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Can an MBA help somehow in reaching academic positions?
Very specifically, can an MBA help somehow in reaching academic positions? Or is it only for industry related jobs?
Is the combination of PhD + MBA preferred over a PhD? Does it make someone more competitive?

What sort of academic position do you have in mind?

I truly hope not.  People with MBA already do plenty of damage in the administration of universities, the least they can do is stay out of academia proper….

So, academia scientists are let's say "opposite" to managers?

Rather managers are “opposite” everything, including academics.

@ZeroTheHero: considering that academics frequently have mainly managerial and administrative duties, I do believe that some business training would be extremely beneficial to them. Starting with rudiments of economic thinking, some accounting (useful for administering your funding), continuing with dealing with employees (= students and assistants), basic presentation skills for "general" audiences etc. I don't think considering an MBA as a net negative does justice to it. YMMV.

@StephanKolassa All academics must do some administrative duties (else everything would be done by MBAs).  Some academics rise through the ranks on the admin. track.  But no academic comes up with the flow chart for hiring.  Universities are not business, so someone with a Master in Business Administration must be considered suspicious from the start.

If you’re telling me some academics can’t coherently present their cat’s menu in public, one must then wonder what kind business pressure let to their hiring (and presumably their tenure).

@ZeroTheHero: I don't want to start a lengthy discussion here, but I do want to point out that some academics seem to have no understanding of the constraints a university as a business works under. Yes, universities are businesses: they have to make decisions about how best to use scarce resources. A little more understanding of this might reduce the incidence of blanket statements like "people with MBAs do plenty of damage", which to me communicates an amount of incivility I am not comfortable with.

@StephanKolassa no uncivility was meant.  Just exasperation. Alternatively: maybe the MBAs where you work are better than the ones where I work.

An MBA is an applied degree with little, if any, opportunity for research. However, as background for a doctorate in business (say, DBA), it could lead to a position in a department of business. I don't know how common that is elsewhere, but such departments are common in the US.
Some university administrators might also have advanced degrees in business.

To respond to your update and add to @Buffy's answer: In almost all cases: the answer is that it would add nothing and cost you time and money, so the overall net benefit will be negative. Think of a PhD as vocational training for researchers and an MBA as vocational training for managers. If I need an electrician, I look if that person is a qualified electrician. I don't care if that person is also a master baker.
A exception may be a business department. They need people to teach in the MBA programs, and there an MBA may have some value. Though I suspect that real life experience in business would add much more than an MBA. You may need the MBA to get the real life experience, and than go back university (however most don't want to once they have left, but that is another story).

So, MBA only for industry... I got it!

From a Mathematics and Computer Science perspective:
There might be a very few cases where the department is looking for a very specific combination of knowledge, where an MBA could be viewed as establishing some needed expertise. For example, a software engineer that can also teach small group leadership could be interesting from a teaching perspective. It could also be that a department wants to hire someone in the department leadership, in which case the existence of the MBA might seen to be beneficial. There might also be a very few cases where the MBA ties into research interests in the main field.
None of these are frequent enough to justify acquiring an MBA for the purpose of an academic career.
Now, some department, especially those dedicated to excellent teaching, might look favorably on candidates with experience in the field. If an MBA was necessary in order to get the position of leadership that gives someone this experience then the MBA comes in a package that makes someone an interesting candidate. However, most prestigious teaching jobs want someone to be able to do research, in which case the industrial experience is actual a hindrance, because people stop being super-creative relatively early in their lifes. Also, people from industry might have higher salary expectations. If you are looking at a teaching oriented school, it might be interested in good student placement, in which case industrial contacts are important. For example, if you have developed successfully mobile applications, many teaching oriented schools might be interested in this expertise, as long as you can pass on this knowledge to your future students.
So, if you want a good academic career, in general and in the vast majority of cases, an MBA is not useful, especially in isolation.

If you have a MBA and want a university position then you could look at the universities that have finance issues .These are not uncommon nowdays .They sometimes employ staff with perceived enterprise skills to reshape income streams and cost models .

Though these would be administration positions, not academic positions (which focus on research/teaching) as OP asks

I posted a comment on the topic but I think it is worth expanding.
I really really hope not. Universities are not business and the kind of analysis you learn in an MBA is precisely the kind of analysis that should NOT be done in universities.
I don't think there's much of a business case to be made for - say - a program in History or program in Philosophy, but I'm sure glad my uni offers

a course in History where students develop methods to critically assess the provenance of information and how information is usually distorted as it passes through biases sources,
a course in Philosophy where questions of social justice are debated, especially in the context of historical discrimination.

I don't think these courses are particular popular with students and they are probably money losers, but in an age of disinformation and fake news, they are examples of inefficiencies that are essential to society.   In fact the programs are probably money losers as well, yet eliminating them in the name of efficiencies would be catastrophic.
The reality is that universities are inefficient and although this is extremely frustrating it is best that it stays this way.  Nobody knows for sure what important questions tomorrow will bring, so university institutions provide the necessary inertia for society to keep some latent expertise that can be called upon in a pinch.  This paragraph is anathema to the ethos of an MBA; if efficiencies were taken to their logical conclusion, we'd all have "private" universities with no tenure, and we know how well that experiment has worked in the US and elsewhere.

so: I really really hope that universities would stay away from hiring people of the MBA mindset.  This does not include everyone with such a degree, and does not include incompetent academics who sometimes find validation by climbing up the administration ladder.  As to a point made about presentation skills: if you have an instructor (tenure-track or not) who cannot properly present the material, they should be fired.  Period.

Of course our business-types will argue these inefficient faculty bring revenues through research; if there were not so many administrators maybe we wouldn't need useless faculty either.

"Universities are not business" -- except how many PIs lay awake at night wondering how they are going to pay their employees?  It's their own responsibility to fund their group, and that is a business.  It's a tremendous burden that is "not academic", but still necessary to make academic achievements.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin I’m sorry but I don’t buy your argument (at least not entirely). Students are accepted by universities to university programs.  The institutions are thus responsible for supporting or guaranteeing (or not) support of the students they accepted (postdocs and research staff are a separate category).   The uni can make offers based on the financial situation of grant holders, but it is always their prerogative to simply not offer admission to a program if they (the university) think there is no capacity to support students.

BTW faculty do not run businesses: they are NOT entrepreneurs.  They get compensated for teaching and for training students.


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How to get Adjunct faculty positions in USA as a recent immigrant
I recently immigrated to the USA. I have over 20 years of experience in academia (management and faculty). I have responded to job postings that are online. How can I get my resume and cover letter noticed specially as foreign qualifications and foreign experience is concerned?

This isn't really an Academia question. Every job applicant has this question, for academia or not.

The OP is asking about adjucnting, which accounts for 40-50% of courses taught in the US. The OP is not asking how to write a CV and cover letter in general, but specifically for adjunct positions.

I concur with @ThomasSchwarz that the most important thing to note on the application is that you have already immigrated and have a work visa. Without that, your application is most likely to be ignored.
We hire lots of adjuncts in my department. In terms of qualifications, the most important thing is teaching experience. Everybody thinks they can teach, but few can. We are wary of inexperienced teachers, and when forced to hire one (say, no one else applied), we often regret it. So write your CV around your teaching experience: the exact courses you have taught, if those courses had labs, what was your role (assistant, instructor-of-record, etc.), if you wrote the syllabus, selected textbook, etc., the level of the course (1st year, graduate, etc.) The more details, the better.
A little-used secret in getting adjunct positions is that, if you don't get the position, to tell the department chair to put you on the stand-by list. It often happens that departments need adjuncts last-minute, because of sickness, unannounced retirement, professors moving to another university or taking admin positions, other adjuncts dropping out at the last minute, etc. If you made a comprehensive list on your CV of classes you have taught, chances are you'll get a desperate call in late August asking if you can teach a class starting the following week. Once you prove yourself as an effective teacher, you are almost guaranteed to be called the following semesters.

That tip is much appreciated. Thank you. My feeling is that there's a lot of  information and presentation that gets left out in a resume or a cover letter which gets covered in an interview. Also the keywords vary from country to country. so maybe the recruiter might not get the right impression from the resume or the cover letter. is it possible to share my resume and cover letter with you so you can give me a more informed judgement. I know its asking a lot and i apologize. i just don't want to make a mistake and be out in the cold for an entire year. Thank you.

You are already doing the most important thing. Each discipline has slightly different ways of announcing academic vacancies. Also, have you noticed that many academic institutions now advertise vacancies and searches on their website?
(1) Make your visa status very clear on your Resume. While easier than in industry, hiring someone without the equivalence of citizenship / green card is more complicated, requires documentation, and smaller places are not set up to do it well.
(2) Translate your qualifications / job titles yourselves. Most institutions are familiar with foreign qualifications.
(3) Accents are a big worry when hiring someone for teaching. Make sure you include a phone number so that people can hear you talk, if they want to.

