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4 Years in PhD. No publications and adviser keep changing my research
First of all, I need to apologize for writing a really long description.
I started my PhD in Mechanical Engineering 4 years ago and working with a professor, who has no idea on what we are doing and keep changing research area based on the funding possibilities irrespective of our capabilities. He is holding an administrative position as an associate dean and he has no idea on latest methods. He always refer to the methods published in 1980's.
First, I worked on an experimental research and had to stop after 1.5 years due to lack of funding to continue that. Then, I moved to a numerical research and used an open source software as my adviser didn't have money to buy a commercial software. Even though I had some experience in numerical work it took sometime to learn an opensource software.
After spending so much time, I finally managed to develop a new solver to simulate my problem.
I didn't get any input from my adviser as he didn't even want to listen to my research issues. The only thing he ask whenever I met him is do you have results to publish and when you are going to write a paper. Whenever I explain a technical issue he get furious and blame me. Then he doesn't talk to me for at least a month and he forgets what happened. Most of the time, I have to explain what's the problem I'm working on.
Last year he asked me to change my research, as my problem takes at least 2 days to run one simulation, which is normal in similar simulations. He told me that my solver is useless and there is no point of having a such code if it takes more than 4 hours. I was explaining why it takes long time and it's normal in such simulations even with a commercial software. But he got really angry and scolded me. Finally, I had no option other than changing my research because, I'm funded from his TA position (though the funding coming from the department).
Now, I have worked on this research for 6 months and he is still complaining about the simulation time. Now he wants me to abandon my work again as one of his friends found a paper (which is published in 1975) on a different method that claims it can solve similar problems faster. However, that method is based on many assumptions and no one has used that method after 1985 due to its limitations.
And my problem has completely different physics and cannot be used at all. I showed him some of the review papers which explain why that method is wrong and why no one uses it. But, he doesn't believe it and told me don't trust all the papers you read because most of the review papers are wrong as different authors interpret things in different ways. And he scold me saying there is no error in that method and it's me who try to find excuses not to change it.
I have tried to change my PI several times, but no other professor wants to take me as they don't want to make any problem with associate dean. I tried to apply other universities and they are expecting a recommendation from my adviser. I know clearly that my professor will never give me a recommendation to leave the group. He once told me and our lab mates, it won't be easy to leave this group even if you want.
No one in this university will dare to take my student. and he once told me that he cannot see me graduating at least in 2020. I don't really know what I should do.
I'm an international student and my I-20 will expire in 2 months and I need his authorization to extend it. I'm 29 years old and I'm actually not in a position to take a risk.

Sorry for your frustrating situation. It's not clear what exactly you are asking. Are you asking if you should leave? Are you asking for strategies on how to succeed in spite of bad advisor?

Comments are not for extended discussion (or mini-answers); this conversation has been moved to chat.

Is the fact that your simulation takes 2 days instead of 4 hours really the whole reason he's not accepting your work? Perhaps teaming up with some skilled computer science / engineering gurus could help speed up the simulation. If, for example, your code is written in MATLAB, porting it to something like C, which is inherently faster will help. Also, perhaps your simulation can be (better) parallelized, also making it run faster. Expensive commercial software has this advantage over MATLAB scripts; that's why it's so expensive.

Change your adviser. Probably time to cut your losses and leave, your time is more valuable

Short, simple, and totally disregards everything OP said in his last paragraph.

How does this answer get upvotes when he can't change his advisor.

@dev_nut One can always change one's advisor.  If you can find a new advisor that is great.  If you can't and your old advisor is a net negative, then do you really need an advisor?

@emory you do need an advisor if you want to graduate. He can't change advisors and can't get into a new school. This answer is completely misses the point.

@emory dev_nut is correct. You absolutely cannot change advisors. It creates chaos with the dean and the Ph.D. committee. Thinking about changing advisors is a dream. The student has to make it work with the prof.

@Joe: It's just that what you wrote seems exaggerated (like something I would say if I was being sarcastic). I have no particular opinion, given what I know about the matter. At a glance, I would try to look for other options and find a more healthy environment outside of academia.

@tomasz oh, I understand. Yes I was being a little dramatic. Only to emphatically say there's no point in wasting time to try to change advisors. You seem to know a lot about academia. I know professors who haven't been tenured after 10 years while those who produced less were tenured within 5 years. He left to teach at another school and got tenured after 2 years. So yeah, it's not only Ph.D. students, but professors themselves are mired in a broken environment.

@Joe If one can not change advisors, then one can change universities.  If one can not change universities, then one can change vocations.  One does not have to do anything.  Time spent to date at university is sunk costs.  Graduate school is not a prison and a PhD committee is not a parole board.

This answer is OK for the question described in the title and in the first 10 paragraphs and in the tags. That question is the most general case, and what most people who find themselves in the same general situation can relate to, and this answer is the most helpful to them. Hence the upvotes. The fact that there's another underlying question about I-20 and visas, a detail hidden in the last two lines of a ~40 line description, is probably irrelevant for everybody else but OP.

@walen I was saddled with a dysfunctional adviser in my PhD and this is really not a valid answer.  A sympathetic professor explained to me that even if they would like to take you on, grad students are a valuable resource and are jealously guarded, particularly by 'bad' advisers (since they have a hard time getting more.)  That matters since the professors have to live with each other for a long time and can hurt each others careers while a grad student only lasts a few years.

"My I-20 will expire in 2 months and I need his authorization to extend it....  He once told me that he cannot see me graduating [until] at least in 2020."

The second sentence suggests to me that his intention is to authorize the extension.
Getting your extension is Step 1.  See if you can continue working to a reasonable level of satisfaction until the cat is in the bag with the visa.  After that, your priority should be to get something published.  That would be easier with the help of an informal mentor.  My spouse had one.  The famous name formal advisor signed the thesis but the informal mentor helped shape it.
Once you've found a mentor and have worked with him or her for a while, then you may think about transferring, with the help of a letter from the mentor.  You can also ask a higher administrator for a letter.
You can look for a mentor outside your department or even outside your university.  Going to some conferences might be helpful, and you can write to someone whose papers you read and liked.
In the beginning, as you are looking for a mentor and getting started in the relationship, there is no need to lay out the whole unpleasant story.  You can say that your advisor is extremely busy with administrative duties.

I sympathise, my husband had a very similar problem with a supervisor.
Changing your adviser sounds like the only thing you can do in this situation as it will just get worse otherwise. If you are unable to change within the school due to other professors not wanting to upset your current advisor, I would suggest looking at different universities who can take you. Maybe even on a distance-learning basis so you wouldn't have to move area.
If you get into a different university, they could easily sort out extending your I-20 for the term your PhD is expected to take. From a new position you could then launch a formal complaint against your old supervisor that would hopefully prevent other students finding themselves in your situation and might even award you some sort of compensation (even if it is just a note on your PhD to explain why the research took longer than expected)

This answer seems to be of limited practical applicability.  It seems doubtful OP would have enough time left to work out a transfer before the current visa runs out.

I doubt the OP could make a formal complaint stick. Faculty as a rule - and administration especially - are pretty much immune to any consequences short of something illegal. That's part of tenure. Unless the OP can prove the adviser was doing something against the law, it's not going to be worth his time. Still, warn any prospective students against this faculty as an advisor is worth it to save someone else.

I would have thought the same thing as my husband's supervisor was very high up in the university and his position was very secure. The formal complaint certainly warned future students but also brought his behaviour to the attention of the HR and postgraduate bodies, meaning that in his case, he was able to change supervisor and extend his PhD time while still retaining the same bursaries etc. Without this assurance, he would not have been able to continue his PhD and the extra time taken would have reflected badly on his future career development.

You need to change advisors.
Your department and university should have administrative positions (assigned to senior faculty) whose job is to deal with problems like these, and who have the authority to confront troublesome faculty even if they are associate deans.  They can help you extract yourself from this research group.

The department should have someone known as the "graduate research advisor" or "academic adviser for doctoral students" or something like that.  Their job is to make sure that all the doctoral students in the department finish their degrees in a reasonable amount of time.  Make an appointment to speak to this person as soon as possible.  Describe the problem to them in the following terms: you have been at the university for four years, you are making no progress toward your dissertation, and this is because your advisor keeps changing what you are supposed to be working on.  (Four years in, you should have a definite idea of what your thesis is going to be and you should be making the decisions about what to work on.)
The university should have an office dedicated to supporting international students.  One of their jobs is to make sure that nobody gets stranded without a visa.  Make an appointment to speak to them as soon as possible, too.  Describe the problem to them in terms of possibly having to drop out of the university and leave the country if you can't get your visa renewed.

... and to add to this sound advice: keep a written (email) trail of these discussions.

