text:
Can I learn the course material for the first time while I'm teaching it?
If I'm going to give students the course X in next semester. Should I have full understanding of the subject before I teach them or can I learn about the topics before I go to the class and then teach them?
The idea that I want to reach is it good to study the subject in the same semester or should I study before?

Both! :) Seriously!

This happened to me when I was an adjunct professor at Princeton.  I was asked to teach X, which sounded a lot like something I (a) had already taught and (b) knew a lot about.  After agreeing, I learned the previous instances of the class were really 50% X and 50% Y, where I had much less knowledge.  I read the entire textbook the summer before the class.  I definitely don't recommend learning it just ahead of the students -- hard to create a syllabus, answer questions from someone who looks ahead, etc.

" Should I have full understanding of the subject before I teach them" Many courses taught at the university level are sufficiently rich that no one has a full understanding.  But: can you learn while teaching?  Yes, and that opportunity is one of the major incentives for many (most?) university teachers.  Will the course go better if you start with a higher level of knowledge?  Yes!

Can I learn while teaching? -- As opposed to what? Is it possible to teach without learning?

Fake it til you make it... someone had to say it.

I once taught DNS to a group of IT people by only asking questions. Basically, I encouraged and allowed and moderated peer to peer teaching. Depending on the students and the subject, it's frightening and/or amazing what you can pull off if you have an air of confidence.

@AustinHenley: That's for students to do, not for teachers.

Related (non-duplicate) question.

I've done this too as a computer science TA. I found that two things were necessary: (1) Having higher-ups to whom I could refer students' questions that I couldn't yet respond (and, as I should have learned earlier in the process, being totally frank and making those referrals rather than trying to understand something on the spot). (2) Working twice as hard as I otherwise would and doing twice as much prep to ensure I had a good enough grasp to give a summary. I found this worked well for me... and I hope it worked for the students, too. :)

Is your question "can I" or "should I"? Both appear in your post, but the answers are very different, and some posted answers aren't fully addressing both.

Only if you are absolutely certain you will be able to learn things in time for presenting them to the students? I have had teachers in the past who clearly attempted to learn just before teaching us and taught us information that was at best inefficient and at worst incorrect.

Please roll back the title if my edit doesn't correctly reflect your question.

Nowhere near enough information. It depends entirely on what X is, how advanced/elementary it is, how close it is to your experience, how much time you have to learn, how much time senior colleagues have to help you. This is another fine Ac.SE question which has been overgeneralized beyond the point of worthlessness. Pep-talks do not constitute fact-based advice.

. . . the first time I was in a statistics course, I was there to
  teach it.
  - John Tukey

In my experience, it's definitely better to learn about it beforehand. If you are really pressed for time, then start reading the textbook or course material from the back, because you really need to know the direction in which the course is going before you teach the material.
Too many times, I have done the opposite and tried to learn the subject at the same time as teaching it. This is really fun and certainly helps you to see things from the perspective of the students, but is not ideal from a pedagogical point of view, as you are too likely to be blindsided by something. The same goes for courses which are part of a series. For example, I once taught a linear algebra class and left out determinants because we were running out of time and we didn't "need" them for the exam. Next term, I got an irate email from the instructor of Linear Algebra 2...
The best possible prepartion for teaching the course in X is having taught it before.

Beforehand is always better. I had to redo a lecture because of that, last year. At least we had the time to do that. While I managed to keep ahead for most part of the course, near one important conference deadline I let the ball slip. I was afraid of that from the go, I really don't think that's ideal, voiced my concerns, but I had no choice/say in the matter, postdocs don't get that much choice :)

A real scholar is a lifelong student.
But you should know the material that you are teaching sufficiently broad (like you won't be caught ignorant of some relevant factoids) and sufficiently deep (like you won't be caught not understanding some relevant factoid) that your authority of the subject is not questioned and you won't be embarrassed.  (And the students will not think they're getting screwed with regard to their tuition dollar.)

TL;DR: You owe your students to familiarize yourself well enough with the subject matter before teaching it.

Should I have full understanding of the subject before I teach them or can I learn about the topics before I go to the class and then teach them?

While it is usually not impossible to teach a subject as you study it yourself, or immediately after you've done so - it is highly inappropriate, ethically, both as an academic, and in terms of pedagogic effectiveness:

You are risking passing weaknesses in your understanding after an initial/brief study on to your students.
You will not be able to provide your students with the perspective of someone who has dealt with the material in more than one context.
You are likely not to be able to answer some of the students' questions about the subject matter.
You will likely not be able to plan for getting finer points, ones which are more difficult to understand, over to the students - you will be expending most of your efforts in merely remembering what you've just learned.

et cetera. So - don't slack off.

I’ve given courses before where I learned the subject matter at the same time as teaching it. In fact, for TAs I’d say this is not that uncommon. Still, I completely agree with this answer. While it’s possible, it’s bad. Avoid being in such a situation if at all possible.

@KonradRudolph: The thing with TAs is, universities don't want to bother paying them to study material they're about to teach which isn't something they're already well-versed in, so they just send them into class. It's a sign of collective weakness on our part (whether we're TAs or Professors) that we don't resist this more. IMHO.

Yes, I 100% agree. It’s a rotten system.

+1 I've been in this situation as a student. The instructor could do the lectures okay, but if you asked anything even slightly outside of them, he was useless. It was infuriating, and showed a complete lack of respect to his students. I never took a class with him again.

@Kat: The sad thing is, these days there might not even be anyone around him to tell him that's wrong - since it happens so often and management has you do it.

@Kat I have experienced the same thing, but the entire class put up with it until the end of the course because none of us knew how to complain officially or what would happen if we complained (some people were paying for the course from their own pocket).

It's possible (barely). When I started adjunct teaching, among the courses I was offered was a networking class, including lab component, of which I had absolutely zero knowledge. I told the dean that, and he said, "Don't worry; you can just stay ahead of the students by a few pages in the book." And I accepted it.
Now, that was pretty terrible/scammy advice from that dean. First of all, I had to make a determination in the first week to switch the book he'd previously picked for the course because it was terrible (way over our students' heads). Also, I was working furiously for hours every day all semester to learn the material and write presentations. I didn't have time for any activities that semester except just teaching.
I wouldn't recommend going directly from reading the book right to class; I was rushing to get as far ahead as I could, and so prep future quizzes, tests, assignments, labs, lectures, etc., in a scaffolded manner, know what was coming in the future for which to lay the groundwork, etc., etc. I can't imagine that I would have succeeded at that if I was simultaneously taking classes myself, expected to work on papers or research, etc.
But I did wind up knowing an incredible amount about networking, pretty much all in one thunderclap three-month period.

I had three experiences as a student with similar situations:

A professor without much subject knowledge teaches an internet programming course while attempting to create an entirely new syllabus. Result: the worst course I've ever suffered through. Absolutely no learning.
A professor with a strong emphasis in language design teaches a language design course in a language they started learning last semester. Result: not a smooth experience, but rewarding.
A TA with some experience teaches a well-worn 300-level course on distributed design. Professor is technically supposed to teach but is only present ~half of the time, so TA ends up doing much of the teaching and was actually a better lecturer (less rambling.) Result: a good course. One of the most informative I had that year.

My conclusion is that it depends on how close your relevant experience is and on whether or not a quality (or at least decent) syllabus is available. Having veteran TA's can greatly help, although that's independently true.
My recommendation is that you should study and prepare aggressively for this course. Try to learn as much as you can in advance and then also make sure to refresh your knowledge before specific lectures and study sessions.

This. Teaching is complicated, but intensely human. To OP: do what you can.

Daniel R. Collins's dean advising "you can just stay ahead of the students by a few pages in the book" is clearly an exaggeration, but it has some truth on it.
I must admit that I have taught several courses where if I had been given the final test of the course in my first day teaching, I probably would have failed it. Anyway, those courses were the most challenging but also the most rewarding I've ever taught.
The key point is that - as others have pointed - you must be able to teach properly every lesson when you teach it. That means not making (big) mistakes, addressing the key points and possible blocks of students, and being able to answer clever students'questions that might depart from the syllabus. In summary, your classes must be able to outperform what the students could learn by themselves, that nowadays includes reading the book but also watching classes in Youtube about the same topics. If a lecturer couldn't, there would be no point on having the lecture.
There are a few key factors that allowed me to succeed, and that I think they are prerequisites to try to teach a subject you previously don't know enough:

Your own self-teaching on the subject must be able to outperform by several orders of magnitude the self-teaching ability of your students. Even if your students are intelligent and well prepared, usually you can outperform them because you are more mature, have a lot of experience on related subjects and know better how to study complicated subjects. Once a fellow lecturer who had a PhD in mathematics was worried because she had nearly never studied statistics but she had been assigned a basic statistics course for freshmen engineers. My advise to her was that if she took with her the course book while commuting (she commuted by train), she would know the subject before arriving home that evening. I think she did and the course went very well.
The course syllabus and material should be prepared beforehand by anybody more knowledgeable. Changing the syllabus or the book or even preparing exercises and slides is way more difficult than teaching lessons. If there is an established path, I strongly recommend to follow it the first time you teach a course unless you are very sure about what you are doing.
And last but not least, time. You must be willing to invest a lot of time studying the subject - a lot more than your students do. Of course, that means that if you teach to earn a living, teaching a subject you need to learn is a very inefficient way to invest your time to make money. For me that's not a big problem because being a part time lecturer in my country is such an inefficient way to make money that it can't be noticeably worsened, but other people might see it in a different way.

