC for a conference). In that case, however, the responsibility for the quality of the review lies squarely with the delegator. In this case, a junior PhD student might be given a peer-review but with the idea that the delegator will check over it and discuss before submitting. (This is a good way to learn the process of peer-reviewing.)

  I was unable to find any information online about this. I asked a colleague who told me that there are no restrictions on who may review an article, although he thought it was very unlikely that an un-published person may be asked to review.

I agree with your colleague. The delegation of peer-review is left to the judgement of the EB/PC/Chairs. They will take into account seniority and research track record in their judgement. Formal restrictions would only serve to rule out qualified reviewers from an often already too narrow field.

  I am submitting an engineering research paper in the near future and the submission process requires that I suggest at least three reviewers. One of the reviewers I would like to suggest has not yet completed their PhD, although they have three publications that are closely related to mine. I know that it will be up to the editor to decide whether to contact this person, but it made me wonder if there are any specific criteria that reviewers have to meet.

I suggest submitting the name of the supervisor of the PhD student you think would be a good reviewer. The supervisor offers the editor a more senior name, should be knowledgeable in the area and if not, can solicit the advice of the PhD student in question or delegate the review entirely if appropriate.

As per my comment (and as a side note since it is not directly asked about) I find the practice of suggesting reviewers for your own paper a little strange (though I have seen it before on occasion). First there's the obvious possibility of selecting one's friends or of prior deal-making (assuming the suggestions were taken into account ... otherwise why would they ask?). Aside from that, if I'm submitting to a journal in my area, I expect the editorial board to have some members that would be sufficiently knowledgeable about my topic to get the paper in good hands. Having to suggest reviewers calls into question (slightly) the competence of the EB and/or the relevance of the journal. In any case, if the journal is otherwise reputable, this should not hold you back from submitting.


What is the proper way to reach out to a university with an academic question as a layman?

It isn't really unusual, and most places will be willing to talk to you informally. You could call the department office and let them know of your interest and desire to speak to someone who might be able to help.

Note, however, that people are busy but also schedule regular office hours so you would probably, then make an appointment with the person suggested.

If it is just a few questions there shouldn't be any issue, but if it is more extensive, you might want to enter into a consulting relationship which would require payment.


Making a standalone publication out of the English translation of a paper

If the copyright has not expired yet (varies by country but generally around 70-100 years after the death of the author), then it is illegal for you to publish a translation without prior authorization. You need to find out who the copyright holder is and ask for permission.

The journal may have acquired rights to publish a translation, otherwise you may need to find their child(ren, and figure out which of them would legally be the copyright holder now) to get authorization. It's likely to be an intractable problem.


Is it safe to assume that all faculty know what a DOI is?

My suspicion is that the vast majority of academics (in STEM fields, say) will

have seen DOIs being used many times in papers and online,
be able to discern your intent if you use the term DOI in a context other than in print with a URL next to it,
have absolutely no idea what the letters stand for, and
never have done any research (e.g., read the DOI wikipedia article) about what DOI's are, why they're used, etc.

Added: In response to Strongbad's comment, let me summarize the above briefly. I believe that a large majority of academics will have seen DOIs being used and know that if they go to the URL they'll wind up at the paper they're looking for. I also believe that, if pressed, many academics would say that the point of having a DOI is to be able to provide people with a stable URL where the paper may be found. But I think that in most cases the latter response would be a guess because I think that very few academics have spent any time looking into DOIs in any serious way.


Is it common for a mathematics Master's student to have no publications?

I cannot speak for the whole world, but for a master student in Europe, it would be exceptional to have a published paper already. A preprint is perhaps not completely unheard of but still extremely uncommon.


Is it possible to write publication with a BSc student co-author?

But according to our university licensing, consulting does not lead to any  authorship for the mentor.

You may want to consider double-checking what exactly that means. It's highly likely that your university does not forbid you to be co-author of a paper written under your supervision if you contributed intellectually to the paper, which is the case if the student uses your ideas. The rule most likely states or is meant to state that supervision alone is not sufficient for authorship.

  But I am afraid that journals/papers don't support BSc student authors that much.

How would they know that the student is a BSc student? The only case I've ever seen where this is mentioned is in IEEE journals, where some authors may have ", Student Member" attached to their name if they pay the student rate of the IEEE membership - but even then, it could still be a PhD student.

If you want the paper to be published at a good venue, you will most likely take an active role in the writing process, and in the resulting paper, it should not be visible what status the individual authors had.


Pros and cons of having your doctoral degree on our ID

I did add the degree to the passport, and I can tell you that so far it only had disadvantages (though no severe ones).

I added my master degree, and did not need a new passport since. So now that I have my PhD, its not even accurate anymore.
In China, authorities looked at my passport and me very sceptically, when I did not add my degree to the train ticket, and thus the name differed between passport and ticket. They did not understand my explanation, but let me pass on the train anyway ;)
Most time I book a flight ticket, I can only select Mr/Mrs as title. So I have to think everytime, whether I should add the degree in the name field. Usually I don't do it, hence again the ticket and the passport show different names. It caused a strange look in America, but no serious problems.
My new colleagues (in a foreighn country) looked at me like i was crazy, when they saw it.


How to complain about a Ph.D student to a professor

The answer really comes down to whether or not your position as "Systems Administrator" is paid or not. If it is a paid position, then welcome to the professional world, where users will often complain about the resources and facilities that are provided for them. Dealing with their complaints in a professional manner is part of the job that you are being paid for, and it is not appropriate to complain to your manager about that aspect of the job, unless a user is being abusive. You should make it clear to the user concerned that you have installed the software that you were told to install, as you were told to do, and that if the software is inappropriate or does not suit her requirements then she needs to talk to her supervisor, as he/she is the one responsible for ensuring she has the equipment she needs for her research. Do not get angry, be polite and professional; "I would like to help you, but as system administrator I just install the software I am told to install. I have no powers to choose or change what you have been given, so if you need something different you will have to talk to the boss."

