text:
Can I somehow leverage my willingness to work for a lower salary in job applications?
In the future, I will be on the market for a temporary academic position (postdoc or visitor) in the US, in math. Because of my lifestyle and financial situation, I do not need a large salary. Ballpark, let's say I would be willing to work an academic job for about half the typical salary.
Is there any way I can use this to my advantage? I mean: is it possible to use the fact that I am willing to work for cheap to get a job that is better (with respect to some criteria like quantity and caliber of research at the university, strength of students at the university, desirability of teaching duties,...) than I would have been able to get otherwise?

I have often thought that their should be math monasteries.  Come and learn for free with the masters who own nothing but their knowledge.   How are monasteries funded, anyway?

@StevenGubkin Sign me up!

@StevenGubkin It is often a mixture of (Agricultural) property, government aid, donations and support from the Church.

@StevenGubkin some of the Belgian monasteries brew and sell beer (and they're very good at it!).

Leveraging your willingness to work for sub-standard wages is called "lowering the bar". Please don't.

In some job in some time, I could derive a colleague 's salary after he  spoke too much (I correlated different informations he gave on different days, and the salary became clear). So either the company was lowering the bar, or he was; in any case, that was the day I decided that the company and I don't have a future.

@casey I prefer to think of it as a "User subsidy"

@casey - it's also called the free market.

There is some possibility of this, but it would work only in certain restricted ways and in certain limited contexts.  I don't know of any reputable college or university that, when considering applicants for a position that already exists, consider an applicant's willingness to accept less than the standard salary as a point in their favor.  If you think this through, probably you can see why it makes everyone look bad.
You might have some luck getting an academic institution to make a position with an unusual combination of duties and salary that is tailored to you.  Here are some possibilities:

At some institutions, faculty couples "share" positions in some fractional way: e.g. the couple together has 1.5 positions and each does 75% of the work of a full-time faculty member.  If someone had come to me with this as a new idea I would have rejected it as ridiculous, but nevertheless it actually exists in the real world.  I know several examples.
Similarly, you may be able to arrange a single position which is "part time" in some specified way: so maybe it is a visiting teaching position with half the normal teaching load and half the normal salary.  In the very short term, such positions are common.  It is not directly in the spirit of what you are asking about, but the effect could be similar.
Finally, if salary is really no object, it is much easier to get a visiting scholar position which pays no salary whatsoever.  I did this myself once: the summer after getting my PhD (at Harvard), I moved back to my hometown (Philadelphia) and got an apartment in University (of Pennsylvania) City.  I noticed that there was a wonderful library and gym a few blocks away from me, and I presented myself "cold" in the UPenn math department with a copy of my CV and my PhD.  I walked out as a Visiting Scholar.  (Nowadays I think that what I did was a little weird: why not first contact some specific faculty member in the department?  Maybe I didn't know who to contact, or maybe I was curious to see if walking in cold and presenting Ivy League credentials would actually work.  It did!  This "position" still appears on my CV.)

If what you are interested is not covered by the above, then I would say: in general this will be hard to swing, but if you have a more specific arrangement in mind you can ask about that (e.g. here) and maybe it can be worked out.
Let me end by saying something that I suspect you already know: if you aspire to have anything like a conventional academic career in the future, advertising yourself broadly as someone who is willing to work at a discounted rate is a pretty bad idea.  If you do seek to pursue this idea of yours, I would do so with much discretion.

As a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania you had use of the library and gym.  What other benefits and responsibilities were associated with your appointment.  I am asking b/c I would like free gym membership.

@emory: I didn't say that the gym membership was free!  But it was  reasonably priced.  Essentially the benefits were (i) that I had a card that granted me access to campus buildings as though I were a regular member of the university community, (ii) I was invited to attend and speak in one of the seminars (which I did), (iii) I got a key to a "visitor office" which -- since it was the office for all visitors of a certain type, not just me -- I never used.  There were no responsibilities that I can recall.

Nowadays I think that what I did was a little weird: why not first contact some specific faculty member...  Depending on how long ago this was, perhaps you didn't have the Internet to make all of this easy?  We tend to forget now, but back in the day, this was actually hard to figure out without access to an academic library.  Walking a couple of blocks was a lot easier then than getting those names and numbers externally ...

@RBarry: This was in 2003, so: yes, I had internet access, even at home.

Thank you. In my particular situation, possibility 2 seems the most likely to be applicable (though my partner and I have daydreamed about scenarios like 1). Probably more likely than not that I won't pursue a low-salary position, but it's nice to have some ideas in mind of what might be possible.