Much obliged Mr Thomas. You are correct about the accent issue. on the accent issue im fine. i was attending the linked in presentations for the past two days and they were adamant that connections make a difference. and i still have to make connections here. thank you for putting my mind at ease about other relevant factors. Much appreciated.

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Rebuttal sent but no response from journal
I submitted a paper to a journal where four reviewing cycles were done by two reviewers. One of the two reviewers had no comments and accepted the paper as is, while the other reviewer had comments at each revision cycle. All comments were addressed. Unfortunately, after about a year, the paper was rejected. Subsequently me and the co-authors decided to write a rebuttal letter to the editor in chief. It has been two months since our rebuttal letter but there has been no reply from the journal. Should we write a reminder, inquire about any updates, or just patiently wait?

You could inquire about the status and if there is any possibility of a change. But don't expect much.
You would do better to find another journal and submit it there.
But waiting is probably going to be forever, unless you ask for the update.

From the point of view of the journal, the case is closed with their rejection. Of course it would be a decent thing to respond to your rebuttal,  but they are under no obligation to do this, or anything more. They have done their work reading and assessing the submission and reviews and have come to a final decision that is meant to be really final. Opening the process again is highly nonstandard (it has happened occasionally but I'd give that a subjective probability of 10% or so, based on my own experience as editor and author). So there are no "updates" to expect and a response may come at any point in time or not. Note that many editors are not paid, may be inundated with submissions, and have many other things to do, so they may not be keen on dealing with a paper after the process is closed. (Personally I'd probably find the time to write at least a small response but it is not strictly part of our job to do that.)
You should definitely not make any plans to submit elsewhere dependent on receiving a response to this. In fact if your idea was to wait with any submission elsewhere until you have a negative response for this, this was probably not a very good idea, because you may not get an answer. (Of course the hope was to get a positive response, and that'd have been a possibility but unlikely from the start.)
Not long ago I was part of a team of authors and we had a paper rejected, and some co-authors suggested to write a rebuttal. I was against it for the reasons given above. The majority of authors voted against me, so we did it anyway. After four month we got a reply that confirmed the rejection and didn't really add anything informative, so sending a rebuttal and waiting for the answer basically cost us four months.
That said, at this point writing a reminder email is maybe good because it increases the probability that you get a faster response (which you probably feel you need for submitting elsewhere), even though probably negative. An alternative would be to send them an email stating that you have decided to submit elsewhere and you don't await a response to the rebuttal anymore. At some time point this will be your option to "cut your losses".

It's normal to respond to the first rebuttal. If that interaction turns out to be unproductive, then they might stop responding. The exception is if your rebuttal itself is unproductive, e.g. if it contains insults or personal attacks.
So yes, assuming your rebuttal was sent in good faith, two months should be sufficient for them to respond. If they have not, it's reasonable to send a reminder.

Sounds like a broken journal.
Do you know who handled your paper? Usually it is not the editor-in-chief but someone else from the editorial board.
Also you can call/email the admins and managing editors for more info.

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Is it academically correct to name your own theorems?
I get a repeated feeling of insecurity when I write an article that needs to contain hierarchical organizations among its theorems. It isn't uncommon that one article contains a few important theorems whose proofs require using other, less important, theorems. I resolve this conflict by differentiating theorems with a hierarchical organization in order of importance: Lemma < Proposition < Theorem.
Some of these higher-importance theorems have great consequences (and hence a "theorem" denomination), and are used a lot after being proved to show their direct consequences. Some of these consequential theorems might have to be proved using lesser theorems, which gets us stuck again with the hierarchy problem.
I could, in principle, finish the article there and make another showing applications of the important theorems. But, I've noticed that this could also be resolved by "naming" the main theorems, as in "Pythagoras' Theorem".

Is it consensually correct to "name" your own theorems?
Are there standardised or incorrect ways to do so?
Suppose I take the first approach and end an article to start another for implications of the main theorems of the previous article. Then, how are the previous article's theorems referenced?
What if the referenced theorems are "named theorems"?

These are my first publications, so I don't want them to have bad reception because of trivialities.

I don't really get the connection between your introduction and the actual question. I don't get which "problem" mentioned earlier (if there even is one) is solved by naming. What's wrong with just having Theorem 1, Lemma 2, Proposition 3 etc.? (Of course the question about naming theorems is still legitimate without connection to the other 2/3 of your text, but...)

@ChristianHennig think about it: you have a set of (demonstrated) theorems that you want to publish, but the content is too much for an article to contain, and you need to split the thing in two or more articles...then how do you go about it? For the naming part, it is easier for the to reader to refer to "the polynomial factorising theorem" rather than to the "theorem 2.6.18"... Specially if you use it a lot. Taking all these in account, it shouldn't be difficult to find the overall onnection of the question.

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree with this, but it's an interesting question anyway. (+1)

I do not understand why do you see any of these as problematic.

As a Coq user, I have to name my theorems

That's funny, I would have ranked lemma above proposition if I had to order them. I think of a proposition as anything I've proved that deserves to be stated formally, a lemma as a proposition that in addition is useful for later proofs, and a theorem as a proposition that is one of the paper's main results. I guess I just sort of inferred that from other papers though - I don't remember anyone telling me that's what the terms mean.

When I went through college, I was told that no theorem or discovery was ever named after the one who discovered/invented it. Go ahead and name it, but do so after someone who used it famously before, but don't stress if they were the ones that invented it. It's often more important that others know what you are talking about in many cases, and theorem attribution is a murky business at best. The Pythagorean Theorem wasn't even discovered by Pythagoras! Babylonians used a form of it centuries prior!

I don't think there's a consensus, but my own opinion is that giving both precise numbering, and a descriptive name, at least for more substantive results, is optimal. And referring to them by both.
An extreme case of really-unhelpful referencing purely by numerical labels is Bourbaki's textbooks, where, instead of saying something like "by the uniform boundedness theorem", the reference is something like "volume IX, chapter VII, theorem 3.11.5". :)

Thanks! What about the referencing of theorems in previous articles? That has to have at least some form of standard structure.

I don't think there's a standard... Perhaps it's not so important to have a standard structure, as to have a practical/usable structure. Even if a prior paper, by someone else, does not name their larger results, but just numbers them, I'd prefer to refer to the number and have a short phrase that tells what the result is... if at all possible... rather than just a bare "by 4.3.12 in [45]", ... which drives me crazy. :)

I remember a teacher who occasionally said things like "And in this situation we can apply the theorem we saw 3 weeks ago at 10:37"

Personally, I find it extremely helpful as a reader for an author to add a descriptive name for an important theorem they are presenting to me.  A clear descriptive name assists in referencing the theorem in prose and it also gives a prompt as to the substance of the result.  Note that in cases where a theorem is named after a person (e.g., the Neyman-Pearson lemma) the name is attributed later by others, and indeed, it would be a bit on-the-nose for an author to name their theorem with their own name.

Completely agree. By all means name your theorems, but naming it after yourself should be left to others who came after you and referred to your work.

Yes, a bit later i noticed that many of the "arrogance" arguments may have stemed from the concern of people  naming theorems after themselves. The example i chose about "Pythagoras' theorem" doesn't exactly diminishes that concern.

I would go on to say that "naming it after the author" probably evolves via citation. "As a result of CitedAuthor[N] Theorem X.Y.Z, ..." eventually becomes (if the result is important enough) "By CitedAuthor's Theorem, ..."

@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Which only happens if it doesn't have a useful descriptive name. So if you want a particular theorem to be named after you, give descriptive names to every theorem in the paper except that one. :-)


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Pharmaceutics PhD in the USA where most time is spent in home country
Can apply for a PhD in pharmaceutics or clinical pharmacy in the USA? I already have a master's degree from Egypt. I was told that it is possible to enroll in a PhD program there and travel to the USA for only 1-3 months per year and continue your work from your country. Is this true? If yes how can I apply? Will it be funded?

What you ask is unusual. Part time is likely a problem as is funding. In the US, the degree is probably called pharmacology. You can search for universities that have such doctoral programs. I guess (only guess) that clinical programs might be rare outside medical schools. Good luck.

Who told you this and can you ask them for more information? The general answer is "no" but it is possible there are specific programs that I wouldn't describe as you have but may come close.

The answer is of course "Yes, you can apply". But in truth, most institutions will consider your request a non-starter. Why would a university hire someone who is hardly ever there?