If a particular user takes up far more time than than the rest, then you need to ask your manager how to proceed - your employment contract will state how many hours you are to work, and if your manager wants you to cater to the whims of one particular user during those hours, then that is their decision. You should also realise that, since you are the paid "System Administrator", it is not the job of the PhD students to help you carry out this task. They aren't system administrators, they aren't being paid to do the job - you are.

If, on the other hand, your position as "System administrator" is voluntary and unpaid, and the PhD students are part of a "sysadmin" team, then you need to ask them to take a more active role than they are, and to consider whether hours spent on tasks are being allocated in the most efficient fashion.


What can I do one day before admissions deadline, if I believe my recommendation letter writer will not submit in time?

I would try the following:

Contact the department(s) where you are applying, and ask them if they have received the letter.  (It's possible that they have received it, but for some reason it has not yet been logged in their online system.)  Explain that you would ask the professor herself but you cannot reach her.
If they say they have not received it, ask if they would be willing to keep your application under consideration, pending the arrival of the letter.  I don't know if this will help, but it's worth a try.
Contact the professor's department chair and see if he/she knows anything about the professor's whereabouts.  It is possible that something unusual has happened (e.g. she is in the hospital), in which case the chair may be able to write a note to the admission committee explaining the circumstances and asking for their patience.
If it seems that the letter may not be forthcoming within a few days, consider seeing if someone else can write you a letter.  Be sure to explain to them the circumstances, so they understand that it is urgent for reasons beyond your control.

Hopefully someone who has been on an admission committee will add an answer saying how they normally handle such situations (which must be rather common).


What to do if my advisor insists on early attendance?

As a fellow night owl, I feel your pain. Normally I would suggest concisely explaining your difficulties and suggesting a work-around to your advisor, but it sounds like you've already done that. Sadly, your advisor does have the right to set working hours, so you have no real recourse other than finding a different advisor.

The situation might be different if you have a medical diagnosis/disability -- but I don't think "night owl" will qualify, since waking up early is not harmful to your health (not sure about French law though). What I've done in similar situations is to use melatonin to fall asleep early and caffeine pills to wake up -- probably not the healthiest solution long-term, but it does the trick for me.


How well is "I want to do research at a big company" received during a PhD application?

There is no taboo, but your answer was not very good.

Here are some specific problems:

Your answer implies an unwillingness to bear hardship.  You don't want the life of an adjunct professor.  But you are starting a PhD, and PhD students arguably have a similar sort of life.  Are you willing to deal with five years of low or no pay and very hard work?  Do you have a realistic idea of what that will take?  They might not be convinced that you do, based on this response.
The answer might be taken as denigrating the life choices of the person you are talking to.  The person interviewing probably had a career path similar to what you just described and you are essentially saying that would be a bad choice to make.  This might not come across so well.
Your answer focused on the kind of position rather than the content of the work you want to do.  There is some anti-industry bias in academia, but neither "I want to work as a consultant" nor "I want to be a professor" is a very good answer, honestly.  At this stage they want to know that you are passionate about the research.  Therefore you should focus on what you want to do rather than where.
Your answer may undermine your story about leaving industry.  You had a period of soul-searching that led you to leave industry for PhD study, but then you want to go right back to industry and aren't even interested in academic opportunities?  This will make it harder to convince them that you really are committed to this new direction.

My advice is be honest while trying to emphasize the most positive aspect of your honest opinion.

I would focus on what kind of research you really want to do with your PhD degree, and give an answer based on that.  The location of the work should be based on the opportunity to do the type of work you want.

If your honest answer is "I want to cure cancer and save lives, and I'm willing to work in industry or academia to make that happen" then great.  If your answer is "I want to work on self-driving cars, and industry is the place to be for that", then that is a fine answer.

If you don't have a defined idea of what you want to study and just want a generic sort of career in "research" I would rethink whether you are really ready to start a PhD.


Humanities for people with poor preparation?

Humanities prof in the US here. You are indeed correct that there aren't, generally speaking, research assistantships available at the undergraduate level in humanities. It's just not that easy even for a very capable, very motivated undergraduate to contribute much meaningful to the writing of a scholarly paper in most humanities fields.

The best advice is to figure out exactly why you did poorly in the earlier course, correct the problem and then work very hard is a subsequent humanities course. You want to show that the one bad mark is an outlier.

More generally, the best advice for success in humanities courses and applications to humanities graduate programs is to learn to write really well. If you can learn to write careful, focused, clearly argued essays that people actually enjoy reading, you'll have a definite leg up on the competition. Your bad marks might keep you from making the cut at some programs, but if you blow the writing sample away, you might become very competitive at programs that treat their admissions more holistically. (My sense, which is not very reliable, is that admissions decisions in the humanities tend to be a bit more holistic in general than in the sciences, since UG programs tend to vary much more in the humanities than in the sciences.)


How to motivate students to debug their work independently

One way that could work is to open a forum or a place for the students do help each other. This would prevent posting incomplete or not clear questions (because no one would like to look dumb) and would help you to debug once for class (maybe you could also collect them and provide it for the next courses). You could then also grade the activity on the forum (at least that helped me to post in a forum for a lecture :).

As tonysdg suggest you could let them know the rules of the forum like in Stack Overflow. Or say that if they (or other students) can't solve their problems in a week (or two) you will step in.

The most important part is let them know how and what do you expect from them before coming to you.


Should referencing critical comments on papers that have been referenced be obligatory?

This depends on why you reference the paper. If you reference it because of the details that were later commented on, there is definitely reason to also mention the disagreement. I would consider that a basic aspect of any referencing of relevant literature. If, on the other hand the comments by Spode have later been shown to be wrong (Jeeves, 2008) or irrelevant the "historic" discussion has little relevance.

So I think your sense is correct. But, the necessity to reference both depends on the reason for referencing. The two are not eternally linked for every aspect of the original paper, only the parts where opinions differ and from which the discussion has arisen.


How to handle possibly subtly flirtatious emails from students?

You should keep your replies short, polite and professional. Do not respond to what you see as flirtatious. Try also to interpret what you see as flirtatious in a different light, as you say, it could be due to language issues. It would be bad if you started to respond in a manner that assumed something that was not intended.