In summary: It is possible to teach such a course if you can outperform the students learning, if the course has been prepared and if you want to invest a lot of time in it. It's a real challenge, and you will only enjoy it if you are willing to take the challenge; otherwise it could be a real nightmare.
And an end note: I've done this in on-line and off-line courses. In on-line courses it is a bit easier because you don't need to answer difficult students questions in the spot, and you can research the answer for hours if needed.

It's best if you study the materials first, and would be generally expected in contemporary training scenarios, but it's not strictly necessary.
More important is that you be able to spot where students are having trouble with learning the materials, and set them straight.
Just because you know something yourself doesn't mean you can teach it.  A lot of expert doctors are not expert teachers; the same is true of expert programmers, mathematicians and other experts.
The skill of a teacher as a teacher  is more important than the teacher's skill as a practitioner of the subject taught.  The teacher's skill is in identifying the blocks his students encounter in assimilating the subject, and handling them so the student successfully masters the subject.

At the very least you should have some idea of the questions that students are likely to ask and know where they can find the correct answers—even if you don't know all those correct answers at the tip of your tongue.
I teach a class on Git, the popular version control software.  Git has options and commands for literally every scenario imaginable, the result of an open-source tool being used by (and improved by!) open source developers for more than a decade.  Any given student will never need more than 15% (at most!) of the available options and commands.
When a student asks me a complex and highly specific use case for Git, it is sufficient that I point him in the correct direction: what commands are relevant to his question and what options will help him accomplish his purpose.  I don't have to show off my mastery of those advanced options to help him learn them.

Finally, here is a relevant excerpt from one of my favorite Science Fiction novels:

I liked Prof.  He would teach anything.  Wouldn't matter that he knew nothing about it; if pupil wanted it, he would smile and set a price, locate materials, stay a few lessons ahead.  Or barely even if he found it tough—never pretended to know more than he did.  Took algebra from him and by time we reached cubics I corrected his probs as often as he did mine—but he charged into each lesson gaily.
I started electronics under him, soon was teaching him.  So he stopped charging and we went along together until he dug up an engineer willing to daylight for extra money—whereupon we both paid new teacher and Prof tried to stick with me, thumb-fingered and slow, but happy to be stretching his mind.
—Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

You'll need to learn as much as you can before you start, and then work hard on it during the whole semester.
I've been dumped into new (as in never before taught) subjects at the last minute where nothing beyond the course description existed a few weeks before the first class (as in "Hey, would you mind teaching this? Starts in ... oh, actually 23 days from now. You might want to think about what textbook you use. What do you think about this one? By the way, you have to submit your draft unit guide for review by Thursday." ... how you might possibly organize it so the students can actually obtain the text in time for the class is left as an exercise for the reader).
This sort of thing has happened to me several times over the years. I wasn't completely unfamiliar with the material, but each time there were some substantial sections of the course I didn't really know nearly well enough to teach at the time I was asked if I would teach it.
To teach it well, you'll have to know the material pretty well by the time you cover it in class (and usually a good deal earlier if you're writing assignments/tests/exams) -- in  the most recent case, I learned it well enough to identify many of the errors in the text for the students... and there were quite a few mistakes in some chapters.
Expect to work at least 4 to 5 times as hard as the better students do on the parts of the subject you don't know really well (after all, they have someone explaining it to them, and they only have to answer things you have to both figure out to ask and answer, and give ideal solutions for -- that's a whole different level of knowledge).
If you get to teach it a second time, that will go much easier.

+1 for "Expect to work at least 4 to 5 times as hard as the better students do on the parts of the subject you don't know really well"

After finishing the university, I was offered a teaching job from the education center. The course was web application development. At that time, I didn't have much knowledge in this field, I was still elementary-learner created few websites so far. Then, I said yes without hesitating since it was a good chance improve my knowledge. I used to work hard every time a day before each class. I did well, next year again I got this course and I improved my teaching ability as well. So, it's a good way to improve knowledge on the specific field, however you should enjoy teaching as well. If you don't like teaching, it's difficult.


text:
Postdoc application: professor verbally committed to hire me, but now says that regulations have changed and keeps delaying the process
I applied for a post doctoral position a few months ago. The initial response from the professor in charge was warm and enthusiastic and he even made a verbal commitment to hire me. But then he just stopped replying to my mails for sometime and then out of the blue he told me that the regulations have changed and I would have to be interviewed by another person. Following that, he scheduled my interview several times only to be canceled at the last minute. Now he has again stopped responding to my queries, which I make at intervals of at least 10 days. Is this normal in post doc recruitment? How long does it take to process post doc applications? Should I start looking for other positions?

"Verbal commitment" is something that has absolutely no weight to it - be very wary of relying on anything that isn't in writing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verba_volant,_scripta_manent

@Zibbobz A verbal commitment can actually constitute a legally binding contract (depending on local law). But it’s of course hard to enforce.

@KonradRudolph Sometimes yes, but usually you also need someone present (a neutral witness) to confirm what was agreed upon, or as you said to legally bind someone to their verbal agreement.  This isn't law.se though, so I can't offer detailed legal advice on such matters.

@AlessandroTeruzzi: That is an nice proverb. I kind of "made up my own" in Hebrew: מה שלא נכתב - לא קרה (literally "whatever wasn't written down - never happened").

@KonradRudolph: But an employment contract is something that either party can terminate with a certain notice period, which depends on how long the person has been working for the employer and on local labor law. So "binding" does not mean "must continue to bind for a long time".

"Verbal agreements are worth the paper they're written on."

Is this normal in post doc recruitment?

No, this is obviously not normal. There is something going on, and your guess is as good as mine as to what that is exactly. Maybe there is indeed some sort of administrative chaos due to changing regulations. Maybe the professor hired somebody else and is trying to weasel out of his earlier commitment to you. Maybe the position just got cancelled, and the prof is trying to find funding to hire you anyway (and failing). Maybe it's something completely different. There is just no way to tell from the outside.

How long does it take to process post doc applications?

That really depends. However, "a few months" certainly sounds like the upper bound for how long selecting a postdoc should take.

Should I start looking for other positions?

Yes, independently of what is really going on, I would not get my hopes up that there is indeed a position for you in this department in the future. Maybe you get lucky and it works out after all, but at this point relying on this post seems to be very optimistic.

+1 Indeed, something's wrong here, and while I prefer an open approach, some people may not be willing or able or permitted to tell OP what is going on. Cut your losses and move on. Or else, if you really want to give the position a fresh try, you could mention that you understand that it didn't work out, thank him for his attention and you will seek out a different option. If he really is still interested, he will contact you. But do pursue the other route in any case.

I double recommend @xLeitix's final recommendation. Whether or not someone committed to hire you, and unless you know for sure that a verbal commitment is enough to rely on, you should keep looking for other places. At least until it is written and final.

If it starts like this already, before you get a real chance, this will likely not end well. Independent of what position it might be. This is not normal for any kind of position. It's disrespectful to cancel an interview at the last minute that was scheduled. Think about the other way around. Would you hire someone, who once accepted an interview and then cancelled at the last minute?
In my opinion, always search for other opportunities and positions you're really passionate about as soon as possible and you will be much more happy in the end.

Agreed. I probably wouldn't recommend the position even if it finally did become available. You can imagine this as a preview into how the advisor likely works: initial enthusiasm about a project, but if a problem comes up, he's likely going to actively avoid informing you about it. Then when you are made aware of the problem, he'll expend absolutely zero effort in helping you fix it. -- If you do take this position, assume you'll be completely on your own for solving problems, particularly administrative ones.

Actually the other way around is not that terrible. I mean, bailing on an interview is a relatively minor discomfort; shirking a promise to hire someone might really mess up their lives.

In the vast majority, yes. But as a side note there are also employers who rely on experts and it`s a no-go to cancel an interview hours before.
I only wanted to emphasize the other way around to show that the questioner deserves something better - especially in his position as a postdoc.
Other companies will welcome him and show more appreciation, if he's passionate.