I checked it out.  I can become a Visiting Scholar (with gym access) at my local university for $400 per semester (I pay them $400).  @PeteL.Clark got a better deal than me.

I like the subtle "I got my PhD from Harvard" embedded in this answer.

I up-voted this primarily because of the third point. In a somewhat parallel situation at the other end of the experience and age vector, I was able to seek out a job more attuned to what I wanted to do because I was not so concerned with salary as the only measure of value.

My friend, please don't shortchange yourself. Having a modest lifestyle does not mean that you should not consider, say, buying an apartment or building a house of your own someday. And to do that you would need to save.
Also, even if you're not concerned with your own expenses and savings, remember that most of the rest of us - academics without a tenure-track position - are struggling to make ends meet with our salaries. We need to support ourselves, and often our family as well. For someone to be willing to work for less, to "undercut us" so to speak - would mean to apply a downward pressure on wages and working conditions as a whole. Now, obviously, an individual's effect on the entire system is small, but this stuff can add up; and the influence on your immediate colleagues, at the university where you will end up working, would be much greater: You would have an effect on the attitude and expectations of your department or university regarding what it offers non-tenured academics.
So, I urge you not work for cheap. If you really feel you don't need that money - consider donating it to a worthy cause (or whatever you believe is a worthy cause; it might even be donating to some scholarship fund at your alma mater).

I'd second this point... Operationally, what is proposed would literally be under-cutting nearly everyone else. Upon reflection, this is why it's bad, or not allowed, to volunteer to do work that others do for pay... not that the volunteerism is innately bad, but that it reduces the leverage of people who need_the_money. Similarly, "Teach for America", while having good-sounding features, nastily undercuts the livelihoods of teachers. Some days I wonder whether retired high school teachers and retired professors offering to teach at low cost isn't a similar bad-thing...

Thanks for the the interesting answer. I had not considered the effect of offering to work for less on the wages of others

Absolutely this! Not only in academia, but anywhere, this is SO true!

Is Academia somehow exempt from free-market laws? If your job is well-paid, you will be undercut, sooner or later, by someone who can work for less.

@DmitryGrigoryev: I'm not having this ideological debate in Academia.SX comments, thank you. You're free to post your own answer to the question with your own perspective.

@einpoklum The OP doesn't mention this aspect, so I'd rather not post an answer which does not address the question asked.

@DmitryGrigoryev I do not believe academia is exempt from free-market laws - which is why we have answers like this.  Who would want to encourage a race to the bottom in their profession?

@paulgarrett, not that I disagree, but to play devils advocate, the similar logic can be applied by those that need_the_experience over needing the money, and I don't think that is inherently problematic.

@emory Of course nobody wants that. But IMO one can secure his position and salary by being better than others at what they do, not by discouraging newcomers to work for less. Frankly, if one is afraid being undercut by a retired teacher (or a college grad from TFA), my advice would be to develop skills a retired teacher doesn't have.

@DmitryGrigoryev I agree.  The answer strikes me as "Don't do X because X would hurt me - your hopes and dreams don't matter."  For all we know, User is independently wealthy and has a life dream of being an academic.  Perhaps the best course of action for User would be to fund his/her own position.

Whilst not applicable to your case (as you're only concerned with US universities) I thought I'd add this for colour.
I've worked for 3 UK universities (currently still a visiting lecturer at one of them), and the payroll has always been done using "salary spines"; all staff of a certain level are on a "spine" - they aren't free to negotiate their own salary, so there's no pay rises unless the whole spine level goes up within the school in question, and as such there's always an explicit set salary for whatever position you apply for, with no room for manoeuvre.

So the nominally-part-time position would still work, as part time salaries are pro-rata or something like it.

@ChrisH Yes, I suppose in this case it would, as a proportion of the full-time salary spine, or its own "part-time salary spine".

I am not involved in Academia, but I think that advertising yourself as cheap is not in your advantage. This is a sign for any employer that you don't value your skills. This raises more red flags, maybe you're evaluating yourself accurately but you're pretty unskilled.
Also, you're missing an opportunity to earn more money. You are losing money, not only now, but also in the future, because if this temporary position turns in a permanent position, it will be a lot harder to catch up and get a normal salary.
I'd use a salary range and if you really want to sell yourself as cheap, I'd use 60%-90% range(YMMV). This way you're still cheap, but you have less chances to raise questions about your skills.