In the end it is very important to not fuel any behaviour that you think is "suspect" but at the same time you cannot avoid responding altogether. Acknowledge praise briefly but do not return praise since that could appear as favouring a student before others. Turn the focus of a response quickly from any polite exchange to focus on the course material. You may also take opportunities to point out that information given is also given to others to at least subtly impress the fact that there is no "special treatment".

In short, act as if nothing special is going on, be brief to the point and professional in your response. Do not try to be anything other than yourself or treat any student differently from others. Keep records of your mail or other exchanges.


Can I ask for an extension on the time to accept a job offer?

Or will it put my chances for the position in jeopardy?

The position has been offered to you. The typical advice is the worst thing that can happen is they say no. There are some horror stories were an offer was revoked, but I would suggest you question wanting to work in any department that behaves that way.

It is completely reasonable to ask for a week or two week extension. When a school moves fast between visit and offer, it is unlikely you will get more than a week or two extension. That said, it cannot hurt to ask.


Is it ethical to apply different criteria for graduate admissions based on country of undergraduate study?

I'm going to advise against.

You say your sample size is small. And honestly, unless you hired a professional statistician, I have doubt the analysis was carried out properly or shows exactly what you think it shows. Good statistics are hard to do.
Assuming my google results are truthful, National Origin is a Protected Class in the US. You can't discriminate against people because of it. I assume this is an american institution as you talk about GRE, but similar applies in other places. EDIT: OP has since clarified a misunderstanding of mine - the judgement is based not on the student's country of origin, but the country of the school they attended, which makes me less certain this point still applies.
You're department is actually, seriously proposing to say to people "Sorry, while you have the same official qualifications as another candidate we accepted, we're rejecting you because of your country of origin"? I mean, really? Whoa. Just stop and play back how this kind of justification would sound in almost any other circumstance. Think about how the press will make it sound when they (inevitably) get wind of it.

SUBSEQUENT EDIT

So, this question interested me, and I've bounced it off a couple of other people in my lab. Their main concern seemed to be that grouping by country was just to coarse a measurement, as every country has its own mix of good and bad schools. The basic idea, though, didn't seem to elicit the same gut reaction as it did from me.

Moreover, I've googled and found at least two examples of courses that vary their requirements based on country of origin, so there is precedent:

https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/for/international-students/is-entry-requirements/is-minimum-overseas-entry-requirements.html

http://sydney.edu.au/business/futurestudents/postgraduate_study/pg_coursework_studies#app_req

So maybe I've got this wrong, and should just be ignored. At any rate I'm no longer sure it's quite so clear cut.


Publishing a conference version of a journal paper at the same time ? (copyright issues)

The problem is that you have painted yourself into a corner.

You have made a very serious mistake by submitting simultaneously to a conference (with formal proceedings) and a journal. Most likely both the conference and the journal have explicit rules forbidding this, and in any case any kind of simultaneous submission is highly unethical: you are abusing the peer-review system.

No matter what you do, someone will be upset.

If you are a student, perhaps the best approach is to play stupid. Contact the conference organisers, apologise sincerely, explain that you were not aware that simultaneous submissions are not permitted, explain that you are just a student, apologise again, and withdraw the conference paper.

The conference organisers will be upset. But maybe this is much better in the long run than proceeding with the publication of both versions, in which case you will make your mistake public and anyone is able to see it (conference submission & acceptance dates are public information, and journals typically publish the submission & acceptance dates of the articles).


Is there a difference between a (under)graduate and honours studies - also concerning thesis?

Just about every possibility exists somewhere in the United States. There is no one answer.

Some colleges or universities do not require any type of thesis for an undergraduate degree. Others may require students in an honors program only to complete a thesis or project. Yet others may require all students to complete a thesis or project for an undergraduate degree.

At the graduate level, there are research master's degrees and non-thesis/course-only master's degrees. The latter may still have a project or paper. A research master's degree is usually for those who are going on to a Ph.D.


What is the "books received" section in journals?

It is what it says on the tin: a list of books that the journal has received copies of. The review editor(s) can then pick interesting titles from this list, and send them out for review for a future issue. Space is usually limited, so typically some of the books won't be reviewed in the journal. The journal might also decline publishing some completed reviews. For those cases, the list serves as recognition "of the courtesy of the sender".

As far as I know, usually anyone can send their books to the journal - be it a publisher, an author, or a reader who just happens to have a spare copy. Readers can also notify the journal about a certain book that they would like to see reviewed, or volunteer to review one, whether it has shown up on the list or not. Presumably, if readers of the journal are interested in the book, the journal would be more interested in publishing a review.


HTML and CSS for typesetting?

No, just no. HTML and CSS were designed for looking good on screen, not paper. Although there are CSS styles for page printing, using a medium for a purpose other than its original design will at best be an overkill (if it works) and in most cases a utter source of frustration.

  The obvious choice seems to be LaTeX... I wouldn't be using all its
  advanced features.

This is the basic misconception. You will use all advanced features even in a humanities thesis. You will have inline references, bibliography entries (bibtex), links to bibliographic entries, figures, title pages, perhaps even tables etc. As you see, you are going to use much of the advanced features of LaTeX, regardless of your discipline. LaTeX has an increased initial learning curve, but in the long run it is worth this time investment.

Conclusion: Stick to LaTeX.


Is it acceptable to change affiliation to new employer when submitting an updated manuscript when old employer provided limited research support?

I would recommend to use both. If the journal differentiates "address" and "current address", then:

"address" is X (where you did the research)
"current address" is Y (that's where people can reach you now, right?)

If the journal doesn't distinguish them, I would put Y first (you seem to consider Y more important). If the journal doesn't allow two affiliations, them the journal is strange; just try to put both affiliations in the one field and see what happens.


What is the timeline for hiring tenure-track Professors during the Summer?

In my academic circles, it is essentially verboten to do tenure-track hiring over the summer.  (One cannot count on having a quorum of faculty members in-town, and those who are around probably have other plans.)  You might get better advice by specifying your field and the kind of institution you've applied to (e.g. research university, four year college).