I'll make two observations:

What might have seemed like a commitment to you might not seem like a commitment to him. I'm just in the process of interviewing for a post-doc position after having been made something like a commitment - or at least, listening to the text you would have thought it a commitment; but I actively interpreted it as no more than a statement of willingness to consider me. And, indeed, the tone in writing is less enthusiastic, less committed; and there's an official interview process.
If it really was a bona fide commitment to employ you, and if he really wanted to make good on his promise - he could very well get past the regulation change. He would tell his superiors the agreement had already been made; and that it should count as an offer made before the regulations changed; or he could even have you and him back-date a signed written agreement to the time you made the oral agreement, and wave that in front of people. There are solutions to these problems.

So, either you misinterpreted or he's had a (partial) change of heart. IMHO.

Is this normal in post doc recruitment?

It's not normal in any recruitment.

How long does it take to process post doc applications?

How long is a piece of string?  But, in my experience, interviews tend to happen a couple-few weeks after the application deadline and successful candidates are notified within a few days and receive a formal written offer a few days after that.  (It may take much longer to notify unsuccessful candidates, because you don't want to reject the $n$th person on the list until one of the first $n-1$ has actually accepted the job.)

Should I start looking for other positions?

Yes. Absolutely. The problems you're having at the moment are the fault of the professor, the department, the university or some combination of the three. The fact that the professor routinely ignores your emails about such a critically important subject shows that at least some of the fault is theirs. Even if you do get the job at this university, working there will almost certainly be a total pain in the backside.
If you finally do get a written offer from this place, you'll have to consider whether the certainty of a probably-bad job is better than the uncertainty of waiting for another opportunity. You should definitely apply for other positions and, if you get an actual offer from some competent university, take it! You owe nothing at all to the professor and university that have been messing you around.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
Updating sci-hub manuscript version
The manuscripts version made online in journals are often updated. For example, from the "Accepted" to "Final" version.
Many times the version retrieved by sci-hub is outdated, is there any way to force sci-hub to get the last published version?

Why ask us? Ask Sci-Hub....

@SolarMike for the same reasons many ask about Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, etc, in this site.

@Orion so common sense would suggest directly asking the source for updates and corrections, neither of which we have control of on this site...

@SolarMike The OP is asking about a feature academics already know and use.

@Orion and probably clearly explained in the help files...

@user1420303 sorry to say but you don't really understand the purpose of scihub or how it works. It's not a service where you can make requests, there's nobody uploading papers, it's all automated (for the most part).

@HermanToothrot, Clearly I was aware of the automation, notice the word "force" in the question.  Clearly I do not know in detail how Scihub works, that is why I asked in this site. Often, people asking questions are aware that they do not know everything surrounding about what they are asking about, so your comments in this respect have not added value. I found them violent and unconstructive, please keep them for you. Have a good day.

A reload button does not show up anymore.
Also, this problem is likely related to storage of pre-print versions in sci-hub databases. From what I know, sci-hub only uses credentials on the first request for a paper. At that moment, it also saves a copy of the pdf and that copy is what is given as a result on subsequent requests.
So, I guess a solution to this problem has to involve updates to sci-hub's database.

The second part of your answer is correct, but the reload button is not to update the paper to a newer verrsion.

You can request a newer version of an article using the "reload" button.

Have you tried this? I thought this would just download the same file again.

I didn't use it recently (this year) but in the past it worked as I remember. Now it seems to open an empty page.

I confirm that this is not working at the moment

@Orion, no that's not how the 'reload' button works, it just reloads the paper...

@HermanToothrot Many people used this button to obtain a newer version. Anyway, thanks for the downvote ;)

@Orion that's not how it works, look at the code on github if you don't believe me :-)

@HermanToothrot Could you please share the link to the code on GitHub here?

@Orion https://github.com/freescience/Sci-Hub-2011

From my understanding Sci-hub works by granting access to papers through the official system credentials "donated" by users around the world.
Therefore, I'd think the root of this artefact relies on the user's access credential settings or terms as used for those specific papers at the time the mirror database you're using was last updated. [I know it sounds unclear, but read carefully and I am sure you'll get my meaning.]
Given this is probably automated by Sci-hub internal system, and there are likely very few active programmers behind the interface, I don't think asking them directly would return any answers.
My best bet is that you try out accessing the paper you want through a different database mirror which might be more up to date.
Good luck!

"official system" is really not the word I would use. And it doesn't work as you described, I don't think you understand how sci-hub works...

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
International postdoc struggling with PI demands. Should I quit?
I am an international PhD graduate who joined a postdoc in a private univ in the U.S. four months ago. After careful research and studying the group profiles, I joined a group (less than 2 years old) with a dynamic PI who seems genuinely interested in pursuing similar research interests as mine and moving the field of research forward with some great ideas.
In some sense it was all going well.
I was asked to come up some research topics and systems that I would like to work with. I ended up spending some time (nearly two months) doing some simulations, writing a fellowship grant and coming up with some workable systems that I can start with.
The problem is he has very high expectations and it's getting tough to live upto his expectations, which is in turn stressing me out. We have frequent meetings and discussions, which is a good sign, but I am always focused on living up to his standards rather than research itself. Almost everything, like plotting my timeline sheets to plotting data to presenting PowerPoint, he always has constant criticisms. I took it up as a challenge and tried to do the best I could.
But lately, I feel intimidated and totally worthless. I find it difficult to contribute to group discussions with the fear of uttering something stupid.
That happened today. I froze midway my explanation (got stuck while deriving something). When asked to explain something basic, I totally blew it off. I should have known how to explain it, but I somehow couldn't. This pissed the PI off and he went on a rant about how he expected me to know at least this and it was unacceptable.
While I do agree with him, this has again instilled a fear in me if he is going to throw me out of the lab. Work wise, I have just started with my initial experiments and I am trying my best. Altogether I don't feel too good and feel like I am in a soup. Almost re-considering my options of moving away from the lab.
Some of the questions that I have are as follows:

Is it ok to feel intimidated as a postdoc? Or, is it a sign that it may be a postdoc position is not suitable for me?
Should I give myself some more time and see how my research work progresses before I make the decision of moving away from the lab?
Am I just over-reacting for not being able to answer a few questions and not taking it as a positive sign to improve myself?

Welcome to the site. I feel for you! Some personalities are not great matches! I want to note that the people on the site are going to want you to come up with a more specific question/questions.

Thank you Dawn. I will edit the post with a few specific questions!

Also @Amsherg please format this so it doesn't look like a wall of text.

Ultimately this boils down to "is it worth it" and "what are my opportunities elsewhere". Start by figuring out how much prestige your PI has, how respected they are in the community, and similar questions for the university itself. Next, do some quick research if there are any other PIs with compatible interests.

After you have done all that, do some research on the psychological effects here at play like The Imposter System , and perhaps some research into narcissists and perfectionists and see what you personally can do to cope, manage stress, and interact better. It may be entirely possible to change your behavior and feel better and more positive.

Some other tips might be to request Macromanagement instead of Micromanagement from your PI. Or, to work on your project management skills in general, especially the parts about giving yourself more buffer time and underpromising and overdelivering.

Lastly, I want to stress that most universities have help available! It may be possible to talk to a post-grad advisor, director, or respected staff and request advice or direction (don't whine or complain!). They may have valuable advice on how to deal with this person. And don't forget that your university probably has a behavioral health branch, where you can come in and find mental support if you need to talk with someone, or find better ways to de-stress.

@rlb.usa please write an answer, instead of four long comments.

Not sure if these are directly relevant, but here goes: https://askjan.org/, http://www.disabilityrightsnc.org/sites/default/files/Sample%20Letter%20Requesting%20Accommodation%20from%20Employer%20DRNC.pdf.  Even if not, the general approach (here's what I need; I'm open to discussing exactly how we can make things better for me) is helpful for everyone, I think.

Brief answers, then suggestions.

Is it ok to feel intimidated as a postdoc?

It is ok to feel intimidated when someone with power over you is doing intimidating things. Also, it is rarely "not ok" to feel what you're feeling; it's more of a question of what to do in order to improve how you feel.

Is it a sign that it may be a postdoc position is not suitable for me?

It's not suited for anyone to be in a position where your living is dependent essentially on this one person who can throw you out almost on a whim, post-doc or no.
Also, you can't judge your performance or capabilities as a researcher until you've had some time to actually do some research, and the opportunity to strike up collaborations etc.

Should I give myself some more time and see how my research work progresses before I make the decision of moving away from the lab?

Wrong question. You should do something now in order to improve your predicament; and your options are not just "quit" and "toughen up, take it and stay".

Am I just over-reacting for not being able to answer a few questions and not taking it as a positive sign to improve myself?