If you decide to take a job for less-than-average salary, at least make sure that it is clearly labelled as part-time. If you ever decide to leave Academia and take a job in a field where salaries are negotiated (e.g. engineering), expect that your new employer will try to find out your previous salary and base his offer on that. In that case, it will be hard for you to negotiate, unless you can explain why you used to earn so little.

...expect that your new employer will try to find out your previous salary and base his offer on that...I understand the sentiment and I do understand that this is a negotiation tactic that is actually in use, but I find that it is much much more likely to occur in market areas where labor supply forces tend towards oligopsony.As a software engineer, I have never been asked "what I used to make" and I would be offended if a skill buyer tried this tactic with me.They state their requirements. I state my requirements. If we don't match, we negotiate;if we can agree to terms,we have a contract.

A "part time" position might not have key benefits such as health insurance, in the U.S.

@OswaldVeblen Does that mean that professors who occupy faculty positions in a fractional way don't have health insurance?

@Dmitry Grigoryev: Are you talking about two faculty who share duties a single position? I have never seen details of how that works, but those are normally full-time positions. I suspect that the "position" has health insurance, including employer contributions that cover one of the faculty members, and that the faculty in question have to pay more for the second person to be covered, no different than if one person held the position alone and the second person was "just a spouse."

If you mean a non-full-time position held by a single faculty member, I think i would be very likely not to include health insurance.  The same holds for adjunct faculty who are paid "by the class" for each course that they teach - those positions are often like an independent contractor, with no benefits besides the payment for teaching the course.

So, it's not possible to occupy 0.5 of a position and keep health insurance without being in a couple? But then I guess you can have more than 0.5 of a full-time salary, since the university doesn't have to cover your health insurance.

@Dmitry Grigoryev - unfortunately, the way the academic job market is in the U.S., a 1/2 time position will likely have less than half the pay of a full time position, along with none of the benefits.  Some argue that these jobs are actually exploitative, and they have a point.

Ignoring any philosophical debates about whether it is good to work for less: what you are trying to do will be challenging simply because of the way that ordinary academic hiring is done in the U.S. The typical academic "job search" process in the U.S. has at least two "phases". In the earlier of these, a committee of mostly faculty evaluates applications and performs interviews. If this phase is successful, the committee sends a final list of successful candidates to the administration, which makes the job offer and handles the actual negotiations for the job in the later phase. I am leaving out many details here to emphasize that the people who do the interviews are different from the people who negotiate the salary.
Because of this, it is unusual in my experience for the people in the first group to worry about salary at all. For the plan in the question to work, this group would have to look at your application, go to the administration, ask them about it, see whether the administration was willing to go through with the plan, etc. - which would require a lot of effort on their part for just one application.  So I don't think you will increase your odds of getting through the normal process by mentioning that you will work for less. The job search process is not designed to handle such requests.
If you really are willing to work for less, and just want to be at a better school, I think you'd have higher odds if you try to bypass that search process entirely. One possibility, if you do not need health insurance, is to contact several departments directly, and see whether they are planning to hire any part-time lecturers or adjuncts, and whether they are interested in having you.
At some schools, these hires are made directly by the departmental administration, without the same formal "search" process. It is perfectly conceivable that a department chair might be able to find a calculus class or two for you to teach, or something like that. I do not think you would get to half a regular salary in this way, and you would probably not have benefits (retirement, health insurance, etc.). But you would likely be able to get some kind of office (maybe shared) and library access.
I am not sure, however, that this kind of plan will really get you what you are looking for, such as desirability of teaching duties. At best, it might give you more time to work on your own projects, or allow you to be in a location you would prefer.

Even if you can get a job at this lower salary, you should also wonder whether you want to. Ultimately, when you are in academia, you are likely looking for intellectual challenges, and you are likely looking to work with the people at the top of your field - the kind of people who have their pick of positions.
When you offer yourself as the lowest bidder and get a job that way, even if you are personally happy with your salary, your co-workers likely aren't. And the only reason they are working their is that they wouldn't get hired in the better positions.
As a side note - you don't explicitly say it, but it sounds like you would be coming to the USA as a foreign visitor. Some of the other suggestions involved part-time positions. When you are foreign, the terms of your visa may not allow that. Even if the terms of your visa do allow it, it may later become difficult to switch to full time if you change your mind.