I just saw @aeismail's answer: yes, I think that summer tenure track hiring is likely to be a kind of "Plan B," or alternatively comes from an administrative initiative rather than the departmental level.  (In my experience, upper university administration can be surprisingly out of step with faculty hiring timelines.)  But to me this kind of hiring feels "exceptional," and some of the standard hiring practices may be abridged or otherwise bent.

As a general rule, I would not assume an academic position is closed until they tell you.  If you are still interested in the job, send a short email to the chair of the hiring committee.  She will tell you whether the position is still open.  You should know however that sometimes "the position is still open" means that they conducted their search, interviewed their candidates, and found a candidate that has indicated willingness to accept but hasn't filled out the paperwork yet.  You should certainly be pursuing other options, and you should be aware that in almost any academic field, there will be many more hiring opportunities available during the academic year.


This can really only be answered by you. But here are some thoughts.

There are two doors. One leads to a doctorate and the other does not. If there is no path to the first door, then the decision should be clear. But there are a couple of possible paths to that first door.

One is to move elsewhere or get a different advisor. If that path isn't closed to you then you should be considering it. Expensive and time consuming, yes. But whether it is worth it is up to you.

Another, possible, path is to cut the old prof out of the picture and work exclusively with the younger one on some idea and just finalize it without consulting the older prof.

A third, is to cut out the younger prof and work exclusively with the older one and his group, perhaps getting some support from them and hopefully more from the old professor.

But it seems like you are being whipsawed. Find a path that works. Even if it is to the 'no degree' door. But make sure that you will like what is on the other side of that door before stepping through it.

My personal preference (maybe not yours) would be to work with only the younger prof. But get a plan agreeable to both of you that if you follow that path you will find success in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, preferably, a written plan, or at least one that clearly lays out the parameters.

If you don't have a plan, you probably don't have a path.

My situation was a bit different, though also difficult, but I switched universities after four years in grad school and found a much better situation and an excellent and helpful advisor. My future seemed bleak at the time, but it was with the encouragement and help of another professor that got me situated.


Is there a scientific field that focuses exclusively on scientific instrumentation research?

Yes, there exist such a field, but actually the development of scientific instrumentation is transversal to many fields. Note, however, that one typically specializes in scientific instrumentation of a certain kind. With just one life available, one cannot cover all types of instruments!

One specific field is that of metrology. Metrology is the science of measurement, and many metrologists are involved in the development of measuring systems and methods for accurate measurements. For instance, as my profile says, I'm a metrologist and I work in the field of primary electrical resistance and impedance measurements. I spend most of my time developing devices and measuring systems for that quantity, and for the realization of its unit, the ohm. Metrologists also collaborate with the industry, to improve the development of certain types of instruments. It's not uncommon that measuring systems that were once developed by research laboratories can be now bought as off-the-shelf instruments from various companies. In a few institutions around the world, and especially in Europe, one can find PhD programmes or schools dedicated to metrology.

However, not all scientific instruments are dedicated to accurate measurements, and many instruments are also developed by researchers working in specific disciplines. So, for instance, particle physicists may collaborate with engineers to develop particle and radiation detectors. As I said, the development of scientific instrumentation is really transversal to many fields.

It is common for those who work at the development of instrumentation to have a degree in engineering or physics, but these are not the only possibilities indeed. You definitely need a broad knowledge, though.

You can find papers on instrumentation on certain dedicated journals, but also in journals about specific disciplines. Some dedicated journals are the following (list by no means exhaustive):

Metrologia: This is the main journal dedicated to the world of metrology. You can find papers dedicated to primary measuring systems.
Review of Scientific Instruments: As the title says, this is a journal specifically dedicated to scientific instruments, of all kinds. Quite well known.
Measurement Science and Technology: Another journal dedicated to the world of measuring instruments, with a broader scope with respect to Metrologia.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement: Journal with a very broad scope, where you can find papers dedicated to instrumentation, sensors, algorithms etc.


As a beginning graduate student I am not passionate about my field

First, you need to step back and ask yourself why you want to go to graduate school. It's not clear to me that you have a well-defined reason.

An MS+PhD program is not easy for anyone. And it's not just classes that you can grind through. Most of your work will be on doing original research, and that necessarily entails dead ends, setbacks, and overall frustration when things don't work out. Certainly one of the biggest things that keeps successful grad students going is being in love with the subject, so that when things do finally go right it all seems worth it.

There are other motivations too. I've seen everything from making parents proud to challenging oneself to really wanting a degree to boast about.1 Whatever it is, though, you have to ask yourself if, at the end of 5 or 6 (or more!) years of sacrificing some combination of money, social time, and creature comforts, you will like your decision.

On starting over: You'll definitely need to think about the above motivations. Is your heart really set on astrophysics, to the point where you won't have this same doubt even if you get into such a program? This soul searching isn't just to help you make the right decision -- you'll need to explain your thinking to your letter writers and possibly to whatever departments you apply to.

On sticking with it: It's possible you don't have enough information right now. Only you know how much you personally learn to like a subject after studying it intensely, versus how much your first impressions always turn out to be right.2 In this case, you can stick with the program for a year and then decide.3 No one will hold it against you if you drop out. You just have to decide whether that extra information is worth a year of your life.

Be careful, though, if you want to start over with different programs after a year, since the timing of the application season might very well leave you with a gap year. Whatever you do, don't think that you have to be miserable for 5 years.

On getting a job: Ask yourself what kind of career you want, and what you need to do to get there. Are there careers you would enjoy that don't require a degree like this? Remember, any grad school is just a means to an end. There are students who choose grad school in order to delay figuring out what career they really want. Just make sure that's not your motivation.

1Anecdote: I went to an undergrad where the majority of students went on to grad school. This resulted in pressuring a lot of my peers who really didn't have a good motivation to do the same. A large number of them dropped out, and I always wonder how many of them regret the decision to continue schooling in the first place.

2In your particular case, I'm inclined to think your won't find that passion given that you have a nonnegligible amount of experience in the field. Unless you find a project that's considerably different from what you've worked on already and more aligned with your interests (see next footnote), there's not much more information to be had by extra experience. Don't make the mistake of procrastinating on a decision when no new information is headed your way.