Personally I would be super-ashamed if that were to happen to me and would be preoccupied with it for days, if not weeks. What can you do, it is embarrassing - and it's not helping that your PI is berating you for it.  But the point is why it happened. I mean, if you froze up that means the issue is more the state you were in before rather than this event itself.
Now for some suggestions:

First and foremost is caring for your emotional well-being. It's not only first in the answer, it's first on the list of concerns, because if you don't do something about that your life is going to be continue being "poisoned" by anxiety and self-doubts.
Even though, of course, what you're feeling is a result of what happens to you professionally, that's not the exclusive cause. I mean, someone else in your place might tell him/herself "He's such an asshole, but I know I'm make a decent effort and by my self-evaluation I'm fine"; and other people are on that spectrum. This is not just fate you have to resign yourself to.
So, my first suggestion is to consider seeing a a psychotherapist. Don't be put off by the stigma some people assign to that; you're having an emotional problem that you have not been able to resolve yourself, so ask for more personalized help than you can get on this site.
I would have suggested to first have deep talks with co-workers you feel you trust, but I'm guessing you don't have those since you haven't mentioned them. If you do have them, consider confiding in one or two of them - even if that seems even more embarrassing. That embarrassment will go away once you talk to them.
Try to explicitly negotiate expectations and workplans with your PI. Meet with him in a one-on-one, acknowledge your feelings, his and your behavior (Without going into emotional details or being to combative), and try to focus the conversation on how you two can work together with aligned mutual expectations. Discuss things like timelines, targets, deliverables etc. A framework of mutual expectations might help in making him feel you're not doing poorly since it's what you agreed on.
Your academic advancement should not by wholly determined by your relationship with a PI. As soon as you can, if you have at least some research involving people out of the group - not only will that improve your standing with the PI (I think) but it will also improve how you feel and will be a sort of a partial crutch in case you're somehow threatened with termination.
I would not advise you to switch workplaces at this point since on the one hand you've been investing in setting things up, and it's a shame if that went to waste considering how you see research potential there, and on the other hand you've not been there for long enough to say with clarity that it's a hopeless work environment.
Try to find some kind of activity which you believe would be a confidence-booster for you - at work - and would not be disparaged by the PI. For example - giving a talk or a workshop on something you know very well and others at the lab know little about.
Try to find some kind of activity which you believe would be a confidence-booster, or that is otherwise satisfying, outside of work. I know this is kind of vague, but it really helps if you have an emotional anchor that is not depend on your academic success and your appeasement of the PI / employer / the system.

Some bits that might help you keep things in perspective:

life is short.
science should be at least somewhat fun -- we aren't being compensated well enough to say otherwise.
post-docs are free agents.  We are not livestock.
there are many cool PIs out there that you will jive with.  Having a great time in a less high-power lab is almost certainly better for you, as a human being.

You are very early on in the postdoc (I am a 4th yr postdoc).  I would look elsewhere.  You are so early on that you probably don't even need to consider getting a letter from this person you are having problems with.  Feels like a good time to cut and run.  Best of luck and hang in there.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How to address title-field inconsistency?
I have recently defended my thesis in Sweden and started to look for positions, pretty much anywhere. As a part of the process I am currently trying to update and freshen my CV, linked-in profile etc.
I noticed that I am having difficulties in fitting into the existing templates when describing my profile. My work is of a rather interdisciplinary nature, in a research group that is not very close to what the other research groups within the department work with.
So say my research groups is working on Bowling and our department is named Joggling. This rather odd organization of research groups is due to the "common use" of bowling pins. In this rather silly metaphor, my own research would be on Wood wax, relevant for bowling but not so much for circus trickery. So calling myself a "PhD in Joggling" would be extremely misleading when looking for jobs, whereas "PhD in Woodwax" is technically lying.
Given space, I can describe what I do and effectively dodge the bullet by something like "I have a PhD from Department of Joggling, focusing/working on Woodwax". However when the number of characters is limited it becomes rather tricky.
Are there any good ways of handling this?

Are you in Europe, US or elsewhere? Is anything like "PhD in Joggling" written on your diploma/certificate?

@yo' tried to clarify the location.. I have not yet received the diploma but it will essentially say just that

I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you have a PhD from the Department of Joggling, you have a PhD in Joggling more or less by definition.
Most people in academia are aware that a specific research project can go quite far away from the basic area of the department that it is done in. Whenever someone tries to evaluate whether you're a good fit to a certain area, the department you got your PhD in is only one of many, and not the most significant, aspect.
In your CV, you can easily state the title of your PhD thesis. It's reasonably short and hopefully conveys the exact field you worked on most clearly. When there's no space for that, it's sufficient to say that you have a PhD in Joggling.

Your Ph.D. is in the department is says it is in, and there's nothing that you can (or should) do about it.  For example, my Ph.D. is in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, but my thesis didn't really have anything to do with EE.  That's OK: most people understand that the actual names and structures of departments are complex and often historical artifacts.
What will really speak for you in your application is your thesis and publications.  If the titles of those clearly show your area of work, then just make sure that they appear clearly and prominently wherever you present yourself.


text:
Is the salutation and/or the signature of an email indicative of the intended level of formality?
I wrote an email recently to the author of a book. I'm working on the master's degree in Hungary, the author is a professor in Canada. I'm not a native English speaker. My letter looked like the following:

Dear Dr. [professor's full name],
[body of the email including an introduction with my full name]
With best regards:
[my first name]

When I write to someone for the first time, I make the salutation and the self-introduction formal. But I tend to write my first name as the signature because I feel this shows that I don't insist on keeping the high level of formality I started the email with. In subsequent emails I choose the level of formality to be the same as it happens to be in the reply to my first email.
However, the reply to my quoted email seems to me to be so informal that I don't dare to imitate its level of formality without asking for the international academic community's, i.e. your suggestions. Their letter looked like the following:

Hi [my first name],
[body of the email]
Best, [professor's first name in diminutive (!) form]

So is a signature usually indicative of the intended level of formality? Would it be appropriate to start my reply like this: "Dear [professor's first name]," or "Dear [professor's first name in diminutive form],"? Or can my habit of "imitation" backfire often and make me seem insulting?

Reflecting back their level of formality is exactly what you would do in person. Generally, if they used a form of their name in their email they are asking for it to be used going forward.

@JonCuster This is my impression too. I just want to make as sure as possible, because I got surprised by their informality and I don't want to seem discourteous. Consider making your comment into an answer.

I would err on being just a tad more formal, but, as others have said, by and large reflect what you see. If Hungary‘s level of formality is anything like the German language one, you might be surprised how informal academia is in the English speaking world. In the case at hand, in a first reply I’d probably go with something like “Dear (first name)” and “Best regards (your first name).”

(Dear Dr. [professor's full name] should surely be Dear Professor [professor's full name].)

@user2768 Interesting. At my university, "Dr." is preferred to "Professor". According to other questions and answers on Academia Stack Exchange, it is quite variable which one is preferred. I chose "Dr." based on the author's website.

@benjaminaaron_m The title "Dr" is awarded on completion of a PhD, whereas "Professor" is a high-ranking, academic job title. A professor typically has a PhD, but not everyone with a PhD is a professor. (Usage may vary between countries.)

@user2768 I don't have a full understanding of the Canadian system, but definitely in the UK system, and I think in the US system, only Full Professors have the right to use the Prof. title.

@user2768
Yes, I understand that being a professor indicates more experience and knowledge than a plain PhD. On the other hand, the highest degree one can achieve is a PhD and "Professor" is "just" a title. I mean I think this can be a possible reason to prefer "Dr.". I don't personally think "Professor" conveys less value than "Dr.".

In my experience, the salutation often indicates something about the level of formality, while the signature typically conveys much less.
The signature is effectively meaningless because many people automate the signature on their emails, so it is literally not something that they are thinking about. Sometimes it will indeed convey a person's preferred level of formality, but since it's so often automated, that's not a safe assumption to make.
The salutation, on the other hand, is something that people definitely use to indicate their assumptions about the nature of a relationship. You don't really have a choice here, because pretty much every culture uses choice of salutation to indicate assumptions about level of formality, and even omitting the salutation has a meaning. Most readers will at least notice level of formality, even if the more cosmopolitan are unlikely to take offense.  Similar things apply in other choices as well for languages where relationship is strongly reflected in pronouns (e.g., usted vs. tu in Spanish) or other linguistic options.
If you are in doubt, it's usually better to assume a higher level of formality. People are generally appreciative of attempts to be polite, whether or not they are needed.
Thus, for example, in the particular case that you cite, Canada is a fairly informal culture, and the professor has almost certainly indicated that they  are comfortable with you using more informal language. If you are not comfortable with that and continue to say "Dr.", however, they will likely just take it to mean that you are from a more formal culture and trying to be polite.