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Impact of master's thesis grade on PhD chances
I am a master's student in physics currently writing my master's thesis. I have been working for quite a while on this thesis because of various issues during the last 2 years.
I handed in my draft to my unofficial supervisor (junior research group leader). She said I need to rewrite parts of my results and discussion. I feel that she gave up on me. She gave me one last chance to deliver a last draft of my thesis. My self-confidence is not high in terms of writing because she said nothing positive in her feedback. I am worrying about my grade even she is not responsible for that.
When I get a bad grade, would that probably kill my chances to continue with a PhD?
I want to change my research area after my master's. I welcome any other advice. I doubt every word I write and this makes progress very slow.

You seem to be over thinking it and applying negative connotations where none is intended. That is, provided that her comments were constructive in that she let you know of necessary changes that would improve the thesis.
Not giving positive reinforcement is, perhaps, for a junior person not yet accomplished in giving feedback, just her shortcoming. If she focused on what you need to do, she might not have ever considered what you have already done that has value. That is her fault, not yours. As you say, the grade won't come from her.
Make any changes that you agree should be made. How a bad grade would affect you depends on lots of things, even the location. Some places it would be much like any other grade. Other places more important.
You might seek advice from a more senior person who is responsible for the grade, but probably after a rewrite.
But you seem overly pessimistic. Do what you can. You are a student, not yet a professional. Some stumbling is natural. But how you recover is more important.
In some places changing research direction after a masters is easy, other less so, but if you have knowledge of research process in the field, then the specific direction is less important than with a radical change. Don't worry yet about that.

I would suggest trying not to read too much into her feedback. Sometimes, I give only what seems like "negative" feedback to really good work. It is just natural for me to focus on what could be improved, because I'm trying to help students make their work even better. It is just my way of doing things, though I realise it might be discouraging for students. So, I'm trying not to forget to also point out all that I like about their work.
As for continuing with a PhD, that is tough to say without more context. In the fields/countries I know best, it is professors who are making decisions, and they don't usually look at grades. From my experience, they would prefer to consider a recommendation over a generic application. And if it is a cold application, they would rely on the prestige of your previous institution to decide on an interview. If you get to the interview stage, you would likely need to present your work, so your thesis could become important, but not so much the grade itself.

I have recently submitted and received grades on a Master's level dissertation, so I may be able to offer some reassurance. Whilst in the writing stage, I received notes on which areas needed development. This is a normal part of the writing process, and it's very common to need several drafts before you submit the final version.
In terms of PhD study, it depends on the institution as sometimes as they consider personal circumstances. While professors will mostly look at the quality of your proposal and recommendations, there are usually specified entry requirements. It's best too compile a list of institutions which could support your proposed research and then look at the entry requirements. In the United Kingdom, the entry requirements for PhD/DPhil level study vary from one institution to another. For example, a PhD from the University of Manchester often involves overall entry requirements in addition to specified average grades for each module, including the Postgraduate Dissertation. As a result, any module grade lower than this average would most likely lead to a rejection. Whereas, King's College, the University of London, will often specify the entry requirements as being the overall grade. However, the majority of institutions will request to see a sample of work which could include the Postgraduate Dissertation. Overall, it very much depends on the institution as some, as shown in my example, will not consider module grades below a certain average.
I appreciate that it could be different for your proposed country of study, but you didn't specify which country you would like to study within in the future. I hope this has been useful for you. Best of luck.


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Is it fine to use a startup as an affiliation?
My situation: I have finished university more than 10 years ago. I work for company X. I also own a small startup company called Y (no employees). I am in the process of publishing a paper and I was asked to provide an affiliation. Not providing one is not an option, in the sense it's a mandatory field on the form. I asked X and X said no, as I worked on the paper in my spare time.
Does it make sense to use Y as my affiliation (which is 100% true though not necessarily relevant)? The other option would be to try with something like "Independent researcher" and hope the journal is fine with it (idea came from here; example).
Relevant questions:

Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers?
Using home address when submitting an article with no affiliation?

Yes it's fine. I think the questions you linked answer this one.

Note ... the address you include in the paper should be somewhere you can be contacted in the future.  Perhaps years in the future.

@GEdgar that's a good idea in principle, but in practice a significant fraction of scientists are postdocs or PhD students with short-term contracts and no idea where they will be in 3 years.

@GEdgar There's been no mention of an address

There was a guy, who noted the address of a jail as an address for correspondence in a research paper. If an in-mate can do this and it's obviously Ok, you are fine anyway.

i can't recall details, but there is a high-profile author of peer-reviewed papers, who has his backyard shed as an affiliation

I was asked to provide an affiliation [for a paper]. Not providing one is not an option, in the sense it's a mandatory field on the form.

You could write N/A or unaffiliated, since this seems like the most relevant answer.

Does it make sense to use [my startup] as my affiliation (which is 100% true though not necessarily relevant)?

Just like your employer decided that they didn't want their company name on your paper, you should consider whether you want your startup name on your paper.

On an aside, I wonder whether an employer (generally) has the right to deny an employee of listing the employer as their affiliation. (Some employers -- especially those in R&D -- will explicitly define contractual conditions, but generally they will not.)

Extrapolating from that an employer can "set free" an invention the employee makes (at least that's how things work over here in Germany), I'd think they should be able to do the same with a paper.

@cbeleites An employer can make many things happen, but I'd like to consider the general case. (To my knowledge, inventions are always owned by inventors, not employers. But, contractual clauses can be defined to enable sale of inventions to employers.)

that depends a lot on legislation. Here in Germany, this is the general case in the sense that the legal default for both inventions and copyright-relevant IP is that as soon as it is relevant to the employer's business, it is theirs to exploit (including software written in the employee's free time!). The employment contract can assign these rights to the employee (highly non-standard), or the employer can declare on a case-by-case basis they don't want it. (In case of inventions: 3 weeks to decide) And there has to be fair compensation...

...  But if the employer says they don't want to have anything to do with it, I don't see how the employer can be affiliation for the paper. The fact that the inventor/author will always stay inventor/author is "bound" to the person, not to their employer in any case.

@cbeleites an employer might say "they don't want to have anything to do with it," but I'm unsure whether they'd have the right. For example, can an employer forbid an employee from listing the employer as such? On their LinkedIn profile, for instance. (Contractual) exceptions exist, e.g., some government employees, but what's the default? An author's affiliation is typically their employer. What rights do employers have to forbid employees stating their employer? (OT.The German system seems sensible: inventions are owned by inventors and sold to employers (if they want), in the default case.)

I'd think that to forbid stating the mere fact of employment (linkedin, CV, ...) the employer would need to show very good reasons (and BTW, over here employees have right to get a certificate of their working performance from the employer [which we use instead of letters of recommendation] and that anyways states who the employer is). But IMHO a paper affiliation signals more than the mere employment relationship, I'd say it means that the employee did that work on behalf of the employer, and that the employer agrees with the content. And while the question here doesn't look like a heavy...

...disagreement, IMHO in the extreme case of disagreement about the (scientific) content of the publication the employer should have the right to not be associated with the project. I.e., as a coauthor, I can solve such disagreements by saying "Let's agree to disagree, you go ahead with the paper, but please, I'd like to not be associated with it in any way". The other authors would not have the right to put me on the coauthor list in that case. I see the affiliation question in analogy to that.

@cbeleites Should "a paper affiliation [signal] more than the mere employment relationship"? I've seen journalists explicitly disconnect the role of affiliations, e.g., by explicitly stating the author may have conducted the research independently of their employer. I've also seen authors make such explicit disconnections. Moreover, it is common to list a current employer, even when the work was conducted under a different employer (an acknowledgement to the previous employer might be included).

I've asked a question how much of a connection between paper and institution an affiliation implies: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117429/what-does-affiliation-for-a-publication-signify

It sounds like the actual subject of your paper has nothing to do with your work on startup Y. In that case, I think it‘s more accurate to report your affiliation as “independent researcher”, “no affiliation”, or “N/A”. Readers of the journal simply aren’t going to care about your connection to the startup in a completely unrelated context; why distract them with irrelevant information?

I would use Y as my affiliation just to advertise my startup (this reason was not mentioned in the other answers).
I think readers do not care one way or another what the affiliation is - I certainly don't. No need to overthink this, it is also fine to add Independent researcher or No affiliation.

Using Y for advertising might backfire, as I mentioned "Just like your employer decided that they didn't want their company name on your paper, you should consider whether you want your startup name on your paper."

@user2768 What specific form will the backfiring take? Would some reader of the paper think less of the firm Y because it is the author's affiliation? Will someone Googling for firm Y and finding it as an affiliation on the paper think negatively of Y?

Numerous backfires are possible. One backfire tied to this particular instance is that readers might question why the startup owner is working on something completely irrelevant to the startup. Company owners should consider what they want associated with their name and only associate such material.