3By the way, you are right to recognize that space physics and astrophysics/cosmology are rather disjoint, despite how counterintuitive that is to the uninitiated. That said, there is some overlap, especially on the theoretical side. For example heliophysics is not too distant from stellar structure and astroseismology. Look into what the professors in your department actually research -- you might find something right up your alley.


Do universities hire graduates from lesser universities

People are occasionally hired by far more prestigious universities than the ones they studied at.  For example, there's a tenured professor in the Princeton math department (unambiguously among the top 5 departments in the U.S.) who received his Ph.D. in 1999 from Kansas State (which wouldn't necessarily make the top 75).  Where your degree is from is a negligible factor in hiring decisions compared with how outstanding your research is.

On the other hand, research excellence is highly correlated with which doctoral program you attend.  The top programs tend to get the students with the most talent, determination, and preparation, and they usually provide the most support for these students to succeed.  Of course this is just a statistical assertion, not an absolute law.  However, in mathematics in the U.S., the number of students graduating each year from rank 50-75 universities whose job applications are as impressive in research as those of the average top-5 graduate is tiny.  If you're hiring based on research promise, then even the most unbiased search should lead to hiring mainly people from higher-end schools.  Of course there's presumably some prejudice as well, but I don't think it's a substantial factor at research universities.  (I have no first-hand experience with hiring at teaching-oriented schools.  In particular, I don't know how overrepresented graduates of prestigious universities are or which factors are responsible for it.)


NIH F31 sponsor has not graduated students or post-docs

I think the NIH sums it up well in their FAQs

Q20: My sponsor has little or no experience training postdocs. How should s/he address that situation when s/he writes my training plan?
A: Your sponsor should consider asking a more experienced faculty colleague to serve as a co-sponsor. S/he should provide a detailed, well-thought-out training plan, in which the roles of sponsor and co-sponsor are clearly delineated. In addition, a sponsor who has not previously trained postdocs should describe any other training experience that might be relevant, e.g., supervision of graduate students or mentoring of a collaborator's postdocs.

The NIH policy also says:

Sponsor(s), Collaborator(s), and Consultant(s). Are the sponsor(s) research qualifications (including successful competition for research support) and track record of mentoring appropriate for the proposed fellowship?

While the exact "penalty" to your score is not stated, the fellowships are competitive enough that any hit will be enough to make you unsuccessful.


Should my references be famous if I want to get into top schools for PhD?

It's not necessary for your recommenders to be famous.  It certainly helps a little, since it's only natural for the admissions committee to be influenced by fame, but it's not really relevant to the quality of the recommendation so most people try not to be too influenced by it.  Instead, these criteria are more important:

Do your recommenders know you?  I.e., can they make detailed, substantive comments, beyond just listing grades?
Do they know what's required for success at the schools you are applying to, and what the competition is like?  Do they have a good basis for comparison in your case?  The best case scenario is if their students regularly apply and are at least sometimes accepted; then a comparison with past students is very informative.
Does the committee understand their personalities and writing styles?  Some recommenders are very optimistic and say everyone's great, while others lean towards understatement.  If members of the committee have read previous letters by your recommenders, or know them personally, then it's much easier to make a reliable judgment.  Otherwise, everyone will be at least a little more skeptical of the letters.

There are plenty of people who satisfy these criteria but wouldn't register as "famous" in the community at large.  On the other hand, if your recommenders don't satisfy them, then it will be harder to be admitted to a top department.  I wouldn't go so far as to say it's impossible, but this is worth keeping in mind when selecting letter writers.


Can the "and" word be replaced by the ampersand, "&", in citations with IEEE style?

IEEE is based on the Chicago Manual of Style.
It seems that the Chicago Style prefers to use the word and rather than ampersands (&) in journal titles. See here for a remark regarding journal titles:

Since there is no easy way to check whether an author’s choices are random or scrupulous, conventionally editors have chosen one style or the other to impose throughout. Chicago prefers and. Even now that it’s possible to check online, we think it’s more expedient to choose one style and be consistent, given the amount of research it would entail to check the style of and in every title

Under the heading "Permissible changes to quoted title" (chapter 8.174), the manual even allows users to replace a given ampersand (&) to an and (rather than vice versa):

When a title is quoted, its original spelling [...], hyphenation, and punctuation should be preserved. [...] As a matter of editorial discretion, an ampersand (&) may be changed to and, or, more rarely, a numeral may be spelled out.


Building my personal phrase bank, would this be considered plagiarism?

I wouldn't immediately call it plagiarism, but there is something you are overlooking.

  Writing is not as formulaic as you think. Yes there are standard
  grammar structure, syntax, and punctuation, but when you put sentences
  together into a paragraph, the meaning changes. So when you put words
  in a phrase bank together, the end-meaning might not reflect what you
  intended.

  So when you put words in a phrase bank together, the end-meaning might
  not reflect what you intended. Yes there are standard grammar
  structure, syntax, and punctuation, but when you put sentences
  together into a paragraph, the meaning changes. Writing is not as formulaic as you think.

In your mind, 1+2=3 and 2+1=3, but in the case of reading comprehension, the sequence and order of which you read the sentences change the meaning. At the same time, not all "1" share the same meaning either so from time to time you would have phrases that seem out of place. As Alexander woo suggested, the best way to learn is to read, write, and practice.


Reusing a reference letter is not itself a problem, but good reference letters are tailored for the target goal.
A letter writer is likely to reuse substantial portions of a letter for the same candidate without you asking.
I think the warning about time is more likely to be encouraging you to give a substantial time cushion or alternatively to make sure you have a backup if he has to say no, not meant to dissuade you from asking again.
When you ask, remind and thank the writer for the past letters. You don't need to ask that they reuse one, they can manage that on their own.


If you do really have everything else, then I doubt that it would have much effect for most MS programs. There are probably exceptions, but, generally, admission to a MS program doesn't imply the need for a BS in the same field.
But only by applying (or otherwise asking a university) can you be sure. You may need to take a systems course as part of your MS, though. With a math degree, I doubt you'd have much trouble with it.


Freedom in acknowledgments section of dissertation - writing in native language

There are a couple directions to look to see how your school handles this sort of thing:

Your supervisor probably has an idea of what's been done in the past.
Theses in your school or department's library - school's keep past theses that have been accepted on record - have a look at what people in your school, department, and program have done in the past.