Most professors do not put much thought into their salutations and signatures.  They just use the same thing, or nothing, in every situation.

But I feel I should put some thought into them if I don't want to seem rude and potentially burn bridges. How should I continue the conversation in the quoted case if it's mistaken to infer intention from the professor's word choice?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90725/how-should-i-phrase-an-important-question-that-i-need-to-ask-a-professor

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Origin of 7 year sabbatical leave cycle
I believe many US universities have a 7-year cycle for sabbatical leave.  For example, at my university a full-time tenure-track faculty is eligible for sabbatical leave after 7 years of continuous service (so technically every 8 years).  The term "sabbatical" has its roots in "sabbath," so I wonder if this (roughly) 7-year cycle has its roots there, or is just a coincidence.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40222893?seq=1 may shed some light.

@JonCuster Thanks for the link. It doesn't exactly settle my question but does give interesting history of the sabbatical leave. They write, "The period of prior service is generally six years, but it is sometimes seven and even occasionally ten," so perhaps the 7 years used by my institution is just a coincidence with "sabbath."  Sorry I can't upvote your comment since I'm new on this stack.

At various other sites (I googled 'sabbatical leave origins') there do seem to be some links to religion, including https://www.aaup.org/article/who-took-sabbath-out-sabbatical amonst others. That link includes a quote from Leviticus.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED544008 also may be of interest.

I added the USA tag.

It seems to not be a coincidence. A glance at the Oxford English Dictionary shows that "one-in-seven leave" probably started at Harvard, but did not come with the name sabbatical.  If it makes you feel better, the rule was that this was the highest frequency allowed, and not all leave requests were expected to be granted if there were too many in one department at the same time.
Soon after Harvard 1880 policy, Wellesley in 1886 adopted a one- in-seven policy that called the year off a sabbatical year.
The name almost certainly is an allusion to Toric law relating to leaving land fallow one year in seven.  See Exodus 23:11 or look up Shmita.
The connection between revitalizing farm land and revitalizing the scholarly mind has been made clear by many.  Bertrand Russell wrote "Every university teacher ought to have a sabbatical year (one in every seven) to be spent in foreign universities or in otherwise acquiring knowledge of what is being done abroad."  (On Education, especially in early childhood, 1926, by Bertrand Russell.)
The stricture of always going to Europe is not to be found in the US these days.  In modern times, I have heard of explicit rules that you have to physically go to another university. Of course that was in Antecovidian times.
In summary, the name refers to a one in seven cycle.  Just as a semester is not exactly half a year, the exact meaning of one in seven is subject to interpretation.


text:
How to quote sources in multiple languages in a list of references with APA (and MLA)
The APA Manual of Style covers in detail the issues associated with translating references into other languages. However, it fails to give any answer to my question (just as any resources I have been able to find on the web): how we should be treating the 'explanatory' elements of references such as 'Original work published', 'Retrieved', "Manuscript submitted for publication', 'Doctoral thesis', and so on?
Here are two examples of French references:

Villeneuve, E. (2020). Éducation [Thèse de doctorat, Université de
Tours].
Villeneuve, E. (2010). Éducation. Educatio. (Œuvre originale publiée
en 1922)

When inserting them into a list of references compiled for an English-language article, should we keep the 'Thèse de doctorat' and 'Œuvre originale publiée en' elements in French or should we convert them into their English analogues 'Doctoral thesis' and 'Original work published'?
Actually, the same question is valid for MLA, where I fail to find any explicit recommendations.


text:
Which are the funding options for a Postdoc in Denmark?
I am willing to apply for a position in Denmark at Copenhagen university. However, the putative PI told me that has no money to fund a postdoc position and recommended some fellowship options to apply. (Curie and Lundbeck). I come from Argentina and European calls are out of my range.
I would like to know if there are other options to obtain funding to do a postdoc in Denmark.

I don't understand the close votes. Would this be considered off topic if it were about research funding open to foreigners in the US?

Some funding opportunities are only available if you apply for positions in some countries or continent.

@henning probably because this is a question that is 1) specific to one person or at least few, and also as it could be solved by research by the OP...

Similar question for Germany and Switzerland: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55455/postdoc-funding-for-an-american-looking-to-do-a-postdoc-in-europe-in-theoretica

Similar question for USA: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45791/are-there-post-doc-grants-available-for-non-us-citizens-in-the-us

At DTU there are two postdoc programmes, Eurotech and H.C. Ørsted:

https://www.dtu.dk/english/research/research-at-dtu/postdoc-programmes/eurotech-cofund-postdoc
https://www.dtu.dk/english/research/research-at-dtu/postdoc-programmes/h-c-oersted-cofund-postdoc

More generally you might want to search for postdoc programmes specific to the university you would like to go to. Also ask your contact at the university for guidelines.
Last year the funding opportunities from Danish institute for independent research were mostly targeted at more established researchers, but maybe still worth checking out: https://dff.dk/en/application/overview-of-instruments
I do not recall Denmark having plenty of general postdoc funding opportunities. Life sciences might be more generous than other fields. You will not know if the European ones are out of your league without trying.

If you are willing to specify the university, that will allow more targeted answers. (Also, you can upvote or accept answers you found useful.)

I´m yet learning how to use the forum. Thanks a lot for the advice. I was hoping to get funding for the Copenhagen University.


text:
Negotiation of a faculty position
I've just started to apply for faculty positions and received an invitation for a phone interview scheduled for next week. I am not in rush at the moment to accept a faculty position.
Earlier this year I had a friendly conversation with a chair at a school who I had an opportunity to work with in different capacities and discussed with him a potential faculty position at his department. He is the hiring person and it is a school that I am interested in. He suggested a few months ago that I can fit into a number of projects that are ongoing at the school. Back then I was not as advanced as I am today in my Ph.D. studies and since then I've defended my proposal and expect to graduate in seven months.
However, I expressed my interest in a faculty position and indicated that I expect to defend my dissertation in August this year. Few days ago, I've informed him that I've received an invitation for job interview and indicated that I remain interested in a position at their school. He stated that as of now, there might not be a position because they expect two new research hires and doesn't know how this will impact the school`s budget. Then he stated that if I don't like what I would be offered or don't receive an offer, we can discuss a position.
Just a small update, eight months ago I asked if I could receive a post-doctoral fellowship position at their school.
My question is: I didn't respond to him yet and I am confused how to understand this last statement that he made?. is this part of the negotiation process?. I prefer this school over other schools for now until i find something better.

Where is the location and what is the field? Hiring practices differ widely.

This is a medical school in the midwest in the U.S.

You marked this question as "postdocs" - but you're not a post-doc right now, and neither the actual offer nor the offer you would have liked to receive are for a post-doctoral researcher, right?

Also, why are you "not in a rush at the moment"? Is it because your Ph.D. is not concluded yet, or are there other reasons?

I have served on search committees in the medical field and, like other fields, it can be a very slow process, so a phone interview may be months (and months) away from an actual job offer down the line. It sounds like this person is interested in having you work in his/her department. However, there are many other factors at play here. For instance, it sounds like he is unsure if there would be a faculty and/or post-doc line available next year.
Although a post-doc may be preferred at this time, the competition for post doc and faculty positions is fierce. If you pass up other opportunities and cannot be hired by your colleague, do you have a plan for the meanwhile? Also, your colleague may be able to wrestle some money to fund you for one year at his/her institution, but expect you to secure funding for future years if you will stay (many medical schools are increasingly using this model). Are you in a position to support yourself from year 2+?
In my opinion, accept opportunities for phone and campus interviews that you are given, if they are places you wouldn't mind working. Then, if an offer is made (or not made at the end of the season), it sounds like your colleague will have more pull or incentive to advocate for some support for you from the upper administration. Remember that you can always take a job at another institution and transfer later if a job opens up elsewhere. Good luck! Hope this helps.

FYI I am not in a medical school, but this seems relatively straightforward to me. Hopefully someone will correct if there is a different norm in those departments.
Most departments receive authorizations to hire faculty positions ("faculty [budget] lines") from entities that are higher up the organizational hierarchy, such as a dean or other central administration person. So even if this person is a department chair, they may not have the authorization to create new lines. They may have the authorization to create post-doc positions, since those can come out of shorter term pots of money.
This person may be implying that a non-faculty (post-doc, perhaps) position would be possible, depending on how much of the budget gets sucked up in the two new researchers' salaries/packages. They seem to think you would not be a great fit for those two new research positions. But they won't know about the post-doc until later. They also assume you will also not be able to decide on this until you have explored your faculty positions, since, for most people, permanent/faculty positions dominate post-doc positions.