I think the closest situation to your question revolves around your intended job.  Instead of applying for a professor position and stating you can work for half the salary, you can apply to a lecturer position, which may very well be half (or less) of the salary.  The actual salary of this position will already state your willingness to work for it (since you applied).  It could very well lead to an interview where they question your motives as you may be 'over qualified', which could lead to a suggested change of title.
I have known this situation to happen more than once, albeit from a different perspective, where someone applying for a position was borderline of higher qualifications, so negotiations reached a similar salary as the lower position, but higher status.

I picture a lecturer teaching something like 4 sections of calculus a term (maybe this is wrong), which is what I am trying to avoid.

...is it possible to use the fact that I am willing to work for cheap to
  get a job that is better...?

With all due respect, if you were able to do the job better than the university's current faculty members, they would hire you paying full salary.
The reason why most universities set high salaries is precisely to keep the quality of research and education high.
If you really believe you are competitive, then you should signal it to your potential employer. The best way would be with publications. You can also visit the university as a visiting researcher to demonstrate your competence. In any case, dumping the salary is not a good strategy. If salary is indeed irrelevant for you, you can communicate this to your potential employer by stating that you are very passionate about your research/job and you don't care about the salary. There is a whole science behind setting salaries in organizations. Unless this is your field of research, let the university set the salary for you. It is likely to be the same as your colleagues'. Benefits are usually negotiable though.
If you are not that good and don't have enough on your CV to impress your potential employer in the US, go to another country that has lower standards for academia and allows lower salaries.
Edit: Every country I've been to had fixed salaries for employees, at least within one institution. So it really comes down to what country you choose to go to and how highly ranked the university is in that country. But it is HIGHLY unlikely that you will be allowed to work for lower salary doing the same amount of work as others.
If you are not convinced, here is a paper by Akerlof and Yellen (1990) discussing why lower wages for the same amount and quality of work are harmful for organizations. Akerlof is a Nobel laureate and Yellen is the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

If you want higher caliber work I recommend asking for more, not less money. The reason is they are looking for a high caliber employee, and high caliber employees tend to ask for high caliber pay. If you ask for less they may not think you are a serious candidate.
Also, don't offer an amount unless asked for salary requirements. Sometimes an application will ask for salary requirements, but typically salary and benefits discussions take place after the interview process when the hiring manager knows you are the one they want.

Note that this question is related to academic hiring, where customs and procedures are completely different to industry. There is no hiring manager, and applicants are evaluated on their extensive CV (for example, my supervisor's is 20 pages long, as opposed to the typical 1-2 pages in industry).


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Is it advisable to publish a paper in a Journal Issue edited by my PhD Supervisor? Or is it better to try to publish it somewhere else?
My PhD supervisor is co-editing a Journal Special Issue, in a good journal, even if not top-ranking, with double blind peer-review (three reviewers are asked for the review). And I'm tempted to submit a paper (which fits with the topic of the Issue).
I've recently obtained my PhD, and I see that in order to apply for prestigious grants (such as the ERC grants) a requisite is "having produced at least one important publication without the participation of their PhD supervisor" (ERC starting grant).
In this case, it would be a solely authored paper (not invited by the Supervisor but submitted to blind review).
Is it worth to try and publish it there? When the paper is evaluated by a judging panel, will the fact that the Issue is edited by my supervisor be a negative factor?

Why not send it on the same journal in a regular issue? Review time should be roughly the same.

DId you ask your supervisor about this?

Ask the grant support people, they are the only ones who can answer questions about interpretation of the grant conditions with any authority. The contact address for questions is at the bottom of the ERC page you linked to.

@DanRomik I am not sure about this. Ultimately, the ERC will rely on reviewers and the have little control about how the reviewers will judge such a detail.

@Dirk then OP will be told that when he emails them. Either way some useful information will be gained.

-1 As per conversation with @DanRomik, this question is effectively unanswerable in this format. The OP should ask the ERC directly.

It's not surprising this might happen. That your advisor is on the board (or equivalent) for a journal you might submit to is a situation often encountered. If you want to make sure no conflicts exist, ask your advisor to recuse himself from all decisions regarding your particular contribution. He might already have planned to, given the obvious conflict.

I think it is in fact a smart idea to publish in a specal issue edited by your supervisor. The conflict of interest supposition is something best left to your Supervisor, and he will and can be very explicit in what needs to be done thru the usual communication channels.
You must focus on how it looks to the scientific/management community at large that is your audience. And That is positive , not about the conflict of interest.
Anyone that reads your work will recognize your supervisor and people at your phd university without much effort, because the dissertation would also be available online, but mostly because you and him write on the same pain points and have illuminated research together in a particular field. You are already joined at the hip whether you like it or not, it is best to use it constructively and shine in the work you do together.
Even though you are not doing the piece together, and maybe you should even explore doing it together to make it more relevant, your work will be especially relevant in the right context and this special issue is likely to give you that right context for others like me looking for your work on that subject at a later time.
It is not at all surprising to find the context having changed on you in two years and then you may not have the opportunity.