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Applying for postdoc positions without first author papers?
I have almost finished my PhD, and I'm looking for postdoc positions. I have found many of the job specifications mention having a good publication record, and some explicitly say the applicant should have impactful first author papers.
I currently have a first author review article and middle authorship on many original research papers (including several published during my PhD). My own original research paper(s) are 'in preparation' and most likely won't be published for another few months, i.e. after I hope to have secured the postdoc position. I have also presented my work at prestigious national and international conferences.
My question is, as a potential employer, how much weight would you actually put on publication record for a recent PhD? In particular, would you specifically be looking for first author papers, high impact journals etc? And if so, would this be a factor used to throw out applications at the initial stage, or would you consider such an applicant based on other merits?
Edited to add: The field I'm in is biomedical science.

I doubt that very many employers treat hiring post-docs as an accounting problem, counting up the chits. Instead, I would ask, how do your skills meet our needs? Some places with great reputations and heavy competition for positions want a way to encourage only the top candidates to apply, but even there, they have needs for skills that you may have, or not.
As in any application, stress your positives, your skills, and interests. If you get rejected then keep looking. The competition may be at a high level, but the evaluation is much more varied than just counting publications.

I agree with the other answer by Buffy in that post-doc positions will be looking for particular skills, although publication record is important too, and different post-doc positions are different. Some will be taking you on to do a particular project, others will expect you to be more independent.
Particularly for a more independent project, not having first-author papers might suggest you haven't quite gotten all the skills of the research process down (at least compared to the other candidates you will compete with). For other positions, though, it may simply be hard enough to find someone with your skills and it won't matter.
This is one situation where I would suggest including your in-progress work on your CV in some way. If you have presented it at conferences, include that with a note that the manuscript is in preparation.
However, you should also have a realistic view of publishing after you leave your PhD. If you are being hired as a post-doc, you are going to be expected to do work in your new lab. Post-docs are typically for short terms, and I wouldn't want to hire someone who plans to work on publishing three separate papers on the side during their first (and maybe only) year in my lab. I think this is a bigger potential problem than not having first-author papers on your CV.
I'm not sure what the reasons are for needing a few more months to get that work polished up, but I'd strongly suggest you put a huge emphasis on getting that work at least to a submittable form. It's one thing to work on some minor corrections once you've moved on, but having manuscripts not yet ready to submit could be a bit of a problem on both ends.


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Is my Ph.D. research topic worthy?
I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the Industrial Engineering department and my supervisor owns a company based on the technology which I initially intended to work on under his supervision. I am mostly interested in the technical aspects of his work, for example, modifying software and hardware to enhance the capability of the existing method. But my supervisor wants me to work on validation of his product to be clinically approved.
I have already submitted a paper (under review) based on validation of his product and now he wants my whole Ph.D. to be based on validation by preparing more validation papers. I am good with programming and software (my initial interest) but he thinks I am not capable of doing that for the product development. More importantly, he wants me to publish papers on behalf of his product for FDR approval which later I found out his primary purpose.
With this topic neither can I publish original scientific research work since all my papers will be based on validation of an existing product nor can I gain expertise about any tools or software. Will it worth later if I stick to it and manage to get a Ph.D.?

Sounds like a bad situation in that the guy is using you to forward a commercial venture.  Fishing off the company pier...

You might consider using an anonymous account for this question

I did not realized that...thanks @YuvalSpiegler

I don't have an answer, but I propose to think about the situation in this way. We can discuss how ethical is your supervisor's attempt to use you as an instrument in pushing his product to the market. Perhaps, not too ethical, but the real issue is that you and your supervisor (whoever he/she is) will almost always have distinct goals. Suppose your supervisor is doing a noncommercial drug research for saving lives. It still won't change much for you, since your interest is in the tech side, while his interest is in drug validation.
In a perfect world I would say that you have to seek an advisor whose goals are completely in line with your interests. However, in practice it rarely happens — we are all different people with different goals. So while in this case you have also this ethical issue to think about, in general you really have to negotiate. Yes, you are doing some work for your supervisor. However, you have your own interests to pursue, so you should find some commond grounds. Like "I am doing this work for you, but since I am interested to explore the technology/method X, I want to use it and write a paper about it". If you are a really good tech specialist, I think your supervisor should value your contribution and be unhappy to lose you.

At some point, if you are to have an academic career, and maybe any career, you are going to have to separate yourself from this advisor. I question his ethics, actually, in keeping you so close to something from which he benefits outside academia.
If you state correctly that he is only letting you work on less consequential aspects, I doubt that he will offer you great support in the future. This seems like a double dead end.
But quitting seems like it would be too extreme a step, also cutting off your future career.
My suggestion would be to explore, quietly, with other faculty, whether you can work with them on a dissertation, perhaps cutting ties with your current advisor or perhaps working jointly on another project that is unrelated, or at least less related, to the current advisor's company.
It is important to keep your search a bit quiet, if possible, though you can explain your reasoning to other professors, I think. I would first look within your current institution, and if nothing is available, start an external search for an advisor. It may be possible to enter another program as an advanced student, skipping some/many of the requirements that you have already fulfilled.
There isn't much in doctoral study than having an incompatible or somehow unhelpful advisor. You can, I hope, solve that problem without quitting your studies altogether.


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From "Review in progress" to "Ready to review"
I understand that this question is related to a workflow of a journal and have tried to look at the answer of this specific query but am not able to find a specific answer anywhere else. The query is
I had send a paper to a reputed journal. Its status for the past month was "Review in progress". After more than a month, its status changed to "Ready to review". What does this mean? How could the status for atleast one month be "Review in progress" and then change to "Ready to review".

Have you researched this topic on here?

Yes. As much as I could have, I did it

These status in online manuscript portals can't be interpreted much. These are my interpretations:

Review in Progress - When Editor(s) were reviewing for the quality check of the manuscript. ---> Ready to Review - by the Peer-reviewers.
Review in Progress - Reviewers were reviewing ---> Review in Progress - Editors have got the review comments. They will make a decision soon.
Review in progress - Reviewers were being selected and the requests to them had been sent ---> Now they have accepted the requests and start reviewing soon.

I had a similar experience. I contacted the Editor, and it turned out that one of the reviewers they contacted backed out of reviewing my paper, so the progress went back to something like "ready to review" (not those exact same words, I can't remember the exact status, but basically is a step back from being reviewed or in progress). I never would have known that if I didn't contact the Editor. A polite email to the editor won't hurt. IMHO.

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


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Awaiting AE assignment to Under Review?
I have submitted a paper to a very reputed publication of electrical engineering via ScholarOne.The status of my paper changed from "Awaiting AE assignment" to "Under Review" directly. Does it mean that is under the review of editorial office? Could it change from Awaiting AE assignment to Under Review directly without AE being assigned ?

Could not find answer at above link. My question is, what does change of status directly from "Awaiting AE assignment" to "Under Review" imply ?

It probably just happened quickly. This is peer review - it's not a well oiled machine. Take pride in knowing you passed the first benchmark and keep your fingers crossed R1 and R2 are kind. R3 is always a wildcard.  :)

Does your answer imply that reviewers have been assigned and it is past the desk reject hurdle ?  Paper is submitted via ScholarOne

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


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What does status "Undisclosed" means for a conference paper
I had sent a paper in a reputed conference. The status changed from "Under review" to "Decision pending" to "Undisclosed".
What is the meaning of status "Undisclosed" ? Does it indicate something?

It indicates that the conference system has a tendency to provide useless information that will, at best, send some of the authors round the bend.

"Undisclosed" means that the conference chair (or the in-charge of decisions) has already made a decision based on the comments received from the reviewers, but the decision is not yet made visible to the authors.
Wait for the decision notification date. You can see it on that date.


text:
Under review since 9 months. Shall I send another email
First, I would like to mention that I saw that there are similar questions about this topic on this site but this one is very specific whose answer I could not find anywhere. The query is as follows.
I had sent a manuscript to a springer electrical Journal, 10 months back. For 3 months, the status showed "With Editor". Then finally it changed to "Under Review". For the past seven months, it is "Under Review". One month back, I had sent a polite enquiry to a person in editorial office about my paper. He replied that he was sorry and he has contacted senior editor to speed up the process. Today, exactly one month has passed since his reply and the status still remains under review. The average time taken for the first decision as mentioned on the official journal website is 3.5 months. My fear is that the article has already taken nearly a year since I had send it and if there is any more delay, I would not be in a position to send it to any other journal because the proposed approach will become old by then. Shall I send another email to the editorial staff, given that I had already sent another email just a month before? What kind of email can be sent in such a situation ?

A related question? https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/107492/72855

Possible duplicate : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/62789/72855

@SolarMike, the first link that you have mentioned is not a duplicate. That is for another paper in a completely different journal. Regarding the second link, that is also not seemingly a duplicate as here I wished to know whether it was correct to send a email and how to write that email, given that I have already sent it  a month back.