Thanks. I am honestly more interested in a post doc than in a faculty position at this point in my career. it would give me the opportunity to decide where I want to get a tenure faculty position. Post doc position has many other benefits without the pressure of tenure especially that I started to have a second thought about whether or not I want a tenure position right after graduation from my program.
How should I respond to his email in a way that doesnt offend him while I keep all options on the table at the same time?

Perhaps something along the lines of "Thank you for the Insight. I will keep you informed about my job search process."... and then actually keep the person informed. You should also be applying lots of places and making connections for post-docs elsewhere.

Thanks a lot. This was helpful. I am at the moment applying for post docs and faculty positions elsewhere. Thanks again.

I`m finished with the phone interview. I just received a phone call from the committee extending an offer for a visit to campus and face to face interview. I honestly didnt expect the process to move so fast but it turned out that the department is hiring a lot of faculty members because they are expanding both research and teaching.


text:
How does having a PhD from Latin America impact an academic career in mathematics in the US?
Due to my wife’s job, we’re moving to a country in Latin America (Brazil). I’m finishing my undergraduate in mathematics in the US and I’m starting to think about applying for PhD positions.
How does having a PhD from Latin America impact an academic career in mathematics in the US?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

The institution from which you have a PhD is of minor significance compared to:

What you've published
Where you've published
Who you've published/worked with (particularly, your advisor)
Who can recommend you to others

With all of those being equal, a PhD from a better-rated university (not country) will improve your evaluation as a candidate to some extent, I suppose.
However, I believe you're thinking about this the wrong way. I would suggest trying to find specific potential post-doc hosts - researchers whose work is related to what you are interested in - and contacting them directly rather than thinking of "applications" in the general and the abstract.

While the answers telling you that what matters is your advisor and the research you do in graduate school, not the institution, are in a certain sense right, I feel like the underlying message of them is pretty misleading (or at least incomplete).
It seems worth mentioning, first off, that professional mathematicians working in the US who got Ph.D.'s in Latin America are extremely uncommon.  I'm sure there are some, but I literally cannot think of any off the top of my head.  In fact, professional mathematicians in the US who got Ph.D.'s anywhere outside North America or Europe are incredibly rare.  Look through the faculty of any math department you like, see if you can find any.  There will be a fair number of faculty who were born or grew up or even got a bachelors in another country, but very few who got a Ph.D. outside the US.  Actually every time I've done this, the number of schools outside, say, the top 10 ranked graduate programs in the US that appear is always terrifyingly low.
Now, it's actually quite hard to conclude anything from this exercise, since it is obviously an uncontrolled experiment.  I suspect that part of what's going on here is that if you're in Latin America, and you're interested in moving to the US to advance your career in math, you won't wait until after graduate school.  In general, for both intellectual and funding reasons, US graduate programs are the most attractive in the world, so that's usually the point where someone who's open to moving will do so.  Similarly, probably the most important reason why the best-ranked schools show up so often is that they take the best students into their program.
So, that doesn't prove that you can't go to any institution and be successful.  However, I wouldn't underrate the importance of the institution you go to in terms of shaping your ability to do good research and develop the kind of network you need.  Being with the very best students (at least in my opinion) has a very big effect in and of itself.  Being in the US gives you access to conferences and networks of people in the US, which is what you want to build if you want to be there long term.
Also worth thinking about: what kind of teaching experience will you have at the end of your degree?  If you want to be able to get a job at a teaching focused institution, you need to have teaching experience, and you need to have people who can credibly vouch for it.  Are you going to be able to get that in Brazil?
So, I would remember: you don't have to start a Ph.D. right after your B.A.  It might make more sense to get a job, or work on mathematics unofficially if your wife is only going be in Brazil for a couple of years.  If it's going to be for longer, then you have a trickier choice.

It's probably true that people getting their PhDs in Brazil probably want to stay there afterwards. Otherwise, as you said, moving early would be a wiser move. That's probably why you don't see people in the US with a PhD from Brazil (although I can name a few). But that gives you no information on their capability of getting a job in the US.

@ShakeBaby I think "no information" is a little bit of an exaggeration.  Just based on purely network effects, you would expect people getting a Ph.D. in any country to get have an advantage getting a job there.  If you want a fancy research job, no school in Brazil is seen in the US as at the level of the departments that graduate almost all research faculty (note, I'm not making a claim either way about actual quality, just the way that people in the US perceive it), and for a teaching job, not having teaching experience in the US is a big disadvantage.

@ShakeBaby It's true that if you do something really remarkable then people won't care what your background is (look at Yitang Zhang), but it's a strong headwind in an already pretty tough market.

You don't need to go to Zhang's extreme example. If you are doing "MIT level" research, no matter where you come from, you will be competitive. I understand that "no school in Brazil (or anywhere else) is seen at the level of US departments", but that is mainly because they don't now about these schools (since people don't apply to US jobs). If a candidate with "MIT level" research would appear, he/she would be considered no matter what. @BenWebster

Note that I'm not saying that all research in Brazil, or even in the top school, is "MIT level". I'm saying that there are a few niches of specialties in Brazil with renowed researchers, and if one get to do a PhD with them, they can have similar chances of doing "MIT level" research as if one were at MIT. @BenWebster

Some references:
[1] http://www.mathunion.org/members/countries
[2] https://www.ictp.it/about-ictp/prizes-awards/the-ramanujan-prize/the-ramanujan-prize-winners/ramanujan-prize-winner-2017.aspx
[3] http://www.icm2018.org/portal/en/mathematics-in-brazil

@ShakeBaby I don't dispute anything in your comments, but I dispute that that's the most important information for the OP to know.  Most people who get Ph.D.s in math the US don't do MIT level research; arguably most people who get Ph.D.s at MIT don't.  So the question is what happens when you complete a respectable but not especially exciting Ph.D.  If you want a job in the US, I'd much rather be getting that Ph.D. in the US.  In particular, nobody else addressed my point about teaching, which is actually important for many jobs in the US.

Agree. One should try to do a PhD at the best places. If your PhD sucks, at least you'll have the name of the school attached to it.

There's nothing specific to Latin America in this question, as in any place there are good and bad PhD granting institutions. You should follow all known advices in applying to PhD positions in any country (check the reputation of the university, of the department, of the professors, of the journals they publish, etc.)
You don't mention the city you'll be living but most likely, if you are in a large center, there will be a reputable PhD program in Mathematics. By this I mean that you'll be able to work with people that are actually doing research in mathematics and publishing in top journals. Depending on the city, you may be constrained to working on some specific areas of mathematics though.
To answer your question: If you have an active researcher as an advisor, and if you are able to publish good results during your PhD, you will be able to compete for postdoc positions in top centers in the US.


text:
Questions regarding post-PhD research jobs (specifically mathematics)
I am currently a year or two away from a PhD in differential geometry.  I love doing research, and I would like to make my career doing research in some form (preferably mathematical), but I have no idea the jobs that are out there for pure mathematicians, or what skills are required in order to obtain them.  For what it is worth, I don't care about the money - as long as my family is not starving, I'm fine with a lack of significant disposable income.
So, I ask:
1) What are some areas (broad or narrow) of industry in which I should consider looking for employment?  Specific company recommendations are fine also; right now I have very limited knowledge of what's out there.
2) How should I tailor my skillset to be competitive for industrial jobs in math?  Right now I have a fairly diverse mathematical education, and rudimentary knowledge of a few programming languages, but not much else that might be useful to an employer.  What do you recommend I learn (either through courses or on my own) while I'm still in school?
Note:  I have avoided asking about professorial positions because, while I'm not a bad teacher, and a position at a research institution would be great, I lack the prestige that comes with graduating from a top-tier school and I want to remain realistic about my job prospects.
Thanks for your time,
EDIT:  Recommended reading suggestions are also appreciated.

Are you insistent on doing research?  On doing math?  On doing something related to differential geometry?  Can I assume that you're not so interested in teaching-oriented university positions?  Would you take a job, as an example, working on the software that runs SE?

I am somewhat insistent on doing research.  Not so insistent on doing math (though I would prefer it), and certainly not insistent on doing differential geometry (I love it, but I'm flexible).  You are correct in assuming that I am not interested in a teaching-oriented position.  As for the software development question:  I would strongly consider taking such a position provided I would be more on the "research side" and less on the "coding or execution side" of the operation.  Thanks for your questions.

Have you checked out the AMS info: http://www.ams.org/profession/career-info/career-index

Some of it, though admittedly not all.  Thanks for the reminder about that reference.

I personally think that many universities do an appallingly poor job of career counseling and job placement.  Yours may be one of the ones that are lousy at doing this.  But you should definitely try to milk the university for everything that it can give you along these lines.  Try both your department and a more general career center.  Take some time and work through all the steps the career center may ask of you.  Summer could be a great time to do that.