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Does Impact Factor reflect the quality of a journal?
Is the impact factor really useful for judging the quality of a journal article?

related question: How do you judge the quality of a journal?

No: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1010.0278v4.pdf

Interesting commentary (written by Physical Review Letters) about how journals that publish more articles are penalized with lower impact factors: http://prl.aps.org/edannounce/PhysRevLett.102.060001

everybody says no, but everybody looks at it :)

No.

To answer Paul's comment:
The title of the post asks about journals.  For a well-worn list of criticisms of Impact Factor as an indicator of journal quality, see the Wikipedia article and the sources it cites.  In many disciplines, important papers receive most of their citations well outside the IF's two-year window.  Raw citation data can be manipulated by editorial policies, some more nefarious than others, or even by individual papers.  Thomson-Reuters' calculations of Impact Factor are not reproducible, even using their own citation data.  Et cetera ad nauseam.  But most importantly: Having lots of citations is not the same thing as quality.
The body of the post asks about journal articles.  Impact Factor is (roughly) the average number of citations to all papers published by a journal in a given time window.  Even if it were a reliable measure of average quality (which it isn't), it would say nothing at all about the quality of any individual paper.

Could you elaborate?

To answer the question of whether or not impact factor "reflects" or "is useful" for judging the quality with a simple "no" is a gross simplification, and is gravely undermined by the concrete evidence in @Jeromy's answer. (I'm not going to give a -1 since the answer does provide useful criticism of the impact factor, but I would encourage people to also look at Jeromy's answer for a more balanced and realistic view.)

If the other two answers haven't made this obvious. The answer is no, but it can be taken even further than what the above answers suggests. We can study this!

The above image is the coefficient of determination between the impact factor of journals and the 2-year citation rate of their papers from 1902 to 2009, for all natural and medical sciences journals. Basically this means that even if all you care about is the number of citations you get then even then the impact factors of journals is starting to matter less and less.
Of course, what matters is how influential your ideas are and not how much they are cited, but we don't really a have a good metric for that.

Unfortunately, the number of citations matters a lot if your university decides to give you citations times X dollar of travel grants.

Clearly, people here don't seem to like the idea that impact factor would be used to evaluate journal quality. I'm not a big fan of impact factor either. It can be gamed (and the degree to which it is gamed will increase as greater importance is placed on it). It also becomes particularly problematic when you compare across disciplines with different citation practices and citation half-lives. Furthermore, there's also the risk that people start using impact factor to evaluate article quality, which is a lot more questionable.
That said, within a discipline, I generally find that better journals have higher impact factors. It's not perfect. But there is a strong correlation. There's also research that shows very high correlations between various indices of journal quality including peer ratings, impact factor, and various other citation based indicators.
So in short, within a field, impact factor is one of many variables that typically correlates highly with journal quality. If you know nothing about the quality of a journal, you'll know more about it by looking at its impact factor. However,
That shouldn't stop you from looking at other and most likely better indicators of journal quality (e.g., what is your own evaluation of the content published in the journal in recent years).
It is also really important to ask yourself why you want to evaluate journal quality. Is it to select a journal? to reward, promote, or hire academics? Using impact factor in these cases can be problematic for a wide variety of reasons, but these are separate issues.
Here's one article that I found providing empirical evidence by Saha et al (2003). To quote the abstract:

Objectives: Impact factor, an index based on the frequency with which
  a journal's articles are cited in scientific publications, is a
  putative marker of journal quality. However, empiric studies on impact
  factor's validity as an indicator of quality are lacking. The authors
  assessed the validity of impact factor as a measure of quality for
  general medical journals by testing its association with journal
  quality as rated by clinical practitioners and researchers.
Methods: We surveyed physicians specializing in internal medicine in
  the United States, randomly sampled from the American Medical
  Association's Physician Masterfile (practitioner group, n = 113) and
  from a list of graduates from a national postdoctoral training program
  in clinical and health services research (research group, n = 151).
  Respondents rated the quality of nine general medical journals, and we
  assessed the correlation between these ratings and the journals'
  impact factors.
Results: The correlation between impact factor and physicians' ratings
  of journal quality was strong (r2 = 0.82, P = 0.001). The correlation
  was higher for the research group (r2 = 0.83, P = 0.001) than for the
  practitioner group (r2 = 0.62, P = 0.01).
Conclusions: Impact factor may be a reasonable indicator of quality
  for general medical journals.