In general - a quick survey of what my colleagues have used in the acknowledgements section of their master's theses has determined:

Inside jokes are ok.
Multilingual messages are ok (we are in Canada though, so French and English is pretty common)
None of us believe the any of the referees bothered to read the personal acknowledgements.


As an American considering a post-doc in Australia, how does superannuation affect me?

The comment above about non-specificity to academia is mostly correct, but there are special considerations for academics.  Australian academics (including postdocs) typically receive their superannuation from Unisuper.

All Australian academics need to know that the rate of superannuation contributions varies and that there are defined benefit and defined contribution systems, depending on your contract you may not have the defined benefit option.  Most Australians do not have defined benefit.

If you are a nonresident you can (and are incentivised to) withdraw your superannuation when you leave Australia, but there is a big tax.  You may be able to obtain residency in order to avoid this tax, but it is very complicated.

If you are an American, you need to study up on Passive Foreign Investment Corporations.  In short, this is a tax the American government imposes on superannuation.  There is no way to calculate how much tax is owed.  The IRS says it will take you 40 hours/year to complete the forms.  Despite this idiocy, it is worthwhile to work in Australia.

I am not a lawyer.  Talk to someone who specializes in international taxation and/or investments.


Who should be author in an application note

Authorship customs tend to be very field-specific, but I've never heard of discarding a co-author from a paper just for the sake of having a shorter list of authors. This sounds ridiculous: following this reasoning your supervisor could as well decide to be the sole author of the paper!

It's common in many fields to add a supervisor as co-author (usually the last one), even if their contribution is very limited indeed. However good authorship practice recommend that every co-author should have played a significant role in the paper. So in theory you are right: if anybody should be removed from co-authorship, it's the supervisor himself.

Needless to say, it's completely unethical to deprive an actual co-author of the credit.

If there is any room for argument with this strange request, I suggest the following: check a few recent issues of this journal and count for each paper the number of authors. You should be able to easily prove that papers with more than three authors are common and there's no reason to discard anybody.


Once you've been in a field for long enough, essentially every proposal and paper is from someone who you know personally to some degree. That's unavoidable and knowing someone does not, in itself, constitute a conflict of interest.

The question that the funding agency will want to know about is whether you feel conflicted in writing an honest and fair review -- or, maybe more importantly, whether an external observer might wonder whether you might be conflicted in writing an honest and fair review. In other words, do you (or might someone think that you do) stand to gain something by writing a good or bad review?

If you conclude that you might be biased, or that someone else might think that you're biased, then you should decline to review. Otherwise, there is no reason to decline a review just because you know the author.


My adviser wants to use my code for a spin-off, but I want to use it for my own company

Actually, I do not really understand your general strategy: If the code is published under MIT license and the details of the algorithm are published, then pretty much anybody can use this code or algorithm for his/her own company (as far as I understand the license, I am not a lawyer). So it is perfectly fine for your supervisor to use this code. It is also perfectly fine for you to use this code in any company you found (again, as far as I understand the license details).

Probably, a scientific algorithm will only be a tiny part of software that you want to sell or for which you want to consult. So I would not worry too much.


How should an academic negotiate his/her salary?

It's important to remember that you're negotiating a package, not a salary. In other words, there is a set of things you're negotiating for, and you can play games in that space to get most of what you need. Limiting yourself to salary negotiation is tricky because salaries are often the most constrained part of the package (especially in public universities in the US), and the one the chair/dean has the least power to change.

So remember that your success at the job depends on your ability to recruit students, procure resources and bootstrap your research program. Which means you need startup money to pay students, lab space and equipment money as needed, teaching relief if that helps you focus on research, and so on. Throw these all into the mix when you negotiate, so that if you give up something along one dimension, you can try to parlay that into a gain along a different dimension.

Also understand who you're really negotiating with, and what powers they really have to offer you things. This can be found out by talking with your supporters at the department (you must have some, otherwise you wouldn't have an offer) and also folks at other institutions.


What should a student do when they are the victim of a FERPA violation?

In the US, you have the right to file a FERPA complaint. The instructions are posted on the Government website.  If the Government decides that there was a FERPA violation, there are two possible outcomes:

They agree that the university will bring itself into compliance, or
They do not agree that the university will bring itself into compliance, and therefore, the university will lose their eligibility for federal funding.

The latter of these is an existential threat to the university; therefore, the first one is almost certain to happen. However, the university could discipline the professor as a way to demonstrate that they take being in compliance seriously.

Beyond this, I think the key question for you is what is your goal?

Students do not have the right to sue over FERPA violations, so  a financial or other settlement for the student is highly unlikely.
If you want some specific action (e.g., being allowed to complete your degree without interacting with this professor), you should request this through the usual channels (start with the department chair, then the dean). You could mention that you believe this is a FERPA violation, but I would avoid making threats.
If you're just angry and want "justice," you could also complain to a dean, department chair, or even ombudsman, or could submit the FERPA complaint. It's hard for students to prevail against professors, however, particularly if this is the first complaint.


What is the criterion to include an institution as “affiliation” in an author list?

The general criterion is that you must list your primary affiliation or any institution that is providing essential funding/resources, and you may list any institution that has given you a relevant appointment (which could be called many things if it's not a real job: affiliate faculty, courtesy appointment, visiting position, consulting faculty, etc.).

In practice, the way it works is that some people collect enormous numbers of affiliations through great popularity: every department wants these people to come and interact, so they all offer appointments.  (When this happens, it's hard for the popular people to turn down the invitations, out of fear of causing offense, so they end up with a lot of affiliations.)  Other people deliberately try to accumulate as many appointments as possible, to show off how popular or interdisciplinary they are, and they achieve this by going around asking for appointments.  (And they often get them, since even if you aren't excited about someone, it's easier to give them a meaningless affiliation than to turn down their request.)

The net result is that there's no way of knowing what it means in any given case, without more information.


How should one react when one's work is rightfully critiqued during a conference presentation?

Should we accept that

Yes.