Firstly PhDs at my institution are expected to at most last 4 years, though the 1.5 years you spent before lack of funding stopped that line of research is a setback.
Academia often focuses on open source software as not only is it cheaper it can often make the results obtained more repeatable, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much.
Methods from the 1980s are valid, related work and can’t be discounted merely because of age, but should be considered in the context of more recent advances i.e. you have to move with the times. The fact its not applicable to your problem should discount its usage.
A solver that has a long runtime, can be explained to be useful still, it’s a limitation but the solver may potentially be made to be multi-threaded, or otherwise distributed. If the answer it provides is superior to other works then it is still novel and a valid contribution for a PhD. He's trying to push you down a route he sees as valid and is likely to advance your work, but I'd be cautious, listen to him, evaluate what he says and as it is your PhD make your decision accordingly.
In regards to technical issues, and wanting to publish papers, he should consider giving advice on how to solve any issues encountered, the provision of monthly supervision is also limited and perhaps should advance to every 2 weeks, dependent upon updates and the need for such a meeting.

I agree, I should have clarified, I'm from the UK at a Russell group university. My colleagues in Germany for example can expect to take 6 years. Awareness of the norms in your own field and institution is important.

p.s. I'm in the Faculty of Engineering at my institute.

The final sentence of the OP indicates they are in the US. PhD programs in the US tend to not expect a prior masters degree, unlike PhD programs in the UK. For this reason they take longer, and 6 years is quite normal for almost any PhD program.

Yes I made a statement regarding my institute's limit on the length of a PhD as a means to add weight to the original question's importance, to their future. It's a big choice whatever they do. Its worth considering the international audience of my answer however.

"The provision of monthly supervision is also limited and perhaps should advance to every 2 weeks" -- was there anything in the question that gave you the impression the advisor is at all open to suggestions from the OP?

The big questions here are:

Do you really enjoy your research? If not, why not change that? Hiding in the seeming safe bubble is even riskier. 29-year-old is too young to not make a change.
If you don't have the resources to make a change, can you borrow them from others?

Your situation resonates with me. For the past 6 years, I exhausted my energy to get a Ph.D. Although I got a postdoc position after graduation, I pondered for several weeks and realized this was not the life I wanted. So I  say sorry to that offer and now making a career change, away from academia.
Previous posts have given some suggestions: leave academia, transfer school, change for another boss, work more effectively with the boss, etc. These are all possible solutions. But the missing piece is: what's your passion and your life goal? PhDs tend to narrowly focused on the research area and are blind to the bigger picture. Try to think beyond your current dilemma. When you started your journey 4 years ago, you only have a very vague goal. Now it's time to reset your goal and make it as smart as possible.
With the ultimate goal in mind,  let's hack the realistic bottleneck, money. This may be the only question that this post is about. I am also an international student. I understand how money is important for a student coming from a developing country, and this is also why so many poor students have to tolerate an abusive professor. But I have to say, you have overpaid your price to get a Ph.D. It's not worth that.
Many people don't know the difference between a tough boss and an abusive boss, see this. Be aware of that the abusive person is eating your energy. Try your best to stay away from that. You may play communication tricks to ease the tension. But you are always vulnerable and psychological unsafe. It's definitely not a productive environment. If your goal is not clear, he will always try to push your bottom line, because the cost is on you, not him. It is a zero sum game. Remember, a good relationship is a shared journey. Effort from only one side is not enough.
So money, as well as visa restriction, are actually where the abusive power come from. This explains why American students have a much higher drop-off rate at school. There's no reason to suffer the abuse. School is a place where you are supposed to gain energy, not lose. You exchange your time and money for potentially more valuable skills and knowledge. But it is not worth to damage your mental health.
Now we pin down the problem. It's time to invest your courage to make a change. Don't be afraid to abandon the Ph.D. degree. You can imagine that, if you continue your academic career for the next 10 years, you may still live under your professor's shadow. So forget the Ph.D. thing.
As long as you enroll in school, the F1 status is secured. Change to a nice advisor to have the signature for the extension. Now, money. If it's too embarrassing to ask parents or friends for the "activation energy" money, why not do it in the American way! Get a student loan. 0% APR credit cards are a fast path.
Say goodbye to the 1980s paper. Transfer to a master program instead. Find a way to leverage your current skills. Enroll the hottest and most useful classes, which can best equip you for good paying jobs and pay off your debt. If you earn enough and can have more choices, that's the time you may reconsider your Ph.D. dream.
The world is changing at an accelerated pace. You should periodically reevaluate your situation and adjust your goal. So you never lose the big picture. Work hard, spirit up and good luck!
One final note: I can feel that you are reluctant to change, partially due to sunk cost and path dependence. But these are the least important things to consider when you are making a long-term rational decision. I would recommend everyone reading this article: Life is too short for bullshit.

I like your answer very much. Just a minor correction: it's "shadow" not "shallow".

Writing papers is important - if you want to continue in research, you need to have a track record of publishing. You are lucky to have the opportunity to publish papers. There are different ways of writing papers; you can do a STAR (State-of-The-Art report)- you just do a survey of what's available and compare the performance of each with various test data. Or you can write a paper based on your own solver, and compare it against other systems; open source or commercial. Is that little bit faster or more accurate? Draw some graphs comparing processing time against other systems. Can you take advantage of latest technology like cloud computing, parallel processing with GPU's and multi-core CPU's? Just try and throw something together. It might make your supervisor happy to see that you are at least trying.
The whole idea of a PhD is for you to demonstrate that you can be creative in solving problems while at the same time being logical and analytical in solving a long range goal. Your thesis is like a cruise missile zooming into a target; you list the range of choices at each stage; their advantages and disadvantages, the conclusion that you come to. Then you move to the next stage. It should form a logical consistent trail to the final goal.
Can you find work on campus as a research assistant or scientific programmer in the Physics department? How about applying for internships with local companies? Do you have your own webpage where you announce your own projects?

+1 for trying to publish something even if it's not the best paper there ever was.

You know, I left my PhD program in a very prestigious university, after having to deal with a very nasty guy. I also spoke with whoever it was necessary to try to fix the problem, but the answer in almost all the cases was: he is a big gun in the field, so, or you exchange your boss or you leave the school, in other words, not a real solution at all.
My strategy was as following, make research in your school to see if you can leave with a master degree, in the same time that you do that, start sending emails to potential new advisors (it is a good idea to move overseas too, ex: germany). In those emails, you can explain what is your knowledge and the skills that you have got in this time, and what you want to do with him/her. What I have seen so far, is that often, PI's prefer to take experienced students (even with fails in their ways), instead of unexperienced ones.
I am suggesting Germany, because it is a more flexible system in which you can get an acceptation letters in weeks, without applying to any university, is is direct contact between PI and students. Usually, German PI's have money without problems, because they have a safe funding from his/her institution, plus the projects money. Also, you can apply to DAAD making a proposal to get funded. In Germany, you don't pay any fee, as a result, your advisor just needs to make your salary.
What you have to understand is that it is necessary to move out from that toxic person, although people tell you that a PhD is tough lane, it shouldn't be a daily injury.
talking about recommendation letters, try to speak with your PI, but without transferring guilt. Is is better for you to, for example, say that you feel that this is not your area (white lie), or that you have some domestic issues, or something like that, to try to avoid conflicts, to at least try to get a neutral reference letter from him. You always can come back to your undergrad recommender.

I think there are only two options for you

Move to a (much) lower rank university.
Quit your PhD.

If you can change your advisor, this would be ideal. But I'm afraid, your chance of successfully changing advisor is close to 0. Regardless of the reasons, 4 years without publications make your productivity questionable. It's unlikely that anybody will take the risk of hiring you, in particular when this upsets an associate dean.
If you still want to pursue a PhD, the only chance is to move to a lower rank university. A 4 years gap without publication, without support from your advisor make your profile significantly worse than 4 years before.

he once told me that he cannot see me graduating at least in 2020

I rarely recommend quitting doing anything. But in your case, even when you can have a PhD after 2020, it's unlikely that you have enough result to get a postdoc elsewhere (it's not impossible, it's very unlikely). I don't think it's worth your effort.

Kalyan,  first of all, I'm so sorry that you've found yourself in this situation.  It isn't your fault.  There are bad people out there.
Before I launch into my answer, I want to challenge you on one thing that you said.  You said:

I'm 29 years old and I'm actually not in a position to take a risk.

I don't know what your age means here (do you feel like that's old?).  I'm 33, am starting my fourth year of PhD, I have a child on the way, and yet I can take risks.  Reasonable risks of course.  Life is full of twists and turns.  You're employable.  Worst case scenario, you'll have to go home without a PhD.  But you are still a good person.  He's the scumbag.  Remember that.
Ok, let's break this down, and see what we can do.  What are we facing?