References

Saha, S., Saint, S. & Christakis, D.A. (2003). Impact factor: a valid measure of journal quality?. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 91, 42. PDF

"Quality" is very subjective.  Impact factor is a good measure of how often articles in a journal are cited, but this doesn't necessarily directly relate to "quality".
Many journals with a narrow focus will have relatively low impact factors, but are still considered very "high quality" (i.e. prestigious to publish in) journals.
As an example, in the geosciences, the Journal of Structural Geology is a much more prestigious (and harder to publish in) journal than, say, Tectonophysics (just to pick another Elseviver journal), but it has a lower impact factor.

The editors of Epidemiology (a very good journal), recently had an editorial about this:

Most major epidemiology journals, including ours, have seen a steady
  rise in their impact factors during recent years. At the same time,
  the relative rank of these journals changes from year to year. Such
  changes are unlikely to represent true annual changes in these
  journals' relative quality. We think the various epidemiology journals
  are indeed different, and they deserve to be evaluated and compared.
  But we're happier when such assessments are based on matters of
  substance, such as editorial policies, quality of reviews, quality of
  editing, efficiency in the processing of manuscripts, and the (real)
  impact of the journal on the field.

Said editorial also has links to several others in that journal critiquing the notion of the Impact Factor, and its scientific merit (or lack thereof).

I have seen that in term of citation of an article you will notice that in most of the cases that an article has been cited many times by author himself in his other research articles  or by his students and sometime by his/her colleagues without attaching any real importance of citation.  The geographical location of citation also does matter, suppose for an example, if author from certain country receives 10 citation from 10 different countries then these 10 citations would be more important  than 10 citations from single country.

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text:
What does this mean in the offer letter
In my offer letter:

$XX,XXX is being offered as "for Spring and Fall semester for the year 20XX"

Here what do they mean? Is $XX,XXX being offered on a per month basis or for the whole year?

To my knowledge, within the US, i think it is bi-monthly (every two weeks).

You should ask the graduate office (or whoever sent you the offer letter) for clarification, but from the wording, it appears that this is a 9-month TA contract- you'd be free to do something else over the summer, or there might be additional support available for the summer that you would have to apply for separately.

There is no way to know. The $MMM could be paid weekly, biweekly, monthly, per semester, or yearly. It could be for 9 months or 12 months. Only way to know is to ask (or ignore it and see what happens).

Typically you'd be paid  $MMM/18 every two weeks during the 9-month academic year.  $MMM would typically be somewhere in the range from $18,000 to $30,000 for nine months, depending on the institution and the local cost of living.

Whether it is paid monthly or every two weeks is completely dependent on the institution - there is no standard, even within the US.

My experience in the US was that we were paid monthly for 12-months but with a 9-month contract. Ask for clarification but you might also be able to request a specific pay schedule.

No- that's definitely not the case. We were paid (pre-tax) a little over $27,000 on a 9-month contract, but it was paid in 12 monthly increments. After taxes and around $2000/yr in fees and health insurance premiums it came out to around $1,800 a month. I would suggest asking to talk to one or two current graduate students who are willing to answer questions about their finances, such a request was pretty common in my department and we would also have a financial question/answer session with the new students every year.

Could you edit the question to roughly state the value of $MMM, to within an order of magnitude? You had previously mentioned it in a comment, but it seems to have been removed.  It is important in order for the question to make sense.

From your comment, $MMM is on the order of US$20,000.  This is almost certainly the stipend for one academic year.
It will probably be paid in monthly or semimonthly installments, over 9 or 12 months.