There are some examples of wording in this answer: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/88355/is-my-paper-under-review-or-similar-for-too-long-and-if-yes-how-should-i-reac

Yes. The person you contacted in the editorial office is paid to answer queries like yours. It's exactly why the publisher employs them! Feel free to email again, just don't be abusive (they do not directly handling your paper, and they cannot act without the editorial board's approval). I also suggest against threatening to withdraw your paper, because it's likely to be ineffective. At most the editorial office can only forward your message to the handling editor, and they're likely to say "okay, you can withdraw it" especially since they're evidently having trouble finding reviewers.
As for what to write in the email, it's up to you depending on what you want to know. You could ask them to chase the handling editor again. It's also possible they might be willing to tell you more details about the manuscript's status: how many reviewers have been invited, how many reviews have been completed (if any), when further reviews are expected (if there are reviewers who've agreed to review but have not submitted), and so on.

Of course I don't want to withdraw the paper and start this procedure all over again in another journal. Is it correct/pertinent to mention that I am completing my M.Tech degree in a short time from now and I would be very grateful if they can expedite the process of peer review

@ShiS The idea behind submitting elsewhere is that even though you might be starting the peer review process from scratch, perhaps the other journal's editors are more energetic and can make a decision faster. There's no way to know beforehand what will happen - perhaps if the editorial office tells you the status of the reviews you'll be able to make a more informed decision. As for mentioning whether you're completing your M.Tech degree, it won't hurt, but it also likely won't help; it's the editorial board that's causing the delays, not the editorial office.

I had sent a polite email as mentioned in the above comments and answers. They have replied saying that they are awaiting a reviewers report and would give a decision as soon as they receive the review. So, finally I at-least got to know the status of my paper.

UPDATE: No decision yet. It will be 10 months in a few days from now. Guess I have to be patient and wait forever. In the past 3 months, I have been doing one email every 30 days. It is surprising how such a reputed publication and a  journal having a good impact factor could take so much time

@ShiS Was this ultimately successful?

@Doubt, No They took 14 months to give the final decision

@ShiS; What was the decision? Did they accept?

@Math_Freak It was a rejection

@ShiS; do you mind telling how the comments were, actually i am in a similar situation , it has been nearly 9 months

@ShiS;i am sending emails every 1 month but the editor told me they cant do anything, i also need to complete my degree so i was thinking what type of comments did you receive as reviews from the journal office

@Math_Freak The review of the paper took its time, irrespective of my emails in that journal. The comments were not positive, leading to rejection of paper. In case you want to complete your degree, you can send the paper to another journal in your area which takes comparatively lesser time


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Can I use my old university email for signing up on arxiv?
It has been a couple of years since I graduated from my institution, but can I sign up on arxiv using my university email? I want to submit a preprint of my paper

Did you read the terms&conditions of arxiv? what do they say?

They said that it is okay if there is an affiliation through an email address, but I am a former student with a permanant active email address. I wanted to know if it was okay to consider this as a case of active affiliation

In a comment you state " I have a permanant email address from my former institution, but I am currently an intern and working under a temporary email ID" are you an intern in the university? Not clear.
Additionally, " this research is from my previous internship" this is a big issue, are you sure you can publish intellectual work you performed during your previous internship?

Obviously, there is no intellectual property issue. My temporary email is from my internship at a different institution, and my university email is permanent and still active.

I think you are playing with words. An active email from an university is usually sufficient proof of being affiliated to an university. But in itself, the active email means
nothing. If you are affiliated with an university, you will for sure have an active email, but the contrary is not true.
Make your life easier: instead of asking random people in the internet, ask directly  your university if you can consider yourself still affiliated with them.

A starting point is 'what's your affiliation with your (former) university'
Whatever it is, whatever is applicable will determine whether the light is green or red.

Is there any reason why you can't sign up with your current email(s)?
Do you have adjunct or associate position or affiliated link to your university

Extract: Arxiv policy note on email
It is a violation of our policies to misrepresent your identity or organizational affiliation. Claimed affiliation should be current in the conventional sense: e.g., physical presence, funding, e-mail address, etc. Misrepresentation of identity or affiliation, for any reason, is possible grounds for immediate and permanent suspension.

Hi, thank you for your response. I have a permanant email address from my former institution, but I am currently an intern and working under a temporary email ID. In addition, this research is from my previous internship, so I cannot use this company's email. I saw that an active email address qualifies as a qualification of affiliation, so would it be alright to sign up, in your opinion?


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Cannot travel for second interview for post-doctorate position due to visa issues, will it reflect badly on me?
I am a PhD student from India.
I have been called for a personal second round interview for a post-doc position in the Netherlands just a few days ago. The call for the second interview is due this month (March). I may not be able to travel there due to visa issues (short-notice period). After talking to their HR, they are given me an option for an online presentation. I am worried whether it is going to reflect negatively on me some sort of disadvantage in the selection process.
Thanks!

The modality you will give the talk will not affect you, it was not going to affect your rating before COVID, it is not going to affect it after 2 years of lockdowns/home office etcetc.
However, you have a disadvantage: you cannot properly evaluate the "mood" of the department and of your potential colleagues. Interviews are a mutual evaluations, do not focus too much on yourself, focus on them.

Thank you for your honest feedback.

Make sure that your visa problem won't prevent you from going to the Netherlands to take up the postdoc position if it's offered to you. And then make sure that the interviewers know that.

@AndreasBlass yes true that, its hard to get visa when the days are numbered (15 days). But if offered a position I will have time to apply in advance. But thank you for your feedback


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Is it okay to include modified source code from Github with due credit in masters thesis?
I apologize if a similar question has been asked and answered before or if the question does not belong here, however, I am in a major dilemma at the moment and extremely stressed out over plagiarism and my research integrity. To give context, a major part of my master's research was based on an open source code on Github (original author released the code with MIT License, so it could be modified and published), and I used the original Python script and modified it to fit the purposes of my research. So, all of my results pertaining to a particular part of my research is heavily based on the original author's work with some of my modifications.
I have already defended and passed my thesis defense and I am getting ready to finalize and submit my thesis. I have also cited the original author multiple times throughout my thesis. However, I was told by my advisor and committee that I must copy/paste all of my code in the appendices, which I did. Even though I have provided all due credit to the original author, I am not sure my university will see it that way as the code has been modified and pasted. Would it be okay to state and mention in my thesis chapters as well as the appendix that the original code was released with MIT license as well as a Github link to the original author's Github? Thank you for your help.

Fear not! It sounds as if you have passed the major hurdles. Now you just have to tick the required boxes, show that you have done so. ... and deal with your own anxiety.
The main things, to my mind, are

to ensure that you have complied with  requirements of the MIT licence
to make clear to readers of the thesis that you have done so.

The MIT license is very permissive. The license grants to any person who obtains a copy of the software and associated files the right to use, copy, modify, merge, distribute, publish, sublicense, and sell copies of the software. In return for the grant of permissions, you are obliged to include the same copyright notice in all copies of the software or in any substantial portion of the software.
Check that you have done those things!
In addition, I would be inclined to

include a copy (!) of the MIT licence as an appendix to your dissertation
state early on in the thesis, where you begin to talk about your own work, that it "represents a development of software previously developed by XYZ (2010) and released by her under the MIT licence (see Appendix W)".
state explicitly that you have complied with the license conditions and point to the place(s) in your thesis that show your compliance. For example, point to the place where your reproduce the appropriate copyright notice.

In the bibliography where you put the reference to XYZ, you can indicate the date on which you downloaded the software, the version you downloaded, and the site whence it came. If you are still feeling anxious about it, check with your university administration.

Possibly each instance of derivative code should have an accompanying citation (i.e., each instance of derivative code can point to the same entry in your bibliography).


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How open are advisors to accepting PhD students with research proposals relevant to, but outside, their specific focus?
Say somewhere out there, a prospective PhD student is applying for the following fall semester admission and has identified several potential advisors, and emails them to discuss how they'd be a good fit for the advisors' labs and research goals. The student's research proposal bridges two relevant fields yet distinct fields, say, control theory and hypersonic flight; but, this intersection isn’t currently a focus in their labs, which lean more toward vehicle/material design. How inclined would the professors be to consider taking on this student in their labs?

Is this just about how they will like if you send this as research proposal, or are you really determined to do it, and looking for a supervisor for exactly this project? In some places they want you to send a research proposal, but what happens when you actually start there is a different story.

Very very few applicants know enough about the field to know what a good research proposal would actually be.

The answer might be different for an applicant that comes with funding and an applicant expecting to be funded by a grant that the professor has but is tied to some project with its own reserach line.

I'm not exactly determined to specifically pursue what I'm proposing as I understand that an advisor knows what is the best direction for a student to conduct research in. To be honest, I did not consider before that funding is a much bigger factor for any advisor, so I have to be absolutely convinced that the lab I hope to research in very closely lines up with what I hope to do.