If somebody points out a flaw in your work, be thankful. They are giving you free advice. Don't try to be right at all costs. Of course it's awkward when people point out major flaws in your work when there is an audience, but it's part of the game.

If you believe you are right, defend your point using objective arguments. If you know the critique is founded, accept it and try to make the best of it.


The work plan breaks down your project into operational steps, detailing when you will take on which task and for how long. A good work plan is feasible and complete. It signals to the committee that you are realistic and aware of the scope and practicalities of your project. It could look something like this:

Source


What does affiliation (for a publication) signify?

Affiliation could mean anything, or nothing at all. In most cases it doesn't mean that the organization approves or even knows of the publication beforehand. In some companies you sign a contract that lets the organization vet your public work, but not in others and not in most universities. In those companies it usually only means that they approve of the fact that you are publishing, but not necessarily of the content. There can be exceptions, however, as when you are working with sensitive information, such as trade secrets.

When I published, I listed my employer (a university) as my affiliation, but that was for identification purposes only. I probably still would, though I'm retired. I might, instead list none or independent researcher or my DBA (Doing Business As) persona.

I think that publishers want it almost entirely for identification purposes, nothing more. However, for some affiliations, you have a sort of implied aura that gives the editor a warm and fuzzy feeling.


Unfortunately, when submitting to a conference, you don't have control over the process to the detail you are talking about. It will probably be the case that the useless review does indeed get less weight during discussions (unless the reviewer happens to be one of those reviewers who holds a lot of sway and can get a paper rejected with a vague and general review!).

I would urge against sending an email to the conference chair / organizers -- unless you are extremely tactful, any attempt to sway them with this method will come off as whiny and will only hurt your case (or, rather, your friend's case).

The best option is to write a rebuttal as you normally would: fix all the critical comments from the other reviewers, address each comment specifically in your rebuttal response, and thank the reviewers for their consideration. The good news is that you got one positive review.  While this is not normally sufficient for a paper acceptance at a very competitive CS conference, you have the chance to improve the paper as much as you can, and send in your rebuttal, and you should make the most of that opportunity.


arXiv Papers vs. Peer Reviewed Papers; How Does Admission Committee Evaluate?

The end of your question makes it sound like you are confused about something: arXiv and conference/journal submissions are not alternatives.  The arXiv is a preprint server, and posting there is like posting to on a personal webpage in that arXiv postings are not counted as publications and do not preclude you from submitting to a peer-reviewed venue.

As for how a committee would evaluate published verus unpublished papers differently, one gets a preliminary sense of the quality/significance of a published (or accepted) paper from the venue it was accepted to.  For unpublished papers, there is no immediate indicator of this (it could be great, mediocre, or seriously flawed), but they certainly signal you're research active, and since you already have a couple of published papers, assuming they are in reasonable journals, chances are your unpublished papers will be assumed to be of reasonable quality.

But, for both published and unpublished papers, an assessment of the quality should come from your letter writers, who should be able to give more insight than just the reputation of the journals you have published in.

In addition, there is no reason to delay your submission.  On your CV, just list the title of the paper, with the word "submitted."  (If you want, you can make a separate preprint section, but this seems unnecessary with only 4 papers.)  If it is on the arXiv, you can give an arXiv link.  Even for papers not submitted, you can still list them as preprints (though submitted or at least being posted online is better).

Note: I disagree with the other answer about saying what journal you submit to--saying where you submit to gives no indication of the quality of the paper (maybe just your biased perception of its quality), and it leave me personally with a slightly desperate impression, though this may depend on the field.  (In mine, some people do this, but most do not.)


Feasibility of moving from US to France for a postdoc opportunity

I recently did exactly what you were describing. Spent two years in Paris as a postdoc.

1) Not speaking French will be an issue because of collaboration. Some will be very open to working with you, but many others will not. Do not be surprised when group meetings are conducted in French. The more international the lab, the better the experience will likely be. Most of my collaborators and friends ended up coming from other countries outside of France; though they all also spoke French.

2) In a major city like Paris, day to day living is not really an issue. Getting around the city and running basic errands are really not that difficult.

3) Getting the work visa is a non-issue. The host organization will handle this and provide you with the paperwork (though probably not promptly). At some point you will have to visit a French Embassy in the US to file the paperwork in person. You will likely get something called a Scientific Visa which is very permissive in what it allows.

4) Here is the bad news. Bureaucracy is an absolute nightmare in France. If you want to navigate it, you will either have to speak very good French or have a friend willing to help you. This help will require multiple full day commitments, so it is a lot to ask. Once you arrive, you are supposed to apply for a resident permit and are technically not allowed to leave the country until it arrives. Mine took over a year and I know people who have gone 2+ years without receiving one. In the meantime you get a paper stating you are waiting on this permit. It expires every 3 months, so you have to present yourself in person to renew it (actually a renewal usually takes two visits). I never received proof of health insurance. That means I could receive healthcare, but I had to pay full price. From the people I know, this is a very common situation. They will still deduct money from your paycheck every month though.

5) Obtaining an apartment and bank account in France are quite difficult too. It is sort of a Catch-22 situation. Before arriving, I was put in touch with Science Accueil. They help setup foreign scientists with apartments, bank accounts, and things like that. Hopefully you will also have access to something like that.

Living in France as a non-EU citizen is very difficult. I don't regret doing it, but I don't think I would do it again. There are positives though. Your situation may be different, but I received 9 weeks of vacation per year (including holidays). It is easy to travel throughout Europe and that experience is amazing.

Good Luck!


Barry Mazur's thesis "On Embeddings of Spheres" runs 17 pages, as far as I can tell from the paywalled source here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02559532


Including incomplete or complete BS after MS in résumé

I think the most important question is what are you using this resume for? You say you're "about to start on a PhD program also in Math" -- does that mean you already got accepted? Are you looking to get summer jobs?

My main concern is if you have a PhD degree, a Masters degree, and another Bachelors degree, you won't have enough space to list other degrees (especially if you want to list relevant coursework). You'll hopefully get teaching experience, work experience, and leadership skills to fill out the rest of your resume.