You are dependant on your supervisor for funding and your I-20
Your supervisor is interfering with your research process, and not mentoring you
Your supervisor is abusing you
You haven't published yet

We'll start with number 1 -- this is the most urgent issue for you.  However, this might also be the thing that needs the least attention on your part.  For one, I think it's extremely likely he'll renew your I-20 because:

You are free labour for him.  It's to his advantage to keep you.
If you leave without completing your PhD it will reflect badly on him

I know you feel powerless, but if these two things are true, then you have a very small sliver of power in this situation.  You can use it to turn this situation around.  And I will suggest ways that you can increase your power in this situation.
If he doesn't renew it, well, then no choice -- it's time to go home.  This sucks, but there's no tough decisions to make.  It will turn from a nightmare into a bad memory, and you will move on.
I want to spend quite a bit of time talking about issues 2 and 3, which are related.
You sound like a sincere person who really tries to do what they are supposed to do.  It must be confusing to interact with someone like your prof, who is not like that at all.
For the sake of your mental health, and your effectiveness in handling this situation, adopt a pragmatic approach to managing your professor.  Figure out what makes him tic, and how to hack him.  Do not take anything he says seriously, but rather, consider it as data.
If he get's upset, that's data--and very useful data!  When a person gets upset, it suggests that they were threatened or it may be that they are trying to use intimidation as a control strategy.  Both of these things create major opportunities for you to get the upper hand.
Based on the behaviour you're describing, it seems like your prof gets upset during technical discussions, situations in which his outdated awareness of methods is at risk of being revealed.  I suspect he is insecure about that.
If true, this is a source of hidden power that you can seize. Using someone's insecurities might be a foreign idea to you, but it's justified in self-defence.  Your goal will be to use his insecurity, and your ability to alleviate it, as a subtle control strategy.  Put the following things into practice:

If he gets angry at you, stay very calm, speak in a low tone, as if you are quite comfortable.  Practice visualizing this.  It's good to combine tactfully formally submitting to him, through your choice of words, while using your body language and tone of voice to indicate that you aren't intimidated at all, and not intellectually submitting to him.  If you show no signs of worry when he gets angry, it will disarm one of his main control strategies.
When he says something that isn't true about the literature or the methods you're using, you need to react in a very specific way:

frown ever so slightly, as if mildly disappointed
look off to the left, as if you are thinking of how to say what you're about to say gently
then gently indicate you know he is wrong while not saying so directly, and graciously saving him some credibility.

If you start to establish yourself as more knowledgeable than he is (of course without that ever being acknowledged), you will be in the position to control your conversations with him more.
Now, whether these very specific recommendations work at all has a lot to do with your prof's personality.  It may also be more difficult for you if that isn't how your personality normally works.  Try to remember that his getting angry is pretty silly.  If he was a serious researcher, anger would be totally unnecessary.
My main point here is to try to illustrate how you can engineer your interactions with him with a concrete example.  Generally, you should approach him not as a person, but as variable to be managed using careful and calm strategy.
An important part of making this work is to cut yourself off emotionally from him.  This doesn't mean not expressing emotion (do, strategically), but rather don't let him drive your emotions.  He has shown himself unworthy of that level of concern.
Let's touch on item 4.
I think it's easy to overestimate how big of a problem item 4 is. I know people who didn't publish until their 4th year, and people who didn't publish at all.  It's true that it closes off opportunities to become a prof, but Academia is not all it's cut out to be.  This doesn't prevent you from finishing your PhD, and it could be quite a fine PhD too.
There are some other things you can do to substantially improve your situation.  Probably the main reason that this situation is so difficult is that you are so dependant on your prof.  You can significantly reduce how dependant you are by building and strengthening your alternatives:

seek out other professors that are working on things related to your research, and find excuses to meet with them and discuss their research.  Many profs are very kind and open and interested in intellectual discussion.  Form professional relationships based on your field and your knowledge.  Explore collaboration and co-supervision if it makes sense.  Co-supervision is a great way to pivot out of bad supervision relationship without having to hurt the original supervisor.  It's a potentially win-win situation and I know people who have used it to get out of a bad situation.
apply for jobs.  You have a mechanical engineering undergrad degree I assume.  Many employers would understand that you want to get out of your PhD early -- Academia is not for everyone.  Of course you would be paid less, but still decently well, especially if your research is relevant.
Reach out in your network -- acquaintances, friends, family back home, and really explore all of the opportunities and resources that are available to you.  Are there people in your life that can offer some support emotionally, financially, or with transitioning out of this situation?
Find out if leaving with a Masters is an option, and what you need to do that.

There are two reasons to engage in these activities.  One is you might find a way out that is better than finishing your PhD.
The other is that letting your prof know you have a real alternative will fundamentally change your relationship.  It doesn't need to be a great alternative, just a real one.
If you alter your interactions with your prof by staying calm when he is angry, signalling your superior knowledge of the state of the art, and developing viable alternatives, it could really change your position.
Now, imagine a scenario where you aren't held back by this prof.  Imagine it is just you in an office -- no professor to help, but also no professor to interfere.
Given the work you've done, don't you think that, in another year or so, you could publish your work?  I bet you could.  Could it be that to take care of the fourth problem, you really just need to manage your prof enough to protect your intellectual freedom?  This isn't easy, and most PhDs don't need to manage their prof while trying to get the hang of research.  But I'm trying to suggest that it is doable.
One last thing you should do is seek out internal resources.  There are probably support groups at your University for students that find themselves in tough situations with their supervisors.  There may be university staff that you can confidentially discuss your issues with who might let you know about other options.  Institutions have different kinds of rules and safety valves to handle irresponsible people like your prof.  You might be lucky if you work at making your luck.
Do these things.  Develop alternative exits.  Manage your prof.  Keep working while you're there.  You can turn this around.  Maybe you'll have your PhD after 5 or 6 years.  Great!  Maybe you pivot out to something else.  Also great!  Maybe you'll be out in two months -- at least there will be relief!  It's uphill from here Kalyan.  I know you can do it!

So you're in a rather unique situation. Ordinarily, the best thing to do is to transfer to another school. That is because everything you said is correct. No other professor will be willing to take you. This is something that happens in all Ph.D. programs. There's far more politics in Ph.D. schools than in elections. If you go the route of appealing to committees, Deans, Student Affairs, etc., you won't get anywhere. Your professor has all the power, and you have no choice but to deal with. Now I think you still have a good shot in getting something done with your professor. First he said he thinks you may be able to finish by 2020. That's far better than him saying, "I don't think you have what it takes to finish".
Now this is what you have to do, and you have only 2 months. You have to basically beg to stay in. That's pretty much your only hope. The reason I say this is because he has ALL the power. The Dean and the University has given him that authority. Read DrDr post above his advice is correct. You pretty much have to come up with your own idea, and sell it to him. You have to show that you're ultra excited in doing research. If he changes your project, just accept it with enthusiam. Now I'm saying this because I believe based on what you're saying is that leaving the university is not an option.
Don't complain to him, don't say things are unfair. No negativity. If you show enthusiasm, and show excitement, your professor will too. You have everything to lose, he has nothing to lose. It doesn't matter how right you are. I don't have to retype everything DrDr, but follow his advice.

This is the most practical comment. Appeal to his compassion. That's the only thing you can do as a student.

No negativity. If you show enthusiasm, and show excitement, your professor will too. -- I think this is incredibly naive.

@JeffE I shall relay your insult to the Dept. Chair of EE where I went to school. It was his advice, and it helped me when I was struggling. My advisor kept moving me from 1st author to 2nd author on papers. If you did your Ph.D., you will know that 2nd Author is the same as not even having your name on paper for purposes of meeting the Ph.D requirement.

@Joe You think your advisor would be insulted? Really? In general, yes, enthusiasm and positivity are necessary for a successful student-advisor relationship. But it's naive to think that they are sufficient, especially in OP's situation. (I'm a full professor in a field where "first authors" don't exist.)

I have seen such things happen much more often than one thinks they do, but they are rarely spoken of. The blunt truth of the matter is that nobody cares about you (the student). If your advisor's peers let him get away with such behaviour and even get such a high position, there is absolutely nothing you can do, because no-one will support you (even though you have been wronged). The system is so broken that you are not protected unless someone is willing to stand against their fellow colleague, which almost never happens. Your legal options depend on which country you're in, but I think that you must come to terms with the fact that you are not going to complete this project or get a degree from that particular university (if you do not finish, you are typically blacklisted in that university. People may tell you this is not true because it is illegal, but I have seen it). Save a lawsuit against your university and your boss (which will get you compensation but not a PhD), your only realistic option is to apply to a different university, and find a decent person who will take you in. Better yet, take the leap of faith and take your valuable skills and go to the industry. You will find that both your time and mind are valued much much more than in the hive of psychopaths called academia.
I am sorry for my tone, but I have seen many people fighting this futile battle. As disgusting as the system is, it is highly unlikely that you will win. Your time is valuable, so spend it somewhere where people appreciate it.