In my field (neuroscience; biomedical science) PhD students are normally paid from their advisor's grants and incur research expenses that are paid from their advisor's grants. There is some freedom to pursue future directions under the general umbrella of a previous grant, but otherwise it doesn't really matter what the professor wants exactly. If they don't have a grant for the project a student wants to do, then they can't really take them on.
Your field may differ, but I'll caution you that a frequent genre of question on this site is something along the lines of "my advisor doesn't understand/isn't an expert in my topic. I'm now in my 4th year of my PhD and haven't made any progress and there isn't anyone around who can help me". In many of these cases, the student is blaming their advisor for these circumstances and I can't help but be quite puzzled about where that conclusion came from.

Let me add to the answer of Bryan Krause for fields like math and CS. This answer has a US perspective.
The difference is that funding normally comes from the department in the form of a TA or (more rarely) an RA. It is usually, not always, independent of grants to the supervisor. Thus, there are fewer formal blocks.
But even then, advisors are, and should be, reluctant to take on a student who proposes something outside their specialty. It will make it difficult to advice that student; difficult to suggest resources, difficult to suggest approaches, difficult to evaluate the work.
That doesn't mean impossible. Occasionally a student will come along who can actually produce doctoral level results without any help at all. The problem here is that those students are hard to recognize, especially with the required accuracy. If the wrong choice is made a student could wind up like the horror stories that Bryan mentions.
In summary, it is a dangerous situation with a too-high likelihood of failure. I'd guess that fewer than one out of a hundred doctoral students could manage it. I don't think that any of my peers (in a very large math department) could have done so. The advisors advice is just too valuable, but they have to be knowledgeable about the specific sub-field to give good advice.
One of the problems is that in theoretical fields, insight into what is going on can be very narrowly focused. As an example, a topologist would probably not be a good advisor for someone working in analysis. And that would be especially true in more modern sub-fields.
Not impossible, but beware.

True, although my own graduate work (in mathematics) was a counterexample. My advisor, Andy Gleason,  preferred it when his students found their own problems - whidch I did. Of course he was himself such a generalist that I got lots of necessary good guidance.

From the talk about Hypersonics and Controls, I'll assume you're a prospective student in Aerospace Engineering.  I'm a former professor in Aerospace (albeit at a non Ph.D. granting institution).
In Engineering in the USA, if you aren't funded to get a Ph.D., you don't belong there.
Your professor's job is to apply for grants and contracts in order to fund students.  In turn, students then work within the grants and contracts to earn their keep.  If they're smart, they align their dissertation research with that work so they can graduate efficiently.
There are fellowships (NSF and DOD mainly) that a student can apply for to 'self fund'.  A self-funded student will be welcomed by most professors and will be given more latitude to choose their own research direction.
Some schools will admit MS students without specific funding from an advisor and/or without a specific advisor assigned.  These students will typically be funded by a Teaching appointment and will be expected to transition to a fellowship or Research appointment after their first year or two.
Sometimes you can work to separate your dissertation topic from the contract work you do, but you are certainly setting yourself up for more work -- this freedom is more often granted to senior grad students.
All that said, Hypersonics is a hot area these days.  Most good research universities will have at least someone working in Hypersonics.  Someone working in a broad field (like Design or Controls) may well be willing to look for Hypersonics work even if they haven't done it in the past.  The same is true for someone working in CFD or Optimization or Aeroelasticity -- these kinds of folks are more likely to be Mach number agnostic than someone who works on scramjets or fundamental fluids, etc.
All the interesting work in Hypersonics these days is closely guarded.  Assuming you are a US person, I would suggest you look for an advisor who works in Hypersonics and has a close relationship (established funding record) with the DOD working on Hypersonics.
If you are a non-US person, I suggest you do not work in Hypersonics.  It is a fascinating area, but you'll never escape the challenges of working on a militarized technology as  non-US person.  There are many other interesting problems to work on that won't be anywhere near as sensitive.

Assuming the professor knows enough about the topic to supervise a PhD student on it (see Bryan Krause's and Buffy's answers), then my understanding is as long as there is funding, they're likely to be interested. They might even view it as a positive (since it broadens their research programs).
The caveat of course is as long as there is funding. Funding of this kind can come from:

The student finds it somehow (scholarship from home country or employer or rich philanthropist, self-funding, etc.).
There's a research grant with a component for hiring PhD students.
The student wins a scholarship from the university (example).

Given that the topic is not currently a focus of their lab, #2 is not probable. That leaves #1 and #3, both of which depend strongly on the applicant. #1 requires the applicant to secure funding themselves; #3 requires them to win what is likely to be a highly competitive studentship. Neither of this is going to be easy (although admittedly graduate admissions itself is not easy).

Scholarships are the normal means of funding PhD students in Australia, but most advisors would still be reluctant to take on a student who wasn’t working on a topic directly related to their existing research because they also need to be able to justify the time they put into the project themself: much easier to do if the student is working on something relevant to their own grants.

@Significance I don't read the OP's question as a topic [not] directly related to their existing research though. It seems more like it's a topic that is related to their previous research, but isn't a current focus. In that case, I imagine a free student is highly desirable (assuming one has capacity for another student).

A good advisor will only take you on if they are convinced they can supervise you well enough so that you will succeed in your PhD.  A failed PhD student is not only bad for the PhD student, but also looks bad upon the advisor.  Now, how confident exactly an advisor is to get out of their core focus and still be a reliable source of supervision, strongly depends on the individual and is not generally answerable.
However, some advisors may take you on and then be not great at supervision (see other answers).  So you should not only make sure they are willing to take you on, but also convince yourself that they will be able to supervise you well on a topic outside their core focus.

I don't know about other parts of the world, but in the US, the prof will, or should, be pretty laser focused on advancing their own research.  The far more typical path for a student is to break off a chunk of the advisor's portfolio, and get their experience there, as opposed to having a research plan and shopping for an advisor to host it.
I suppose if the research areas align closely enough, a prof can be nudged in the students' direction, but not without limit.
The one place I tend to encounter rising seniors in college with a developed research plan is in the GRFP process.  Many of the proposals one encounters during that process have sort of a pipe dream aspect that I'm not particularly comfortable with.

You might name a field that your answer pertains to.

I will second your comment on the GRFP aspect. I've encountered it too many times. I find those students know just enough to be "dangerous", and have the self-confidence to see it through, often to their own detriment.

@R1NaNo  it's the strangest thing to me.  A whole panel of reviewers sits there and sort of makes believe that the proposed research will maybe happen, knowing full well that maybe it won't.  I do think that the process tells reviewers a whole bunch about the student, but would really prefer a process that requires less make believe on everybody's part.

@ScottSeidman it is truly not a great process, and I personally do not like judging these proposals. You have to suspend belief that these students will make a worthwhile PhD out of their imagination. This is especially true in lab-based research groups where regardless of the GRFP (which is salary), the student will be bound by the projects and resources of the PIs research focus. The only real value I find from these in learning about the student to see if they write cohesively, and can they make good figures.

@R1NaNo we're about in the same place.  I'm uncomfortable with it that I stopped reviewing them.


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Requesting for my class rank information after graduation
For advance and challenging courses undertaken in one's undergraduate academic career, absolute grades or GPA does not necessarily indicates the abilities of a student. This is especially so where grade inflation is more rampant than before and tougher courses are not weighted.
Class rank might be a more accurate way to signal that student's abilities relative to his/her cohort. In particular, the physics department with which I did my undergraduate do not partake in scaling of grades.
Suppose I would like to obtain my class rank after graduation, what would be the most appropriate channel to do so?

Do you mean "rank within one course in one semester", or "rank among all of the peers that are graduating with the same degree at the same time"? The former you can ask the professor. The latter I suspect is something that nobody tracks.

Yes, rank within one course.

Just ask the professor!


text:
Is it socially appropriate to ring up a professor whom you have corresponded with briefly by email?
A couple of weeks back I sent an email to a professor in a University in my home country with whom I have never known on any personal or professional level. My intention was to seek potential collaborations with him as a recent graduate with a BSc should I return home.
He did replied and to which I responded. One of his question to me was whether I am happy to collaborate without being paid to which I replied, "Yes, I am happy but I am only able to work on any project outside of standard office hours due to foreseeable industry commitment".
Since then, I have not received any replies.
Would it be appropriate for me to ring him up?

Did he include his phone number in his signature?  Have you tried a second email where you ask if all is well?  Who knows, he may have the flu, be on vacation, be in the midst of a work crunch.

No, there are no contacts in his signature but his mobile phone exists in his CV which is on the directory.
I have just dropped him a second email.

I would hesitate to use the phone number in that case.  If he had included it in an email directed to you, that would give you more of an opening.