If you don't have another Bachelors degree, what did you list when you were applying to the Masters? I would just follow whatever you did there. It might seem odd that you have a Masters but no Bachelors degree.


Will taking a vacation hurt your academic career/recommendation letter?

The question has several possible answers. The right one depends e.g. on the country, the region, the university, the field, as well as the research group and the 'culture' promoted there. The answers you can expect here will therefore be mostly based on specific examples and cannot be regarded as universal.

I for instance want my PhD students to take vacations if they feel it is necessary, and they also simply have the right to do so. My reasoning is that they will come back with some extra energy, motivation and fresh ideas effectively increasing their research output. I do not know if this is true though. [Actually, I do not care if it is true. There are more important things than maximizing research output at all costs.]

In reality, the PhD students often do not take the amount of days off they could. In many cases this is because they are so involved in their research that they do not want a vacation. I sometimes send them away then. It could however also be due to pressure they feel from their supervisor. This pressure might be real or not, and often enough it is real. But: At least where I work most supervisors are convinced of the benefits of an occasional vacation. With these people, it would be a big mistake not to take a vacation when necessary and instead keep working until motivation is gone -- especially if that is only the case because you do not even talk to the supervisor about it because of fear of the outcome of the conversation.


Keeping marking unbiased when work is not submitted anonymously

I've worked both ways and I'm unsure which way is best. There are clearly benefits to each way.

You already understand the benefits of 'blind' marking - you are more likely to be unbiased. However, by knowing the student behind the writing there are some benefits (along with the danger of bias).

One benefit is that you can authenticate more easily. That is, if you keep reading papers from one student and you see a sudden jump in quality (up or down) it can alert you to the possibility the work is not theirs (hired writers, etc.). Another benefit is that you can watch the development of each student over time. This is a little more difficult if you do not know while you are marking. Of course, you can go back over the papers after you submit the grades but that requires double reading (and not many want to do that for each student). There is the added benefit of seeing something which jumps out, like a special quote or comment you made in class. You can see who is getting it and who is not while you are marking. This last point is less of an issue because for stand-out cases you are more likely to read twice and it would be less work since it's a one-off event.

For exams, there is less of a benefit to the authenticity point above (since they were in the exam room) but it does still allow you to keep an eye on students. There is the obvious administrative benefit of not having to anonymize the exams.

As for preventing bias when papers are not anonymous, I consider each mark quite carefully and ask myself if I am being biased. When I look over all the marks and I see that I passed students I cannot stand and that I failed students I really like, then I feel fairly confident that I am keeping my bias in check.


Is it ok to mention assistance in grant writing on your CV?

You can list on your CV whatever you think is useful information for the reader. In your case, whether something is useful depends on what your position in life is. If you're a full professor with a long history of funded research, what you describe is likely not useful to list on a CV. If you're a graduate student with an otherwise relatively short CV, then that's a different story. I would suggest wording such as

  Co-authored the proposal for grant XY-1234-5678 (PI: Professor Z).

Now, whether an entry such as this has any impact is a different issue, but it is certainly not going to hurt.


How formal should figures in a thesis be?

Images in a thesis should be of the same quality as images in a peer-reviewed publication. Hand drawn circles and arrows are not formal enough. Circles and arrows drawn with programs like TeX, GIMP, Illustrator, or Powerpoint are formal enough.


If I didn't learn much in my PhD program, should I do a coursework-based masters in the same field?

If you want to try making a few changes, to see if they have a positive effect, before deciding, here are some ideas:

Each semester, take one of the classes you're interested in.
Before reporting the week's results to your advisor, anticipate what he might prescribe as the next step.  Write up your ideas about next steps each week, to show to your advisor for his opinion and/or green light to go ahead as you proposed.
Set aside one or two hours every day for literature research (reading of papers).  In the beginning it might take you more than a week to get through a paper, but it will get easier with practice.

Please note, your distractibility is something you could talk over with a doctor (general practitioner), if this is a significant problem for you.  There are a number of things you and your professors can consider trying that might help.

If your doctor screens you and finds a noticeable difference between you and the general population in this regard, you can get some assistance with management of the distractibility from your university.


Recommendation letter from CS faculty for math grad school (and vice versa)

As a general principle, you want letters of recommendation from the professors who know your best work best. Letters from professors in fields closely related to yours are OK. (Applied) math and (theoretical) CS surely qualify.
In this case you should certainly have one from this professor. The professor would probably write slightly different letters for math or cs graduate programs - you can ask about that.
Good luck.


Old PI's coauthorship on a paper after finishing the postdoc, a preliminary idea developed then but rejected by him

I cannot see why the former PI should have co-authorship on a paper they did not support or had any interest in. You are not a slave (or at least should not be) when on a post-doc (or any other position) and should retain the freedom to take own initiatives. As long as you fulfil any obligations within the position you are holding, no-one can prevent you from developing your own ideas. I can see an issue if you use materials that involve costs that you are not covering, for example, lab equipment or chemicals, electronic resources that removes capacity or resources otherwise used by the project. I do not count, for example, using a computer and printouts as such resources.

So, for me there is no question you can use the research as your own and you should add only authors that fulfil reasonable contributorship criteria, that is have contributed to the science of your work (see posts under the authorship tag for such criteria).


Is it true that students from European countries have had many more advanced courses in mathematics when they arrive to Grad school in the US?

First and foremost, it is a important to note that there is a vast amount of variation between institutions and individuals, so generalizations are not terribly helpful here.

That said, historically there have indeed been differences in the philosophy and organization of European and American approaches to education. European education has tended to put more emphasis on knowledge, where American education has tended to put more emphasis on creativity and communication.  As a result, many European students are already specializing in high school, while many American students are required to remain generalists until university and may in fact still be taking classes outside their "focus" all the way through the end of their undergraduate studies.

This does not, however, provide any clear advantage to one group or the other when it comes to doing a Ph.D.  At the doctoral level, one needs both knowledge and also creativity and the ability to communicate well with colleagues. Thus, while students educated in one tradition are more likely to enter graduate school being able to prove Urysohn's Lemma, students educated in the other tradition are more likely to be able to effectively communicate why that proof is interesting.

In short: the word "appear" is in the original quote for a reason.