Makes sense. IMHO anyone who starts down the academia path should be made fully aware that they are going to end up like OP if they choose the wrong advisor.

it's peoples problem not system. Why blame system? It's simple not there.

I'm not from academia and this looks like a poor leadship situation in which you've not developed the relationship.
I know from bitter experience you will not get anywhere trying to prove a boss wrong you need to out manoeuvre him. Being assertive is good but being confrontational is unlikely to be effective and you don't appear to have revised your tactics when they failed to make advances.
Be clear on your ultimate goal.
Is it to be right or graduate?
What was the goal of attaining the PhD? If it was to achieve a leadership role in an organisation then you have an opportunity here to learn and hone your skills. You going to meet a lot more ugly bosses.
It does look like you knew the adviser did not know the subject. How have you attempted educated him? My experience has been that when I wasn't providing the right type information rather than the right amount of information was when I got the most additional questioning.
I believe you haven't found the right approach for this person, yet. If you feel trapped then you need to look at your tactics, have you appealed enough to his need for significance, as a university dean, it's definitely one of his needs.
Failure to win the argument on method by researching why he was wrong was probably as futile as just demonstrating his approach was (probably) flawed by doing what he asked and then providing the findings.
What stopped you attempting it aside from ego? Did you even approach his friends about their reasoning for suggesting the outdated methodology/approach?
You need to recognise this situation is not optimal and one we often have to face in our careers. Do we take on ownership and attempt to improve things or admit we can't/won't and move on.
Tough situation.
Good luck.

In similar situations I know of people who have gracefully moved forward by dropping the PhD and finishing a Masters degree instead. Even if you already have a Masters degree, it may not be useless, especially if you can explain what happened to prospective employers and/or if the Masters you get from this PhD-attempt is not the same thing as your previous Masters degree.
My partner had a very similar situation as you. Professoral politics, and an oddly stubborn advisor that had a high-and-distracting administrative position, had them stuck with the advisor and at a loss for any research progress. Funding fell through, the advisor didn't help progress research and would send them in a new research direction every time they met. There were other advisors on their committee but they would both just give other research directions as well, and ultimately neither would do anything to risk defying the primary advisor due to politics. Other students in the same lab had mixed experiences - for some people that primary advisor was very open and flexible with them, for others the advisor was very critical and presented many unfair obstacles.
Eventually, finding that switching professors was not an option and moving to a different university would be very difficult, my partner decided to drop the PhD and complete a far simpler Masters degree. One of our friends did this as well, using already completed PhD work to get a Master of Science degree much sooner and get out of a bad rhythm they were finding in their PhD work. My partner dropped the work already done for the endless PhD and opted to complete an internship which was fairly distanced from the advisor, and then they got a Master of Professional Studies degree. There was also the option to use an already completed literature review to satisfy the MPS degree requirements, but the internship available was a good work opportunity which led to a foot-in-the-door with a good organization and led to a different person having a primary supervising role in the final steps of the degree.

i dont get this. you are actually allowed to start research studies without having finished a masters?

In some cases yes, but I don't think I said that anywhere in my answer. I was referring to people who already started research studies in a PhD - whether or not they had a Masters already - and then dropping the PhD down to a Masters level degree to finish sooner.

"dropping the PhD and finishing a Masters degree instead." there would not be much of a point doing it if you already need to have a Masters to start. If you already have one, why would you get a second?

Because after sinking a few years into a PhD that isn't going to completion, a 2nd Masters is better than nothing. It is a tangible product for the effort already put in, rather than abandoning the effort put in and having nothing tangible to show for that time.

That's the idea at least. There are other options of course, including cutting your losses and simply leaving the PhD program. But dropping down to a Masters has another benefit of salvaging any potential bridges built during the PhD: professors are generally happier to have their struggling PhD students complete a scaled-back project for a Masters, than completely abandon an incomplete project.

If you are in any technical field your skills would speak for themselves because you can use your skills to actually build stuff and there really is no arguing about that. It is much worse if it is a very theoretical field with no applications and you also don't get a diploma.

Maybe it is worse in a very theoretical field but I disagree that "in any technical field your skills would speak for themselves". There's a reason people get degrees. Generally speaking about how each degree demonstrates proficiency and expertise -  a PhD is better than a Masters is better than nothing.

I disagree that in general PhD > Masters. It depends very much on context. Much of a PhD is about learning to do research and to publish research results, many jobs don't have very many percent research in them and it can vary very much how many practically useful skills you develop on the way. There exist very many jobs where a practically skilled MSc can be worth more to a company than a PhD who has spent most time struggling with articles and not much time learning practical skills.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Only option is to quit the university.
Apply better university and check the course details with new university course substitution.
If most of the courses taken from previous university is enough to post university requirements in order to begin the PhD thesis, you can start with fresh university and advisor in a shorter period.

You have a variety of issues here.
No advisor will accept the dean's student - to change advisor you are going to have to look outside the university, so change universities if you need to change. Unfortunately this is probably not even an option since getting the INS to extend your I20 without your advisers help is going to be interesting
Once you graduate, academic jobs are extremely competitive to get, and a change after 4 years is going to look bad. Realistically  you will be a very poorly paid post doc for the rest of your life if you try.
If possible in this situation, I'd try and do whatever is necessary to graduate, by the sound of it keeping your opinion of your adviser's methods to yourself. Maybe you'll actually learn something in the process, or maybe not. It doesn't matter if the thesis is based on an old method or not. You can change directions afterwards. It's better to graduate without papers than not,  If you can't get a plan of action with your adviser, or worse your adviser has no intention of letting you graduate because he wants you around to do his menial tasks, then:
1) go to the dean of the university, explain the situation, and see if they can't work something out. This may make an enemy, you may be lucky and the dean see your side. Who knows, the Dean and the associate dean might not even like eachother.
2) In the likely event 1 doen't work out, simply quit. I've known people spend as much as 19 years in this situation, with the end result they end up in post docs that pay less than McDonnalds

From your initial description, he sounds like quite a problem, but not necessarily a malicious one. He's causing issues because of his way of thinking, or lack of thoughtfulness, not because he wants to use you, so to speak.
Could you speak to him at all, and see if he is able to understand the problem you face and what you need, for your progress? Get him to solve the issues his own behaviour is creating ("I need help to solve these issues") without making it a "you do X to me" blame situation?
Incidentally sorting out the visa 1st sounds very good, +1 for the ideas above on that.


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PhD Physics Europe vs. United States
I've just finished my undergraduate education in Physics in Europe and as I want to stay in academics I want to pursue a PhD, which means either a master and then PhD in e.g. UK, Switzerland or Germany or a PhD in the United States. I have now heard that for postdoc positions especially in the US it is generally better to have a US PhD. Is that true?
As the higher education systems are quite different and I have already attended courses like advanced quantum field theory or general relativity and the core courses like qm, classical mechanics, statistical mechanics or e&m on graduate level for my bachelors degree, is it generally the case, that I would have to take those courses again?

International experience is always a good thing these days; but in general I don't think that a US PhD is inherently superior to a European PhD. (This may be highly variable within different disciplines, however, so physicists might want to weigh in on this particular point.)
As for the repetition of coursework, that is entirely department-dependent. Different programs will have entirely different means of handling this:

All students may be required to complete the entire set of coursework requirements, regardless of past experience;
Students may be granted placement out of courses they have already completed, but not given a reduction in the number of courses required;
Students may be granted both placement and credit for prior equivalent coursework.

In the second case above, the student would replace the core courses with more advanced electives in different areas.
However, the only way to find out which policy a department uses is to contact the department directly. (Sometimes this is publicly stated on the webpage; other times, it's not. And sometimes special cases arise, which is why it's best to contact the graduate office of the departments you're interested in and ask them directly!

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What to fill in the following gap in a journal's publication system: "The author was supported by ..."
I have this question, (that could be closed because it is not a problem of mathematics):
I am a PhD student, my first article was accepted by a journal, and for the publication in the web site of the journal , there is some sentences to fill, between these senteces there is this one to fill:
"The author was supported by ......."
what to write here ?
Thanks for any answer and sorry for my english

Have you asked your advisor?

Hi and welcome to Academia SE, and congratulations for your first article! Generally, journals allow to specify certain types of grants, but this is really something you should discuss with your advisor.

@MassimoOrtolano, why not as an answer?

Note that the question is normally about financial support, not personal or academic support and advice.

Thank you for all your comments, i have asked  the advisor and he  says that i shoud put the name of my "doctoral school"

@Buffy I didn't put it as an answer because the phrasing of that sentence is quite different from that of the journals I'm used to.