text:
How to build healthy working relationships with my male colleagues as a young-ish, attractive-ish woman?
I'm a PhD candidate from Asia currently visiting a prestigious university in Europe. Recently I've noticed quite some "strange" behaviours of male "colleagues" around me (by "colleagues", I don't mean that we work on the same projects or from the same office. They are just people who work at or visit this place: faculty members, PhDs, or research staff).
For example, these gentlemen seem to be giving me a bit of extra attention: following me to the pantry; "appearing" several times at the same time at the place that I'd show up; or even try to wait for me when I leave. (Please don't suggest that I might be overreacting - I am quite confident that I'm not exaggerating here.)
Honestly, I am more annoyed than flattered. I want to focus on my research and want to be able to have healthy, normal, constructive working relationships with these people. I don't want any extra attention other than that I am a dedicated and capable researcher, and a nice person in general. However, because of these strange behaviours, I have to try to distance myself from some of them who I have had some friendly exchanges before. I've become a bit cold and unapproachable to them - I guess I am trying to say that I am not interested in anything romantic, and I don't want any attention in that matter. I guess some people might say, well, just tell them openly that you are not interested. I simply am not able to do that: first, they don't say anything or do anything that would allow me to bring up this topic; second, some of them might not even really want to pursue a relationship (they are married, or too young/too old for me anyway), but just kind of show some sort of admiration I guess.
However, I also feel very uncomfortable about that. I am by nature a nice and friendly person. I really feel bad about being cold and unfriendly to other people. Also, I want to have a circle of contacts that I can talk with about my research and their research, and get feedback and/or inspiration from that. I am not sure how I am able to have that type of positive working relationships in this kind of situation.
To clarify a few things...

These male colleagues are decent, respectable, and in some cases, brilliant and achieved people. There is no inappropriate advance from them or anything creepy in this (or it would be rather easy to handle the situation). It is just the continued, affectionate attention that is making me uncomfortable.
I am not sure this is associated with my newness or novelty. I have been here for eight months now and I did not notice this kind of attention at the beginning. Instead, I noticed the association with me slowly building up myself professionally here. I'd assume these male colleagues are slightly more refined than the general public and would look a bit further than a pretty face for a pretty mind (not that I am suggesting I am any or both of these). If this is true, then I would assume this issue would not go away as time goes by, but might hang around or even intensify as I become more established as a capable researcher. In that case I would have to find a solution for myself in the long term.
After second thought, I guess I wouldn't be able to take the "dressing down" advice. I like to dress in a classy and elegant way and that makes me feel good (it is like I enjoy making my room clean and nice and that makes me feel good). I don't see anything wrong with it and don't want to punish myself with other people's reactions to me. In fact, I have become more convinced that the solution to this type of issue is not to make women less feminine/attractive. There should be other solutions where we can be ourselves and still be comfortable around male colleagues. I don't know what those solutions are though.

Please give me some advice on how to handle a situation like this.

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Any progress? What did you do?

I will answer here because it may help to have a female perspective. I will note that most of my points are covered by the male answers. The thing that is missing is a firsthand perspective, which I can bring.
First, the thing you are experiencing is very common for women in your position. Many, many women who are youngish, attractive-ish, and pleasant have this problem with men in their departments or cohorts. It is important to acknowledge this because I am not sure if that is commonly known among male academics.
Second, this tends to get better with time. Over time, people will get used to you and your appearance. They will notice that you are focused on research not relationships (especially not on relationships with them). I had this problem in my PhD program to a certain extent. I would say by the end of my first year this became a much lesser problem, and by the end of my second year this had gone away.
Third, you can employ some basic strategies if you want the attention to dissipate faster. It is ridiculous that you might need to change from a perfectly appropriate style of dress to one that is dowdy, but it might help. Many of my female colleagues have found that wearing glasses, particularly rather nerdy ones, helps men to take them more seriously. I myself did this. I also dyed my hair darker and stopped wearing makeup on a regular basis. Finally, it can help to dress less femininely. For instance, avoiding skirts, ruffles, flowers, happy colors, etc. Note that I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the way you dress or with wearing these things in a professional setting. I am merely saying you may be able to manipulate the visual cues and get the desired result.
I do believe this strategy has some substantial drawbacks. One drawback is that I typically feel better when I look put together, and it is grating to have to make these changes. It is totally unfair that the men’s behavior becomes your problem. However, these strategies do sometimes help.

Edit: I've thought a bit about your update, which states that the behaviors you are concerned about have grown over time. In this story, the colleagues’ intentions seem more ambiguous. As a foreigner, you could perhaps get away with asking a naive question which gets at the intentions of the parties involved. You could say something like, "I have noticed that people often wait to walk with me to the pantry or lunch. Is that a professional custom here or should I read something else into this? Is that something I should be doing for others as a professional courtesy?"

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If there are any female faculty that you trust, I would go and talk with them about the situation. This would accomplish a few things.

Documents your concerns if anything ever escalates.

Allows for you to share your concerns with another person, who may be able to give you insight specific to your situation.

Allows you to verify if your colleagues are indeed being more than "just friendly." (As in, a third party may be able to silently observe some of the behavior and verify what is happening).