That's a good idea.  Thanks.  I've reached out to the general career center before, and they were less than helpful, but I may try again and see if anything has changed.

Discalimer: IANADG, I am not a differential geometrist...
Still, some potentially-relevant fields:

Architecture and materials industry: Surfaces and bodies with complex structures, their behavior, the forces applied to them, their expansion, contortion etc. with weather or with load changes and so on. Specifically, I can imagine a bunch of relevant applications in 3d-printing. This might be relevant (although it's not a specific workplace)
Car industry, for similar reasons
Computer vision and image/video  processing: lots of geometry and lots of derivation going on there. Just as an example, read this (but )

I'll also make another, more concrete suggestion: Various countries have academic-oriented placement/recruitment agencies. While those obviously don't know you perfectly well and can't cater to your interests exactly, they could interest you in a selection of potential positions which you might find appealing - or, at least, will help you realize what kind of work is out there. Also, an up-to-date LinkedIn profile has a bit of that same effect.

Within differential geometry, I agree that computer vision is the obvious answer. CV is a hugely important and growing field. Pursuing this might require you do a masters degree in computer science or do learning on your own, if you don't have a CS/ML background. After I got my degree, I found a job doing CS research related to my mathematics interests that was willing to fund me doing a CS masters program on the side. I had a CS background, but not a strong one, going in. What is more important than formal education is the ability to learn and adapt. If you learn enough to get your foot in the door and are quick enough to pick up what you need as you go, you'll do fine. There's a lot of online courses and resources for CS that would be a good place to start.
There is a large number of companies that look to hire people with mathematics PhDs to do research if you have a basic ability to code and as stats background, ranging from insurance companies (designing new risk models), to data science companies (designing new methodologies, or applying complex ones), to consulting firms (for all sorts of needs), to investment companies (predicting the market). Which places might be best for you to look at probably depends exactly on your background.

Thanks for your suggestion.  I would like to get a job without having to pick up another degree, but I will look at jobs in CV and see if I can learn enough on my own to be competitive.


text:
Will an industry funded PhD hurt one's research career?
Most students I know in computer science are funded either by the NSF or their professor's startup package [in the US]. But it also isn't completely unheard of for a company to give a gift/grant to a professor to fund a student.
This seem to have a few implications, such as the student's dissertation being tied to the company's interests and the student would probably be expected to work onsite each summer.
The students I have known to do this, go on to industry after graduating (not necessarily the company that funded them). This brings up the following questions...

Would a hiring committee at a university consider the close ties to industry a negative?
If the student continues publishing regularly, is there anything about this scenario that can hurt one's research career?

Note: Suresh's answer to the question Will self funding a PhD hurt employment chances? is very relevant, but I think there are some different obstacles for industry funding.

One issue could be a possible nondisclosure agreement: the Ph.D. student may not be allowed to publish certain results, which would certainly hurt a future academic career.

The ability to successfully interface and obtain funding from industry would be a large plus to most engineering departments, perhaps not so much to computer science.  However, if the department has a focus on something like semiconductor process modeling techniques, novel optimization algorithms, or other research applicable to industrial problems, I don't see the problem.  Many companies are well aware of the pluses and minuses of funding PhD research, and will focus on 'pre-competative' projects.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19783/funding-of-research-by-commercial-companies-what-is-the-sentiment-in-the-usa

I see no inherent problem with industry funding for Ph.D., and in many cases it can be a benefit.  Certainly in computer science there is a broad spectrum of options for different types of research career (government, large industry, startups, etc.), and it's not unusual for people to move between them multiple times over the course of a career. As long as you are publishing well and frequently, you'll have lots of options.

A researcher is not a publishing machine to publish well and frequent. Publishing depends on the researcher's field. Some researchers like mathematicians need a year or two to only publish one paper. Sorry but I am not sure how your post is answering the question.

The definition of "well" and "frequently" is, of course, highly dependent on the field. That is why I did not attempt to define them more precisely.  The point is that if your funding allows you to participate normally in the scientific discourse of your field, it doesn't really matter where it's coming from.


text:
How can an undergraduate be recognized for work done on a paper, with a fellow PhD student and a professor?
I am an undergraduate student, and recently I was introduced a PhD student in my university's math department.
In a brief interaction with him, he mentioned that he was doing work in Differential Topology, an area which I happen to be self-studying at the moment. I asked him about his research problem, and mentioned what I was self-studying, and he offered me an opportunity to work with his PhD advisor (a former professor of mine), and himself, and stated that they were looking to publish a paper in mid 2018, and I could possibly be listed as a co-author.
He has yet to run the idea past my former professor, but he has stated that my former professor would be all on board with the idea. My former professor likely does not know or remember me, we only had one brief interaction during a class on Discrete Mathematics (coincidentally the interaction was about Differential Topology and some other Differential Geometric stuff, because he saw me reading a book on it before class commenced).
However, my university has no official undergraduate research program, so everything (i.e. any research conducted) will likely be done on an informal basis. My main question is this, how can I protect the work that I do on a project like this? What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?
Firstly it should be noted, that regardless of whether or not my work will be recognized on the paper (if any contributions to the paper are made by my part) I still intend to take this opportunity and work with the PhD student and my former professor, mainly as it will be a good learning experience for me on how to properly do research, the possibility of being listed as a co-author is just an added bonus.
Also I'm well aware, that it's probable that I may not make any contribution at all, however I am asking this question in the event that I do contribute some work towards the paper.
If it's of any importance, I have a good relationship, and am somewhat well known by other faculty members (Topologists) in my universities' math department, as they have previously allowed me attend lectures for their courses which are only reserved for students in years above me.

Under normal circumstances your work will be credited appropriately regardless of your lack of official position.

I edited your question slightly because the PhD student who you called A wasn't actually relevant to the question. All they did was introduce you to the PhD student you're considering working with. I think the question's easier to understand when the cast of characters is just you, the PhD student and the professor.

It is weird to be so focused on getting credit so early in the process. Just engage with the process. If it starts to build up into something where you are making a contribution, then you can broach it. You will be a co-author unless they are unethical or something. The person has already said this, so I'm not even sure why you are worried? There is nothing you have said that indicates you should be.

I've been in this exact situation before (except I was attending a different university than the one I was researching with). At the end of the day, whoever's writing the paper decides if your contributions warrant a spot. I tried to be as useful and friendly as possible, so when it came time to make that decision, my fellow PhD would want to add me; not feel like she had to.

What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?

Unlike other answers, I'll mention that it is not unheard of for higher-ups to fail to credit more junior collaborators. So while you have no reason to believe this will happen in your case, some relatively-benign protective measure may be in order.
I would suggest one (or more) of the following:

Using some relevant on-line collaboration tool - such as a git/mercurial repository for paper drafts, or a Dropbox/Box.com/OwnCloud shared folder through which you exchange files - preferably one which they cannot delete on their own.
A bit of "wordsmithing" in some of your email exchanges with them so that whoever reads the email exchange understands that either some of the work is assigned to you, or some of the results were obtained by you. Things like doing a bit of planning or roadmapping over email typically achieve this effect without sounding off.
Engineering one or more occasions in which you and one of the other two are discussing your joint work in the presence of a third party with closer/better relations to you than to them.

The first two you could probably do regardless of wanting to protect yourself; the third one involves at most a bit of bragging, which is understandable for an undergrad and can be minimized.
Each of these reduces the degree of plausible deniability in a theoretical argument about credit, and even more importantly, discourages the very inclination your senior collaborators may have to ignore your contribution.

A side-note: There could be three scenarios here regarding the extent of your contribution to such work.

Sufficient to merit co-authorship
Sufficient to merit a "crediting mention" ("The authors wish to thank Ms. Jane Smith for useful comments regarding frobnicating the bar").
Less sufficient

... and with you being an undergrad it will be hard for you to tell the difference between these three. So if you feel you're being under-credited, consult other people first, discreetly, for their opinion on this.
Good luck and I hope you don't need any of this advice!

Upvoting for the bit below the line which is very important.

The best thing you can do to ensure your work is recognized and credited is to have honest, open communications with the other people you’re working with. So long as everybody’s clear on who is doing what, and everybody is acting ethically, you shouldn’t run into problems.

In particular, the fact that you are an undergraduate has nothing to do with getting recognition for your work. This exact advice applies whether you are an undergraduate, a graduate student, a tenured professor, or a janitor.

In the past, we've occasionally had final-year undergraduate students credited on papers written by profs and postgrads because their final project worked on/contributed to part of it. It's been regarded as a very positive thing to get undergrads involved in the whole process.

The other important thing is to get them to confirm in writing what your contribution will be and what credit they expect to offer and for you to save that in a way that's legally permissible so that there's a paper-trail if they decide to publish without your name (for whatever reason).