This question asks what the author's funding is - in the case of PhD students, where the funding for your stipend/research is coming from. If your advisor has a grant that is covering your work, then the agency that issued the funding is the one you acknowledge here. If you have a scholarship, then the agency that issued the scholarship is the one you acknowledge. If you are self-funded, then you can leave it blank, or name your university.
In any case, if you are unsure, ask your advisor.

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Emailing potential supervisors in the US before submitting application
I'm applying to PhD programs this year. How common is it to email potential supervisors before submitting my application, asking if they have a spot available? Could this improve my chances of admission? I've heard that this is the norm in European countries. What about in the US?
I have a masters degree (Mathematics) and know roughly the area of research I'm interested in.

This depends on field. and also on whether you have a masters.

As @Buffy comments, the other answers do not seem so accurate about R1 and R2 grad math departments in the U.S. That is, funding is mostly as Teaching Assistants, administered through the department, not by individuals, and funding-and-admission decisions are also made at a department level, by a committee.
Yes, having a faculty person ardently promoting your case to the admissions committee is definitely a good thing, but is not necessarily decisive, depending on that faculty person's record of following through (or not), mentoring, etc.
Yes, asking faculty ... not whether they "have a spot", but... whether they are currently taking PhD students can be a relevant question. Both people with lots of students already, or who aim to retire very soon, might say that they are not currently taking more PhD/research students. It would obviously be useful to know that, rather than show up and be negatively surprised.
In any case, as other people have commented, do NOT write generic emails with a huge bcc list. Take the trouble to address people by name (!!!), at the very least! And if you describe your own interest as X, which is not much connected to what the faculty person does, don't email them at all.
True, people seem to often "reckon" that sending inaccurate emails to people is harmless, because they can just delete them. It's not that I myself keep a grudge list of people who've sent me spammish emails... but it is fairly antisocial to spam people, in my opinion.

Yes, as @Chris has described, this can be a good tactic -- but only if done properly.  That answer describes some examples of proper form.
However, please don't just blindly send email to every professor you can find.  You need to show that your interests have applicability to the professor, to show you've "done your homework" and chosen your targets well, and that there is a real reason for the professor to keep reading (and, hopefully, respond).
I'm a professor at a well-known US university, and I get dozens of emails every month that are obviously sent without any indication that the sender has even looked at my website to see if my research interests align with their stated capabilities and goals.

Yes, this is very common in the U.S. If you play your cards right, you will already have a pretty good idea which institution(s) will accept your application when you apply. In some cases you may get an informal offer before applying if you go this route. This has been my experience.
Contacting potential advisors / program chairs before applying for a doctoral program in the US tends to be more popular for PhDs and other research-based degrees. This is far less common for practice-based or professional doctoral degrees (especially for those degree programs in which the relationship with one's advisor isn't important). It helps to explain your research interests and to find someone whose interests align with yours...but flexibility will also serve you.
If funding comes into play (it should for a PhD program), getting to know a department and potential advisors becomes even more important. Departments want to know who they're investing in. Will you likely "stick it out" and finish the program? Do your interests align closely enough with theirs? Is funding available for your tuition AND living stipend AND research costs? Can the department trust you to teach a few undergraduate courses (or labs). Will you be pleasant enough to work with for several years?
I've gone multiple routes. In round #1 (2008) I never received interest from the PhD programs to which I blindly applied. Several programs that I contacted in 2010-2011 ("interesting" economic times) were quick to tell me that no funding was available for the following year (or probably the next). That, of course, saved time and lots of application fees. As I researched my options, I spoke with several potential advisors by email, phone, and in person (via campus visits that I set up). This ultimately led to two "informal" offers with funding. I formally applied after that point to those two universities and only those two. (Even with an informal offer...you still need the formal offer in writing before making a decision.) I'm glad I did so many phone calls and in-person visits. I eliminated several possibilities just based on these conversations. Faculty websites aren't always accurate and up-to-date. :-)
On the other hand, a few years ago when I applied for my EdD program (dissertation-based program but no funding offered) I sent a short email to the program director expressing my interest. She set up a Zoom interview with me and we discussed my research interests and professional goals. I was accepted and then assigned to a dissertation advisor. This process was much more streamlined, but the department was also much larger than my previous PhD program. And, with no funding offered, the department wasn't taking on the level of risk that a traditional PhD program would.

Actually, I doubt this is true for math in the US. Normally the advisor doesn't control your admission and normally doesn't fund you. Both of those are typically done at the department level by committees. Whether the advisor can influence the committee depends on the place and I doubt it would have much impact unless the OP is a true superstar or the department is desperate. I don't think it will harm your case to contact them, but seriously doubt that it would have a positive effect - most places.

This is dependent on the size of the institution. I failed to mention that I wasn't considering R1 universities, so my comments may not apply to those. However, the two universities that I mentioned (both R2) had committees composed of department faculty (each department only had about 5 members). With only 5 faculty members...and taking into account department politics...having someone on your side does help. Re: funding, sometimes funding is provided at the department level (or higher) but sometimes it comes out of a faculty member's grant or startup funds. Every department is different...

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Paid publish fees two years late, can journal reject my paper?
I submitted a paper to a journal. They finally accepted it and asked me to pay a fee. However, due to my economic condition, I was not able to pay the fee.
After 2 years, I finally payed the fee, but now they say the paper is two years old and they cannot publish it. Can they reject my paper after accepting it due to late fees?

To the OP, please do not use all capital letters. It's considered shouting and rude on Internet.

I don't think this question deserves (so many) downvotes.

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Author list mismatch; should I recommend rejection?
I am reviewing a paper for a journal. However, the author list in the submitted pdf file of the paper is different from the author list in the submission website. One of the authors is not appearing in the online submission website. Though, it is possible that some of the conflicts have been ignored (I am not in conflict with any of the authors). Should I recommend the paper to be rejected or just inform the editor about this (or any other solutions)?

You cannot reject the paper anyway. That is for the editor to do. You can (and should) point this out to the editor, and it might be an idea to wait on doing more until you hear from them.

Inform the editors as soon as possible. They will decide what to do. This is probably a minor issue that can be resolved in communication with the authors directly.

I have been reviewing this for a month. I just noticed this when I wanted to enter the reviews.


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Application for a PhD in Germany: how specific do I need to be about my thesis plans?
I've just finished my master's degree in physics and now I'm searching for a PhD position. I found a working group at a German university that is searching for some PhD students. In the vacancy it is asked for a CV and a statement of research interest. I know that I should write my motivation, qualification etc. for working at the research theme. But how precisely am I supposed to give the topic of my doctoral thesis? Is it sufficient to have a broader view of the topic and themes the working group is dealing with or is it necessary to formulate the concrete topic of my planned thesis? Also should the statement be part of the CV or should it be a separate document?

But how precisely am I supposed to give the topic of my doctoral thesis? Is it sufficient to have a broader view of the topic and themes the working group is dealing with or is it necessary to formulate the concrete topic of my planned thesis?

In general, most hiring PIs will want to see that you have "done your homework", that is, you have a good idea what the group does and that you're motivated to work on these kinds of things.
On a more specific level, you should address any concrete hints from the job advertisement. It's a good idea to be as specific as possible and mention a few ideas for topics you would like to work on. But unless the job advertisement explicitly asks you to do so, it wouldn't be required to have a detailed proposal of your thesis project.

Also should the statement be part of the CV or should it be a separate document?

If the advertisement explicitly asks for a "CV and statement of research interest", it should be two separate documents.


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Accessing a Google Scholar profile when I do not remember the e-mail account I used to create it
I have a scholar profile, but I do not remember the Gmail account with which I created it. Therefore, I cannot add publications to or correct errors in the profile.
I have created another account with another profile, but before completing it, I want to know if it is possible to delete the first profile, or if there is any way to know the Gmail account with which I created the first profile in order to update it. Thank you very much.

maybe related http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55400/accessing-a-forgotten-google-scholar-account

Seems like a question for Google -- have you tried contacting them?

The problem is that in such forum entry the options have changed since the interface is no longer the same. could anybody tell me how to get in contact with them?

Please, any help?


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Should I list talks I invited myself to give on my CV?
I'm traveling a lot this summer, and I invited myself to visit and give talks at a couple of universities in other countries.
Do I list these talks on my CV? If so, under what heading? They're not exactly "Invited Talks." I don't have a general "Talks" section on my CV because I want to exclude conference presentations (which are already represented as publications, and which nobody lists in my field). I could have a "Seminars and Colloquia" heading, but people might assume these were invited.

I don't want to list conference talks at all, that's why I don't have a general "Talks." Also, if I subcategorized without including "Conference talks" I'd just have a few categories with one talk each, which would look weird.