@aparente001
The professor in question has replied and extended an in-person meeting.
Thank you.

Possible duplicate of How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?

You can ring him on his office phone if that is helpful
Unless you already have a close pre-existing relationship that would make a phone call to a personal number appropriate, you should avoid contacting a professor on their personal phone number.  However, you can contact the professor on their office phone if you want, since that is a general line appropriate for enquiries.  (Most professors will have a phone number listed in their email signature; you can use this number to contact them.)  I see no reason to avoid contact by office phone for any enquiry relevant to this professor --- that is a standard method of contact for professionals.
Bear in mind that many professors pay less attention to their office phone than to their email, especially if they are working away from the office (e.g., due to COVID).  Phone calls to the office phone will often go through to voice-mail and some academics take a long time to respond to this.  (Some never check it at all.)  Partly for that reason, phone contact in academia is actually quite rare, but you can certainly give it a try.

I don't quite agree with the other answer, even though the author certainly had good intentions when writing it.
The answer to whether or not it's appropriate to phone a professor, when you've only briefly communicated with them in the past, will depend on where you are and the culture in that region, but in most countries it is not a good idea anymore (in the year 2021).
In the past, phoning people (perhaps including professors) was much more acceptable, but things have changed and nowadays even some of my closest friends won't answer my phone call if they don't recognize my phone number, because of the increased prevalence of spam phone calls these days. Occasionally some of my students add me on LinkedIn or other social media, but the vast majority of them do not even contact me electronically, and contacting me by telephone is absolutely unheard of nowadays.
In your specific case, based on the reply this professor gave to your email, and the fact that he had made his phone number available in a place that's publicly visible, phoning him could be okay, but the risks outweigh the benefits because it may be seen as being very unusual, and not all professors will be happy to find that a student it phoning them. It's a risk I personally would not recommend for you to take, if the gain that you get from it is simply a chance at a faster response to your email.
The best course of action is to:

send follow-up emails,
ask mutual connections (such as friends of yours who are already working closely in this  professor's research group),
visit the professor's office (if the university isn't in some type of COVID lockdown!),
(specific to your case): find alternative professors with whom you may wish to do your research project, because if this one is not replying several emails in a row, maybe they are not very interested in taking a new student right now, or perhaps they're not very good at communicating via email (my ideal supervisor would be one that responds to emails in a reasonably timely manner when compared to others in the same industry).

I don't see any problems for you to call him.
If you want answers quick, this is the best way to achieve it. If you feel a bit uncomfortable calling him, then I suggest that you "ping" him by re-sending your last email, or that you ask him if he can reply to the previous message.
Teachers at my university, some have their phone number or numbers (both private and work, though private is not mandatory) listed at the university website so that students can reach them outside of working hours if it's urgent.
So having students call them is nothing new and shouldn't be a problem.

Private number? This is odd to me. I would never put my private number online and I would feel very uncomfortable being reached through my private number.

It is not mandatory for the teachers to put their private numbers up, but a few have done that for students the reach them within reasonable hours. @TheDoctor

@TheDoctor - I've seen people put their phone number in their CV, which they then post online.  I think they are trusting an unspoken honor system, whereby if they haven't offered their phone number to someone specifically (such as in a signature), people will hesitate to use it.


text:
What should be taken note of in collaborating with professors/ researchers?
Recently, as a fresh graduate with a BSc in both physics and mathematics, I've met up with a mathematics professor from a University in my home country.
During the discussion, he asked for my motivation in collaborating and I've made it clear to him that my objective is

1) To indulge in research during my time in industry
2) To obtain significant research experiences during the period in which we collaborate to strengthen my application for graduate admission.

We will be working on two future research directions built on a previously published paper of his. I have been told not to share the two future research directions until the paper is published. Further, he has not commenced on this research project yet due to teaching commitments.
But, currently, I am picking up background knowledge related to this paper while familiarising myself with his previously published paper that is related to this current research.
This research looks something on the level of an Msc or honours level thesis.
He has made it clear that in collaborating, he expects results.
In academia parlance, is it clear to academics that given (2) or the fact that he expects results, it is implicitly known that I expect a co-authorship?
If it isn't, how should I broach this topic?
If it is, how do I ensure that he sticks to his word, assuming I do make a reasonable amount of contribution?
To what degree should transparency be ensured?

I think you will want to broach rather than poach the topic.

If this is your first real experience of research, please use this as a way of getting your feet wet, and learning how to do research.  I would advise against advocating for co-authorship with the professor in the early stage.  It could be seen as counting your chickens before they're hatched, or as a way of asking the professor to count his/her chickens before they're hatched.
Edit: I suppose you could let him know that you actually have a third objective which you forgot to mention -- to get a co-authorship.  But try to come across as ambitious and eager, rather than arrogant.  You said a primary goal is to get a strong reference for grad school.

Yes, I understand this is a very touchy issue. Would it be appropriate to suggest a co-authorship if my contributions are substantial?

This will vary from place to place, of course, according to the culture of the country/University your collaborator comes from but, in general, if you will be doing original work that is eventually published, based on results you obtain yourself (even if they build on some previous work and even if you rely occasionally on the more experienced researcher for orientation) it is definitely expected that you will be offered at least co-authorship.
Authorship costs nothing to either part and it's not really expected that anyone will put in their time and effort without at least the recognition of having done it. In my alma mater, if you do original research as a Master's student under a Professor which results in a published work as a part of your Master's thesis - and when this happens it's virtually always the student's first time doing research - you absolutely are expected to get authorship in the resulting paper.
If you are unsure about the local culture, my advice would be to ask a few PhD students if they published anything for their Master's. If they were allowed authorship then, chances are you will be as well.
I hope this helps and good luck in your research!


text:
Pessimistic with direction of academia-industry project
I am a recent fresh graduate who came from math and physics. Recently (< 4 weeks), I've taken on a junior research role in a research institute within a University.
This particularly university - and those in this country - have extremely strong collaborations with industry partners so work in Universities in this country is divided into pure/ fundamental research and industry-driven research. The University houses corporate research labs.
The project I am working on right now is in the area of air traffic. I report to a fellow (academic title) who comes from industry who is only focused on research in operations/ convincing stakeholders and sponsors.
Research because everything he proposes and investigates are qualitative and conceptual without any justifications with mathematics in an area which presumably requires mathematical models to validate ideas.
Granted that I have been in this role for <4 weeks, I am miserable and I believe I will continue to feel so.
1)
I believed I was overpromised.
I was promised that I would be working alongside professors to develop new mathematical models for air traffic.
It turns out I am the only person from math and physics. The rest are from engineering or industrial design field.
2)
Much of my time would be involved with producing white papers and policy recommendations for management of future air traffic
3) I am pushed to pursue a PhD (comes with scholarship) which, with internal discussion, would allow me to move into a PhD program even with an average BSc grades since the director of the research institute is the PI for the PhD program.
However, my thesis would have to be in the area of air traffic.
My interest is in Abstract Algebra, Topology and Quantum mechanics and I'll like to pursue this in a year or two time when I return back to University.
4) The fellow I report too is really a project manager in disguise. Every discussions with him mainly revolves around stakeholder expectations and  targeted objectives.
A good case scenario is this: He engages a visiting scholar who has done a PhD thesis in air traffic modelling, look to see how the idea in the thesis could be extended to specific circumstances (without much modification to the mathematical model in the thesis) for national interest before suggesting a feasibility write up on why this works.
From here, it is already obvious that nothing of substance could be published in respectable journals.
I am afraid that my current research role will not provide me with a stronger exposure to math or physics in the fundamental sense.
What is the best course of action?

I am a Math person. I also used to work in ATM. I guess I understand your feelings. I think ATM is a good industry career, but not necessarily a good theoretical area for you to do fundamental research in. It's application oriented. No matter how good your theory or idea is, it will be rejected if enough pilots/ATC controllers are against.it. So, yes, don't do it if you dislike it. On the other hand, I guess you understand how tough it will be if you want to stay on fundamental research. It's up to you. Good luck.

@scaaahu How easy would it be for a person with my academic background and a few years of experience in ATM to move into the more fundamental research area in defence?

@scaaahu I am located in the asia pacific/ asia region

Do not do a PhD in a field you are not interested in. And do not choose a field of research for your degree just because of convenience (offer/opportunity). I cannot emphasise that enough. In addition, switching topics drastically after a PhD is very difficult. It is possible, but I have seen it rarely succeed. Usually, people start with a related topic and then drift away in the direction they are interested in. However, drifting from ATC to Topology/QM does not look obvious; Quantum airplanes? Topological path planning? Braid groups for flight patterns? Perhaps...

@CaptainEmacs I truly like your comment above. Your ideas are marvelous.

@CaptainEmacs I am fully aware. Your comment would be helpful for the wider community.
It is the reason why I am unmoved to take up the offer.