However, my university has no official undergraduate research program, so everything (i.e. any research conducted) will likely be done on an informal basis.

Except for very large projects, essentially all research collaboration is done "on an informal basis". You've seen that being on a formal undergraduate research programme and being a PhD student both give some sort of formal basis to a research collaboration and you've incorrectly generalized. For example, if two professors in your department are chatting over coffee and decide to collaborate on something, there is no formal programme that either one is a part of.
Authorship of research papers isn't decided by looking at the staff list of some formal collaboration: it is decided who contributed intellectually to the work. If you, the PhD student and the professor work together on something and that work leads to a paper, you should all be co-authors of that paper. The reason that PhD students' advisors are very often co-authors of papers is that the advisor very often contributes intellectually to their student's work, and not because of the existence of the formal student–advisor relationship.

My main question is this, how can I protect the work that I do on a project like this? What measures can I take to ensure that whatever work I do is credited, if the paper containing my work is published?

In the normal run of events, you shouldn't need to protect anything or do anything to ensure you receive credit (i.e., co-authorship).

You can't generalize research collaborations as being all informal. There are very formal collaborations, say the LHC, any number of satellite and space missions, astronomy involving modern telescopes like the SPT. In those, who can be an author is strictly defined in the early stages of the project. Here, even if an undergrad does useful work: too bad, often that work can't even be published. It's necessary otherwise with hundreds of scientists, you'd be forever mired in disputes.

@user71659 Conversely, the bylaws(!) of some high-energy physics collaborations specify that X amount of work for a run, plus Y other responsibilities (usually that an institution provide enough people to staff the run), equals authorship. My alma mater routinely has undergrad students as authors on PHENIX, SeaQuest, and more.

The paragraph beginning "Authorship [...] isn't decided" is spot-on, but the first isn't - many (I'd even consider saying most) collaborations are formal.

@arboviral This is probably very field-dependent, so I should rewrite it. In mathematics and theoretical computer science, my experience is that the majority of collaborations are just ad-hoc arrangements between researchers who are interested in some topic. I would imagine this is the case in most subjects that don't involve substantial equipment.

You should be listed as a co-author, it is as simple as "you worked, then you should be on the list".
This is a much nicer question than those that start " I did all this work and they refuse to put me on as co-author" or "My work is being published by my supervisor without my name"...


text:
Co-authors request that others do not use "he" as a pronoun - is this reasonable?
We are a bunch of people writing a collection of papers. Two of the writers are from Iran (where the common language does not have gendered pronouns), and they have expressed to me some concern with regards to the lack of gender-neutrality in our papers.
As you may know, English writing often exhibits some degrees of gender-bias, mainly the use of "he" to refer to a person with an unspecified gender. These co-authors would like to avoid such bias if they are to put their names on the papers.
They've told me this as we are close, but haven't talked to anybody else (there are 3 others). Is this a reasonable request? What's the correct thing to do here? I could just ask the others, but what do I do if somebody gets offended by the request and refuses? I doubt it'll happen, but in the current public discourse where "political correctness" is the new pejorative buzz word, I am not so sure.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Mathematician Michael Spivak says e: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun

This is an entirely reasonable request and you should honour it. It is very easy to write English in a manner that avoids the unfortunate use of 'he' as a placeholder for either gender, and doing so avoids needless sexism in your writing.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Certainly there are many people in the world who prefer to avoid using gendered pronouns for persons of unspecified gender, so your co-authors' view is not particularly unusual.  But there are others who see no problem with this.  There are plausible arguments on both sides, and this site is not the place to rehash them.  You can see some of the debate on English.SE.
Like any request from a co-author, you and the other authors should consider it.  If you disagree, deal with it like any set of reasonable adults who disagree: discuss the issue and share your reasons.  If necessary, you could agree to settle it by a vote.
If all else fails, some authors could withdraw from the paper; the remaining authors might then need to rewrite their contributions.  I think it's unlikely to come to that.

I would ask that people not use this comment thread to debate which style is "correct".

Tha question at English.se is good starting point. It's worth following some of the links in the first comment and looking at some of the tags attached to the question.  It would be trciky if an author who had made major contributions (e.g. to an experiment) reached the stage of wanting to withdraw over something like this.

"you could agree to settle it by a vote" -- or quite likely you couldn't agree that. Deciding the constitution after you already know everyone's opinions doesn't often work, since the minority is under no obligation to consent to a simple majority vote. But it's worth suggesting, I suppose.

Two of the writers are from Iran ... As you may know, English writing often exhibits some degrees of gender-bias, mainly the use of "he" to refer to a person with an unspecified gender.

I think this hits the nail on the head in terms of one reason why, possibly, to make the change. As comments point out (or rather, "according to the comments", as I'm not an expert in Farsi/Persian) there aren't gendered pronouns in Persian and so, to them, it presumably feels odd on a very basic level.

Is this a reasonable request?

It's presumably a piece of work that you have all put a lot of time and work into and, accordingly, have some degree of attachment to. Not to mention that it's going out into the world with your names on it. In that context, I think that any request is reasonable -- that doesn't necessarily mean that any and all changes should (or can) be made, but it's totally fair for people to ask.

They've told me this as we are close, but haven't talked to anybody else (there are 3 others).

That does, unfortunately, put you in a difficult position, as the go-between. You have my sympathy, for what it's worth.

What's the correct thing to do here? I could just ask the others, but what do I do if somebody gets offended by the request and refuses?

I would suggest that you could talk to your fellow English-as-a-first-language (I assume) co-authors about this as an abstract topic, if that would help? Ask them their feelings about it, without bringing up th specific request. I acknowledge, though, that it could, potentially, do more harm than good if it gets them set in their ways. Alternatively, explaining that it feels "odd" to your other co-authors as their first language does not use gendered pronouns might help to avoid the "political corectness" concerns that you have.
More practically, if it comes down to a (polite) debate: some people have been taught that the word "they" can not be used in the singular, but if it helps you to argue the point, Shakespeare seemed to be perfectly happy with it:

There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend

A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

or

Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;
And every one to rest themselves betake,
Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.

The Rape of Lucree
(Credit to Language Log)

I will confess that I am something of an evangelist for "they" as a singular pronoun, and have argued succesfully for its use in documents. I have, I think, only ever received one objection, and that was more along the lines of the change being unecessary, or a preference for using the composite (and, in my opinion, stylistically clumsy) "he or she". However, your mileage, of course, may vary.

+1 I stated my own arguments in favor of "they" etc. in stackoverflow meta

It was being used even before then. The King James Bible has some uses of it. Singular they is in a renaissance, and those in their twenties will read it perfectly naturally and probably a good bit of those of us in our thirties do too. It's not the only solution, of course, but it's the simplest, IMO.

@guifa "even before" what? I'm confused. The Comedy of Errors was published several years before the start of work on the King James Bible.

@PatriciaShanahan oops, I'm bad with dates. But it also appeared in Chaucer, which is definitely pre-Shakespeare unless I'm really really bad with dates haha

I agree “he or she” is clumsy, and it’s also wrong: not everyone uses “he” or “she” pronouns. “They” all the way!

I am surprised that no comment that I saw suggested the common practice of randomly switching between "she" and "he".  I found it jarring the first time I saw it used, but now rather like it.  And of course it is interesting (perhaps even healthy) when for example "she" is used in a context which is usually male.

While in some fields this can be a matter of personal preference, as stated in the other answers, keep in mind that in some fields (and journals), avoiding gender bias in your writing may be a stylistic requirement.
See, for example, the author submission guidelines in the following journal (under 'Statement on the Use of Gendered Language'):
http://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1548-1352/about/author-guidelines.html
And the APA 'Guidelines for Unbiased Language':
http://supp.apa.org/style/pubman-ch03.00.pdf

This is an important point: the journal's style guide made take this decision out of your hands.

There's no real reason why you shouldn't comply and try to convince your other co-authors to comply as well.
Allow me to offer you some (both good and bad) alternatives to gendered pronouns:
Using "(s)he" or "he/she": This doesn't exactly fit the bill of an ungendered pronoun and it's annoying to both read and write.
Using an "alternative" pronoun (such as "xer" or what not): I highly recommend AGAINST this. It's weird and is most likely to be met with resistance if you suggest it.
Using "they/them/their": Using plural to refer to someone without specifying gender is a very common and accepted.
Using "the [noun]": Another common way to do this is to refer to the person with a noun such as "the reader" or whatever noun applies to the person. If done too much though the text becomes needlessly extended and much more annoying.
I would recommend using "they" while mixing in "the [noun]" occasionally when you feel that it needs to be more specific who you're referring to. This could be when who you're referring to changes or if you feel like the reference has gone stale after many uses of "they". If who you're referring to never changes you could for example replace the first "they" in every paragraph with "the [noun]".