@Charles In my field, nobody puts conference paper talks on their CV,  so it would look weird.

"Selected talks" seems to be a good title. Also with "Seminars and Colloquia" - I does no imply that they are invited. Especially as exact setting of having a seminar varies. For example, if I was invited during an informal talk with my MSc advisor, should I call it an invited seminar? And even if (I don't), the difference is not much for a situation if it is me who ask first.

What field are you in? The variation between fields is so large that it is hard to say anything without this information.

@Oswald electrical engineering/computer science (systems)

Yes.
If you discover that a friend in a distant city is having a birthday party, and you ask "Hey, can I come?" and they say "Sure!", you've been invited to the party.
Same thing goes for talks. When the host institution agreed to let you talk, that was your invitation, which makes it an invited talk.
That said, you may want to distinguish plenary talks at conferences and formally organized departmental colloquia from random seminars run by individual faculty.

Wait a minute, so if you submitted an abstract to a conference, which is basically saying "hey can I come" and they accept, the equivalent of saying "Sure!" are you saying that is an invited talk. Then what talks aren't invited?

What you list on a CV depends on the purpose of the CV. The idea that you have a single CV isn't really accurate. For example, using an NIH CV/biosketch for a job application would not be a good strategy. I believe that a "long" CV should have everything on it. I add things to my long CV as I do them which makes creating shorter CVs tailored for a particular purpose much easier since deleting is much easier than adding.
There are many things for which there is a benefit of listing talks that you have given at other departments/labs on the CV, the issue is really what "heading" they come under. The most critical thing when divining things up is that each item on your CV can only be listed once. You cannot list a conference you attended, gave a talk at, had an abstract published for, and a paper published for four times. It can only go on the CV once.
I try and only divide things into sections based on "concrete" criteria. It is clear when you are giving an invited talk at a conference, but it is not clear whether a departmental talk is invited or not. Similarly, it is not always clear whether a departmental seminar is a job talk or not.
The relevant sections on my CV are (a) Conference Papers, (b) Conference Abstracts, and (c) Research Presentations. Each "presentation" only goes under one category. I limit the "abstract" category to conferences that produce archival abstract books that people have a fighting chance of finding. Talks and poster presentations at conferences that don't have archival abstract, departmental seminars, talks to research groups, and job talks, go under "research presentations". I have a separate teaching presentations section for teaching based job talks.
I split the papers and abstracts sections into posters/talks and invited/submitted (someday hopefully I will add key note). The presentations I split into internal and external. I like to keep track of my internal presentations for annual review CV since it lets me demonstrate departmental citizenship. I tend not to split the presentations into posters/talks or invited/submitted since as I mention before, it is too difficult.

Re the second paragraph. At least in mathematics, because the publication process is often completely independent of the conference presentation process, it is not unusual to list both a published paper and a talk about the same results at a conference.

Right now, the main purpose for my CV is to send to people I want to visit when I invite myself to talk there :)

Younger faculty (with smaller vitas) tend to include less prestigious colloquium talks on their vitas. More established faculty, who have longer lists of more prestigious talks, may just have one line saying "colloquia and seminar talks at many universities." (That's a real example from a senior professor.) I tend to agree: if you have done something, you don't want your vita to suggest you've done nothing.
The main thing I tell my students is that a vita has to pass the "straight face test". If someone asks you in person whether some line "truly" deserves to be on your vita, you need to be able to justify it with a straight face. This is also how you know whether to include e.g. prizes that you won as an undergraduate: when you can no longer justify them with a straight face, it's time to remove them.
As long as you can do that, it's unlikely anyone will press you too hard on it. Other people in your field will understand how things work, so the main goal of the vita is to present yourself clearly to them. They can make their own judgement about the value of each activity. Unless you can't include something with a straight face, you can only hurt yourself by leaving out "minor" activities.

People tend to be bad at judging the "straight face" test for themselves. I once interviewed someone who told me with a completely straight face that he listed "Python" on his résumé because he "read a tutorial about it online once"

I agree the person you mention seems to have a threshold that's too low. Here is my perspective (from mathematics). If I just visit a colleague, but don't give a public talk, I don't put it on my vita. If I give a talk that is announced to the research group, held in an official space like a classroom, and attended by other people (even if it is only a few) then I am likely to list it as a "seminar" talk that I gave. This relies on my knowledge that other people reading my vita understand that seminar talks are not very prestigious, and are generally based on personal invitation.


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What questions to prepare for PhD defense?
I will soon defend my PhD in social science in Sweden. I want to ask what questions the evaluation committee will ask me during the defense?
If they ask me some questions outside my thesis, what shall I do? Is it enough only know well my own research?
What quality I need to successfully defend my PhD?

Have you not gone to other people's defenses before? Have you asked your advisor?

I don't recall ever hearing any restrictions on what I can ask in a thesis defense. Ordinarily, I ask about things in the thesis, prerequisites for things in the thesis, and things that the candidate happens to mention during the defense. I could, in principle, ask a completely off-topic question, to which the candidate might well reply "I have no idea"; presumably, such an answer wouldn't damage the outcome of the defense (unless the other 4 examiners agree with my craziness).

Whatever field you study and whatever type of presentation you give, always be prepared for questions asking you why you made certain decisions. It won't hurt preparing for them and it might actually improve your presentation if you hadn't thought about it before.

@xLeitix At some universities, only professional staff is welcome at PhD defences.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1403/

I was asked "who is Maud Menten?" (see 1910's at http://famouscanadianwomen.com/famous%20firsts/medical%20professionals.htm) Since I used the Michaelis-Menten equation in my work, it was borderline relevant. Luckily there is a plaque to her on the U of T campus, so I knew both the equation half of the answer and the trivia question half. That was the only question that examiner asked. Seriously, know your thesis well and ask your supervisor if you can expect anything unusual, and you'll be ok. They don't generally let you defend if they don't think you're ready.

@KateGregory In some countries (at least in mine) they cannot just not let somebody defend his thesis just because they do not want. You have a legal right to try to defend your thesis even if the reviews are bad.

@VladimirF Yes, but that sounds like a horrific idea.

Generally speaking, PhD defenses come in two flavors, and it is not possible to say a priori which one yours will fall into:

A real thesis "defense" focuses on the thesis, and all questions will relate to the scope of the research work. In this case, knowing your own work and its context well enough should be sufficient, but it is of course possible that somebody asks you why you used method A rather than B. In this case, saying that you don't know B may not fly as an answer. However, you should not get a completely disconnected question just to test your general subject area knowledge.
A "Rigorosum" (dict.leo translated this for me to "doctoral viva", no idea if this is a well-known term) is a general final exam for a doctoral candidate. Typically, this will also include questions about the disseration, but anybody in the exam commission is free to ask about other topics in the field as well. Typically, the questions are getting "easier" (more high-level) the farther they are away from the topic of the dissertation. The claim here is that a fresh PhD should have both, depth and breadth in her/his knowledge.

There are a number of ways to figure out which class your defense will fall into:

Attend other defenses. Typically, PhD defenses are public, and it is highly recommended that any PhD candidate should visit a few before her/his own, to get to know the procedure and get a feel for what the defense talk is supposed to look like.
Ask your advisor. The advisor should obviously know what the requirements of the defense are, exactly.
Look it up in the programme description. Usually, the programme description will contain exam regulations for the defense, and this should describe the exam procedure and who is supposed to ask what kind of questions. This approach has two dangers: (1) you may misunderstand what the exam regulations are saying - as they are more legalese text, you may misunderstand the gist of it, and (2) the actual exam may happen differently than specified - there is no telling whether the exam regulation exactly captures the real spirit of the defense. Hence, you should really also talk to your advisor and/or attend other defenses as well.

Typically, there's a non-public part of the defense after the public part where the general public is asked to leave and the committee can grill the candidate in private. That's where the interesting/hard/potentially embarrassing questions are likely to come. This is harder to prepare for and benefits from asking your advisor and recent other students for guidance.

@BillBarth Ok, I was not aware of that. In all universities that I was aware of, everything needs to be public to have traceability of decisions.

"Viva" (short for viva voce) is the term used in the UK (and some other countries?), I'm not sure if use of this term corresponds to your two categories or not. At my UK university you are expected to answer questions generally on your field as well as your thesis.

In addition to that, vivas in the UK are typically behind closed doors in their entirety - only two(ish) examiners and the candidate, with even the advisor being absent.

good answer. i would like to add that the OP should look into their supervisor's reviews of the thesis. in some countries/unis these are provided beforehand. they contain the main criticism and these will come up also in the defense. the defense talk itself should already address them.