I thought it too short/limited for an answer, but given your positive reactions, I posted it below as a proper answer. If people are happy with that, I'll remove the comment later.

Sadly, it seems that the link between industry and academia is weak even in universities where, in your words, industry collaborations are strong.
I'm not from the same field, so this isn't domain specific. But having had some similar experience along the industry-institute faultline, maybe I can point out a few things to think about:
(1) There is a big gap between what you were expecting and what you're getting, and this may not change significantly as you go along. Best to accept that. You may like to take a rigorous look at academic careers and see how much of your expectation will be met there, and whether other hurdles could offset these advantages.
(2) Graduate courses in these fields, one way or another, prime us to think of academic careers as a default option. Truth be told, not everyone is cut out for those. So you could take a hard look at whether this line is your own goal or your conditioning.
(3) You mentioned getting a PhD offer despite average grades- this is a lesson that in the long term, the initial years may matter less. Maybe this could apply to your career as well, this research project being the initial years and your career being the long term. Perhaps the 'national interest' bit is significant; it can be a strong motivator if it really is true.
(4) There is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the fellow you report to; this can be symptomatic of cultural (institute culture, not  national/community culture) differences. Such research institutes often have very specific mandates, and people who work there fall in line despite their initial desires. Some find satisfaction after doing so, others don't. It's difficult to know in advance where you will stand. But you can be sure of one thing- if you cannot align yourself culturally, you are unlikely to be happy.

The weakest link is in the source of funding. The matter is made worst by program directors/ fellows who comes from industry with zero idea the realities and culture in research.
Project managers have an incentives to satisfy corporate milestones.

...and they feel the same about us. The common belief is that researchers have zero idea about real world realities, and our incentives are publication milestones. I told you, it's a faultline, across which the other side seems wrong. Truth is, neither view is helpful at the end of the day. But seeing how strongly you feel about this, it seems like a no-brainer for you to drop this. :)

@user153812 That may be. But while industry has to operate under pressure of time and operational constraints, the whole point of having academia is to provide for investigating possible open routes without being coerced to make things operational at the end. Let's face it - it is perfectly ok if people want to work for applications, or in applied science, but the pressure for applications is now pervading almost all fields of science and is seriously degrading the opportunities for blue-sky investigations. It's often breakthroughs in the latter that are key for "disruptive" technologies.

@Captain Emacs - At no point am I suggesting that blue-sky research is less important than applied research. The acrimony and divide between the two is what I don't  stand for. I'm urging OP not to take a polarised view against the institute, which I detect undercurrents of.  This too, is suggested because OP is evidently looking at some applied work (hence the chosen project field), and a balanced view will only help him/her with that.

@user153812 Indeed. When at a more blue-sky environment in the past, I pleaded for keeping an eye out for applications. However, the current situation is not entirely even-handed. Political pressures supersede other considerations. Under these circumstances I do not see myself being able to stay entirely neutral, because, when political agendas are at work, this is pretty much equivalent to indifference. Even once blue-sky institutions are now under increasing pressure to become more application-oriented, so pushback is simply necessary to maintain the balance. In any case, I agree about OP.

@Captain Emacs - that is unfortunate. In those circumstances, picking a side is probably necessary to balance the scales, I respect that.

My answer is rather a statement about what not to do rather what to do:
Do not do a PhD in a field you are not interested in. And do not choose a field of research for your degree just because of convenience (offer/opportunity). I cannot emphasise that enough.
In addition, switching topics drastically after a PhD is very difficult. It is possible, but I have seen it rarely succeed.
Usually, people start with a related topic and then drift away in the direction they are interested in. However, drifting from ATC to Topology/QM does not look obvious; Quantum airplanes? Topological path planning? Braid groups for flight patterns? Perhaps...

In addition: do not do a PhD in a research group / with an adviser you do not feel comfortable working with for the duration of a PhD. If you do not feel like you're getting much (scientifically, academically) with your current "manager in disguise", it is unlikely it is going to improve. And attempting a PhD on a topic that's not your preference, in an environment that doesn't suit you and an advisor who is a bad fit... I've seen it attempted, but it stayed an "attempted PhD" (with the person finding a different PhD offer and quitting the "bad fit" one after a year of struggling).


text:
What is the workflow of an editor in this case?
I am rather new to the academic so I am bit insecure about the whole process. I have a small question regarding the publication process.
Context:
Recently I submitted a paper to a physics journal. Two referees were consulted by the editor and recently we received their comments. While one referee recommended publication after a small remark was answered the other referee recommended against the publication. He did not criticize the validity of our work and only said that our manuscript did not add any new physics to the literature. In our rebuttal letter we showed that in fact our approach is very different from the literature (one of the motivation to do the study) and we come to different and new conclusions compared to the present literature.
Question:
Recently we resubmitted our manuscript together with our rebuttal to the comments. I saw that our manuscript was sent to one referee. So my question is: what is the workflow of the editor in such a case? Did he sent the manuscript back to the referee who was against the publication or did he consult a new third referee? How is such a case handled by the editor?
Thank you very much
A concerned newbie to the field.
Cheers

Possible duplicate of What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?

You can't know. Having been an editor for the past decade, I'm pretty sure I've done all of the following three options:

I disagreed with the reviewer who said that there is nothing new in the paper and ignored that person in the second round of reviews.
I agreed with the reviewer who said that there is nothing new in the paper, felt that the comments by the other reviewer had been addressed, and didn't send the paper to that other reviewer again because it would just be a waste of their time.
I couldn't figure out who is right and sent it to a third reviewer to get a tie breaker and a second (actually third) opinion.

Point being: There's no way you can know. Have patience with the process and see what happens.

Wouldn't that be a fourth opinion?

There's a very very good chance the single invited referee is the one who said your work had no novelty. That's because the other referee has already recommended acceptance for the work. Unless you revised your work such that it's not acceptable anymore (did you?), there's no point sending the paper back to that referee.
Inviting a third referee at this point would be rather premature in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it can happen e.g. if the second referee says he's too busy to look at the manuscript again, but it wouldn't be the typical next step. It's only if the second referee still says it's not acceptable that the editor might invite a third opinion as a "tiebreaker".

Hi, thanks for the answer. In our revised manuscript we answered some minor remarks of both referees. We also added a discussion regarding the novelty of our work so we did not have to change much in the revised manuscript. Let's hope for good news! Thanks again!


text:
Does cum laude in DEFENSE (not in THESIS) mean no academic career in Germany?
My PhD is in social studies. I received magna cum laude for the thesis and cum laude for the defense. The lower grade in the defense was the result of my nervousness and a personal issue with one of the cross examiners, but I'm not going into that now.
How devastating is the low defense grade for my future career in academia? The overall grade is still magna cum laude, but the PhD certificate also contains the cum laude grade for the defense, and we know that in Germany cum laude is the second lowest grade.
I've published in many peer-reviewed journals, and my thesis has also been published as a book by a highly prestigious international publisher. Will this salvage the cum laude grade for the defense?
Thank you in advance.

I guess I'm puzzled. If "with honors" is considered a negative then it would seem that "honors" are essentially meaningless and applied without thought to everything. True?

@Buffy I agree. It's just like that in Germany. The best to worst grading is SCL, MCL, CL, and rite (passable).

My advice is that you stress the positives in any hiring situation and just ignore this. Especially if you can't change it.

And, I assume "failed" is also an option for the defense. I've sent one or two candidates back to work in the defense, but in this case they had a chance to improve the work and come back. Maybe not the same in Germany.

@Evangeline I don't think your other closed question is actually a duplicate. So: For the formal requirements of a professor position, a worse-than-average separate defense grade is not a problem because for the formal part, the overall grade counts. But you never know if somebody in the hiring committee finds this not so great and proposes removing your application from the stack of candidates to consider, which however applies to every aspect of every candidate in a hiring committee hearing.

I'm voting to reopen the question because it's a different question than the alleged duplicate.

@DCTLib Do you think the cards are stacked against me and I should better look for an academic post outside Germany? Based on your experience, would they not take my numerous peer-reviewed publications into account? I even finished my PhD in less than 3 years (2,5 years) while my colleagues needed 5 to 6 years in general. Sad that a hiccup at the end could ruin it all (tbh, I already had a bad feeling about the defense grade when they announced that the cross examiner was the one I had had an issue with in the past...).

@Evangeline Every university has a bit of its own dynamics in these hiring committees, so I can't really speak universally. Personally I would ignore this extra grade after the interview, because whether the person in question does a good job presenting concepts orally will become obvious in this interview and the application talk - and then there is no need to look at the performance from >3 years ago (earlier, the "Habilitationsäquivalenz" will often be questionable). But that's just me. Whether you get asked to participate in an interview is quite unlikely to depend on this grade.