Some types of questions that often come up:

Questions about some detail of your work.  The point of such questions is often not so much the correctness of this small part of your dissertation, but rather to get you to demonstrate your ability to explain what you've done.  This also helps to balance out the presentation, which typically covered the whole thesis in much less detail.  For example, in mathematics you might be asked to go over the proof of one of your theorems in detail.  Since you've spent more time working on these details than any of the examiners, and assuming that the examiner hasn't spotted a substantial error, you should be in a good position to answer such a question.  Don't panic and assume that you've made some huge mistake, but rather go through the material carefully and convince the examiner that you're correct.
What are the broader implications of your work?  This is actually a hard question for most students to answer because they've been so focused on the details of their thesis that they may not have taken time to see how it fits into the broader picture of progress in their discipline.  This will also be an important question when you eventually interview for faculty positions.
Can this method be applied to some other problem Y?  You may be asked how the techniques used in your dissertation could be applied to a different problem.  If the answer is that the technique doesn't extend in that direction, then you should be prepared to explain why not.
Questions about what exactly is new in your work.  You should have been extremely careful in writing your dissertation to properly cite earlier work and distinguish your new contributions from that earlier work.  If this isn't clear to the examiners, you may be asked to clarify.

I attended about a dozen PhD defenses and recently defended my own PhD. Based on my (very limited) experiences, questions can be roughly categorized into two types:

Knowledge: the first set of questions or statements are usually to test your knowledge on your topic, the related work and whatever you have written down in your thesis and/or papers. If you have done all the work, these are mostly fairly easy to answer and are your way to demonstrate the awesome work you have done. These questions are to clarify, justify and frame your work related to others, in order to get a solid understanding of your contribution.
Examples:

Can you explain what you mean with #concept you introduce#?
Why did you categorize or describe #your concept# in this way?
I believe #your topic# relates to #other guys theory# in such a way, which introduces an interesting contradiction. Can you comment or elaborate on this?
What is the main limitation of your work, and how could you address it?

Reasoning: committee members may also ask provocative or even harsh questions to see how strong you believe in your work but also whether you can transcend your topic and reason on a higher level. These questions or statements can be directly related to your topic but can also be more general. These types of questions are usually given to see how well the candidate performs when put under pressure and when they are questioned about things beyond their thesis. These can be interpreted as "nasty" questions, but remember that you can turn the questions around to your advantage. Examples:

Why do you believe this is science? What is science?
You spend #x# years researching this? Why did you choose the topic and why should we and the community care about it?
I don't see the contribution in your work, can you explain?
Why do you think you deserve a PhD?
Why did you choose this specific application domain?

Again, this is based on my personal limited experience, but it applied to my PhD defense as well.

You do not have much influence on the questions from the committee. If your PhD studies were more or less normal and you got that far,  everyone wants you to succeed. They will not ask anything incredible (if they are relatively normal as well).
As for the public questions,  my experiences are :

the friends you gave questions to.  You have to choose the ones who have good reflexes to jump up and down when time for public questions come. You also have to train the "what a surprising question look"
the odd colleague who decided to ask a question about something related to your field,  but far enough for you to have no idea. You sweat a lot, visualize him hanging on a tree and hope for the best. Best is to answer whatever you know on the subject and everyone acts happy. If he persists then you ask him what is his view on the subject so that he sits down ashamed mumbling "I have no idea"
finally the 173 years old professor who absolutely wants you to discuss his article from 1952. You thank for the question and talk about the article from 2012 someone wrote on a related subject.

Good luck.
(events described above actually happened to me in the course of my 2 hours defence)

Even though I will not ever have to go though a PhD defense anymore, it would have been great to understand the downvotes.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
At what point can I call my professor by their first names as an undergraduate research student?
I'm currently working closely with a professor on a research project as an undergrad student. I always address her by her last name: Dr.xx. However, this makes me feel distant from her.. I am wondering by which point I could call her by first name?
Here is some background info:
I got to know her in person by taking a class taught by her and then started working together on this project at the end of last term. We had meetings together for a few times and exchanged a few emails back and forth. She always addressed herself by her first name in the email but I insisted called her Dr.xx to show my respect. However, some of her grad students in the lab are calling her by first name...
Thanks!

She always addressed herself by her first name in the email -- This is standard regardless of how she wants to be addressed (if she even cares).  I would never sign off a email with Dr. xxx.  For a more formal email where the recepient may not know me, I would just write my full name at the end (possibily with my affiliation and position).

#profsarejustpeople

@DavidRicherby I don't really understand these dismissive responses. It's true - but so is #MonarchsAreJustPeople. Yet most wouldn't address HM by first name! I don't see that there's anything wrong with being concerned about paying the proper respect.

Since you are an undergraduate, I would not call her by the first name. Graduate students are a different case.

(Or if you don't like my monarch example - would you like it if clerks at your local bank called you David? If I heard it -- as opposed to Mr Richerby I mean -- I would assume they knew you personally.

@OllieFord Monarchs are people in an extremely unusual social situation: there are fewer monarchs than there are countries. Academics are people in an extremely normal social situation: there are hundreds or thousands of them in every university in the world. Interacting with academics, at least in the UK, is no different from interacting with other people who are slightly more senior to you. In industry, people don't ask about addressing their boss as Mrs Smith: they just call her Jane. Yet, here, we get a constant strem of questions about how to talk to and email academics.

@DavidRicherby I realise the stream must be annoying, I suppose I just come down on a different side - I wouldn't ask a question on it here because to me, the answer is easy: "Dr Jones" is polite and natural in an email, just as I would address a non-academic "Mr Smith" if we were not acquainted. Maybe it's just me, but I'd feel uncomfortable using anything else. But people (on both ends of the email) clearly feel differently; ultimately nothing bad can really happen - "please, no Dr Jones, just call me Bob" is hardly going to ruin any relationships.

At what point can I call my professor by their first names? - I think that the reason why the responses are "dismissive" is because the answer to this question can range from always (much of US) to never, depending on some academic cultures, and/or depending on how finicky your supervisor is about these trivialities. :)

Ask her!
Forget about figuring out when you can address her by her first name. Be up front, and ask politely if you can address her by her first name.
Do not be offended if she declines.
Naturally, if in conversation she invites you to call her by her first name, then that's pretty clear.

This could be very country-dependent. I've never met an academic in the UK who required anyone to call them "Dr/Prof. Surname" so actually I would be offended if somebody who was part of that culture insisted on that.

This is indeed very country-dependent. You might well be forgiven such mishaps if it's clear you've grown up in another culture, but in some cultures, asking a superior whether you may call them by their first name would be severely inappropriate.

I'm uncomfortable with the whole "superior" or "equal" thing. Yes, they are higher up on the ladder than you. Yes, they know a lot more than you. Yes, you should respect them. But the idea that by addressing them as a normal human being you are disregarding these things is simply preposterous. There are other (much better!) ways to show your respect: ask intelligent questions (ideally ones where the answer isn't in the syllabus), value their opinion, and thank them for their time.

@O.R.Mapper you can phrase it as "how should I address you". That covers prof/dr, first/last name and doesn't make any assumptions.

@Moriarty: That was kind of my point: It depends strongly on the culture on whether it is polite to ask "normal human beings" whether you may address them by their first name. That's why, as a general answer, I think Davidmh's suggestion is much safer in comparison to the one implied by the answer.

In Germany; when he/she tells you to do it.

I really start to like answers beginning with 'In Germany,...'

^ I think memes need to explained/ there should be pointers. Not everyone gets them at once.


text:
What is the best way to start learning a new course?
For learning new courses by one's self is it better

to read the related text
to attend online courses such as from sites like Coursera
to combine the two
or use another method altogether

In general, which is the better strategy for a motivated adult learner who is entering a new area?

Go to the physical classroom to attend the lecture is the best way.

if i get a chance, i would surely go for physical classrooms. But my doubt is regarding online courses and books. Thanks

I don't think there's any objective correct answer for this: some people learn better one way, other people learn better the other way

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about learning in a non-academic context.

I think "course" was the wrong word to use here, but I feel like this is a question that could be valid on this exchange. For a hypothetical scenario, let's say I realize I need to learn X to do my research, but there's no classes that I can sign up for at my institution. (My current school does not offer a single course in abstract algebra!)

Start teaching it. (Ha ha only serious.)

There isn't any wrong way to cover course material, but different approaches may be more or less effective for learning. However, it is difficult for a stranger to give you definitive advice, since what works best for you may not be the same as what has worked in the past for other students. At the same time, certain learning styles or strategies seem to be effective for a large number of students.

My advice if you want to start learning on your own in a new subject area is the following, in roughly this order:

Read. Take advantage of textbooks, lecture notes & slides, and articles that cover your subject of interest. You shouldn't expect to understand everything, but you should continue reading and re-reading material as you gain more understanding of the subject.
Search for and learn about resources and tools related to your subject of interest. What do other students, teachers, or experts on this subject use or rely on? This should lead to more reading, which will give you more perspective on the subject.
Try to find things that link the new material to thing you know and understand. Look for analogies, similarities, and differences.
Keep track of your questions--questions raised by your reading, questions that arise from new ideas that challenge your perspectives or understanding of basic principles. Try to find answers to your questions; seek advice from people (or forums attended by knowledgeable people) to explore solutions to your questions.

There is no best way to learn a new course, some people better learn by attending classes and some other better learn by reading textbooks and reviewing lecture-notes and pamphlets. I know a person from my bachelors degree who did not used to come to classes. He just used to photocopy the lecture notes and read them before the exams. On the other hand, I used to always attend the classes and did not miss even one minute of them.
In order to learning a new subject, these come to my mind; but I think you should examine each and choose the best way which suits your own learning habits.

Attend some physical classes. Take notes and do the assignments. However, if you are not registering for the course, talk to the lecturer before the class.
Register for open course-wares and do online learning.
Search for the best textbooks in that course and try to read them.
Ask a friend who can help you in that course to teach you one or two hours a week. One of my friends asked his friend to teach him an engineering software two to three hours a week and now he can easily work with that software.
Group study with friend(s) who are learning that course, try to solve each other problems. This may also help you better stick to the course. People sometimes get bored when they self-study a topic.

However, depending on the level of the course you may need to choose wisely. If you are aiming to learn a post-graduate course, you may also need to read some papers and discuss your problems with a professor specializing in that branch of science, while some of the under-graduate courses do not always require to talk to a professor. You can ask your questions from a teaching-assistant, a friend with high marks in that course or even discuss with a friend who is also learning that course, or even ask your questions in a related online question and answer website or forum.


text:
What happens if someone publishes a paper on your current PhD thesis topic
This is not in any way relevant to me, I'm just interested. What would happen if you chose a PhD thesis to work on, and halfway through someone somewhere in the world who was also doing a PhD in the same field published their thesis, which just happened to be the same research that you were doing. Would your research still be considered since it was done independently? Does this happen often? Are there safeguards to prevent this from happening, like would you normally search the academic field to see if anyone else is working on the same topic? Surely that would be almost impossible to do?

Highly relevant PhD Comic.

I knew someone this happened to.  He started over from scratch with a different problem.  (Field: microbiology.)

Also: Fear of someone having the same idea and doing the research before you do

In my field (communications engineering), PhD students would regularly publish their results at international conferences. If someone were doing exactly the same research, they most probably would attend the same conferences; hence you wouldn't even need to actively search the academic field, you'd just meet at one of the next conferences.

I believe in many cases the thesis advisor's expertise and being aware of what others in the immediate fields could be working on can provide some guardrails. This is not a guarantee by any means. But usually a PhD research is in a specialty area that the advisor should have a good sense of the "lay of the land" nearby.

PhD Comic #798 Best advice Ever!

You may fail your PhD in this case.

This happened to me - not with the whole thesis but with a part of it. Both of us had seen the same gap of work that would be useful for the field, and both of us had used the same method to do it. In my case I'm advised that it makes no difference for the thesis, because dates of conference publications make it clear that the work was independent, but it has rendered roughly 1/4 of my thesis work largely unpublishable. Which isn't great from a career perspective.

There's really 2 separate issues here: what effect will it have on completing your PhD (where doing the work is what counts), and what effect will it have on an academic career (e.g. publication history).

A lot of it depends on how far along you are, your institution, your career goals, and to some extent whether its your fault or not. That is, you DEFINITELY need to search the literature to see if your topic was already studied. But sometimes, someone might just have the same idea because they are thinking about the same issues and reading the same existing literature as you are.
If someone scoops you, it's likely a lot of your work won't be publishable anymore. In some fields it might be possible to publish as a replication (with low impact) or it may be that if you look carefully there is some areas of non-overlap that you can run with. The issue of publication will matter a lot more if you want a career in academia: you need a strong publication record to move on to the next phase of your career. In that circumstance, it might actually be better to delay your PhD just to get some publications, unless you expect you can get a good post doc regardless.
If you are early in your work, even halfway, it may be possible to switch topics. It's also possible all you need is a minor shift. I got scooped. Twice. Both times it hurt, but both times I also realized that there wasn't anywhere near 100% overlap, and my work was still publishable, it just took some extra time to rework things, reemphasize novelty, etc.
Overall, though, your PhD should be awarded for the work you do, not necessarily whether the work pans out. Your institution shouldn't prevent you from getting a PhD if you have been scooped. Negotiating all these issues should be the role of your thesis committee. The thesis committee should be comprised of at least some relatively unbiased professors who can judge whether or not your work is acceptable. The point of the PhD should be to train to be a researcher. Sometimes being scooped is part of the learning experience.
(note: I am answering this mostly from the perspective of biological sciences in the US - of course there may be differences by field and location)

It's quite sad that these are the considerations. As scientists, we ought to be celebrating a replication of results.

@Shufflepants Agreed, but the current reality is that, even though replications can be published, there isn't any venue that treats replications as equivalent to novel results, and I don't see that changing ever for top journals like Nature and Science or their field-specific equivalents. Certainly a replication will never be cited at the same level as a novel result, barring special circumstances.

"your PhD should be awarded for the work you do" - well, a part of the requirements for a PhD is indeed that you have actually adv anced the knowledge in the field, not just that you put in a certain amount of work that "could have" advanced knowledge under different circumstances.

@O.R.Mapper I see no purpose to denying the PhD degree to someone whose research is scooped at the last moment - their training is no less complete. I'm sure institutional guidelines vary but I looked back at my program and there is no stated requirement that a PhD dissertation "advanced knowledge in the field" - it's really left up to the thesis committee to decide when a dissertation is sufficient. The program I graduated from expects the thesis to contain multiple "publishable" papers, but does not specify beyond that.

I'd add that "advancing the knowledge in the field" really just refers to original research. It is quite possible for someone to do original research simultaneously with another individual. As I suggest in my answer, it's pretty rare for there to be complete 100% overlap with someone else's work, it is simply that there may be barriers to publication of work that is substantially similar to something that was just recently published. It would be a completely different situation, in my opinion, if a student unknowingly reproduced earlier work due to poor literature review.

@BryanKrause: "their training is no less complete" - but a PhD degree does not indicate the completeness of training, it indicates that the holder has actually advanced knowledge. At least, it is conveyed that way here in Germany - maybe that is culture-specific, as Academia varies more than you think it does. Accordingly, doctoral exam regulations seem to explicitly list that requirement, e.g. "Die Dissertation muss (...) einen Beitrag zum Fortschritt der rechtswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis ...

... liefern." ("The dissertation must (...) contribute to the progress of insight in the field of law.", doctoral exam regulations for the field of law at Goethe University, Frankfurt §2(2); "Die Dissertation muss (...) einen Beitrag zum Fortschritt der Wissenschaft liefern." ("The dissertation must (...) contribute to the progress of science.", doctoral exam regulations for economy/behavioral sciences at Uni Freiburg §7(1)).

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Here is a perspective from (pure) mathematics.
It is not that unusual in mathematics that a problem is solved (almost) simultaneously by two different people, one of whom will sometimes be a PhD student. Generally, both papers end up being published, and are treated as independent discovery; later on the student can include it in their thesis. This makes sense, especially since the ideas involved in both works will usually be different so both are useful to the community. (Publishing new proofs of old results is also not unheard of, but usually carries much less prestige, presumably a bit like replication studies elsewhere.) In borderline cases, the students tend to be treated slightly more leniently than established researchers, since it is understood that publications matter more to them (it may or may not help they have a supervisor who is often a well-respected researcher).
It should also be pointed out that PhD students will generally not embark upon projects which take many years to complete, so the window for simultaneous discovery is much shorter. Even if one tries to attack a big problem which takes a lot of time and effort, if any progress is being made then interesting results will appear in the process and hopefully be published (if this is not the case, it would be doubtful if the big theorem is likely to be proved at all).

"Publishing new proofs of old results is also not unheard of, but usually carries much less prestige, presumably a bit like replication studies elsewhere." In case anyone is interested, an example showing your inclusion of "usually" is needed is Selberg's "elementary proof" of the prime number theorem.

Just start comparing to their works in your papers, explain clearly what you are doing differently and why the differences are relevant. Very rarely exactly everything will be the same, as long as it isn't - start focusing on describing the differences or additions that your work includes compared to the other works and stressing that your work was done simultaneously and independently.

Also practice in having in your head (but no where else!) several independently developed rephrasings / refocusings of your work can be a good thing. Kind of the same idea as to never show all your cards at once in a card game but have jokers up your sleeves / back up strategies et.c.

Relevant PhD comic: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd120806s.gif