May open avenues administratively for departmental intervention such as a general email about sexual harassment or the like.

You do not even need to mention specific people in your conversations. This faculty member does not even need to be in your direct department.
I also would be prepared to "friend zone" these men if necessary. One challenge with female/male relationships is that it can be very difficult to read soft signals. There were girls I knew in school (I am male) that I wanted to get to know better. I would chat them up after class. And, I'll admit, I even went walking by their apartments a few time in hopes that they would be outside and we could talk. I did not have any nefarious intentions; I just wanted to make them like me. Even if they brushed me off a bit, I was not always really fast at taking a hint. I would just think they were having a rough day, or were busy. (Sometimes this actually made me want to stick around them more to make them feel better—I was naive). However, when one girl directly told me "I am only interesting in being your friend" that is when I realized that I was bothering her. We went on to have a congenial relationship at school, but did not do anything outside of school. Be prepared to directly tell your colleagues that you are only interested in keeping your relationship professional.
While you may not really want to directly tell these men that their attention in not wanted, that will honestly be the most effective way at fixing the situation I feel. This is especially true if you do not want to radically alter your lifestyle (e.g. leaving school at 2 a.m. so that they cannot wait for you).
If your colleagues are decent guys, they will not ignore stronger signals that you are not interested in their attention in they way they have been giving it.
If your colleagues are still too dense to take a clue (or blatantly ignore it), this is when it could be helpful to have an established dialogue with a female faculty member. You may need to initiate an administrative intervention.
Do not be afraid to sever a relationship if you have to. No one does themselves any service by trying to be friends with someone while simultaneously trying to keep their distance from them.
The clothes thing is odd, but I'm honestly not sure what you could do about that. The department cannot begin sending out emails saying "No one may dress like Lily." If you see someone that is blatantly copying you, I would call them out on it. Perhaps if they see that, yes, you did notice their clothes, and that, no, you were not amused, they will stop matching your clothes. This could be done in a joking manner if that makes it easier:

Woah Jim, you are wearing the exact shirt I was wearing yesterday! Have you been in my house? (said while chuckling and in the presence of other people)
I see you're wearing plaid. I have one ugly plaid shirt that I only wear on laundry day. Do you like wearing plaid? It makes me sort of dizzy! (Ha ha ha.)

In closing, the fastest way to get this unwanted attention to end is to end it directly, either by telling the men themselves, or getting a person in authority to do so.

Thank you Vladhagen for your comment. I appreciate that you share your own experience from a male perspective. Yes, maybe some of my male colleagues are simply just wanting to have some friendly and professional interaction, but they might not know very well how to do that. I will be more careful to filter out this type of interest and respond accordingly.

+1 for talking to colleagues, but -1 for quotes making fun of fashion. Banter can be associated with romance or close friendship, promoting the behavior. Additionally, copying fashion, alone, is not bad. People copy their friends and colleagues fashion all the time. It's the following and lingering that seems more problematic. Your suggestion about saying something emphasizing "professional" is good. E.g. "I've noticed you near me a lot, It's probably a coincidence, but I just want to clarify that our relationship is and will always be purely professional." It is direct, but non-accusatory.

@WetlabStudent If an attractive lady called me out on my fashion in front of my peers, there is no way in Hades that I am ever wearing that outfit again. This all comes down to how much the OP actually cares about the fashion thing though. She might be best just not pressing the issue.

@Vladhagen that's valid for your personal preference. But if anyone, male or female,jokingly made fun of my fashion in public, I personally would take that as banter and it would draw me closer to them - I'm just warning that this suggestion could have an unintended consequence for those who are not like you (and there are many).

The fact that this question (by a person who is obviously confused by what most people would consider as a form of politeness) led to an answer that immediately mentions "sexual harassment" is appalling, at least. It seems like this rabbit hole can only be avoided by fostering a clear segregation of men and women in the workplace. Let's see how this sorts itself out.

I am confused - what does "the clothes thing" refer to?

@HagenvonEitzen The OP has edited her question since I wrote my answer. She originally spoke of men copying her style of dress.

Could this answer be edited to remove the clothes thing? It is confusing.

The whole clothing thing can help you a bit I think. The same counts for males if you come to the office looking well dressed, shaved, good smell, slick haircut. Ladies will try to get your attention a lot more. Can be distracting. But this is just my experience I had a couple of times in the office.

The reality is that as an Asian female in a European research group, you can't avoid being "different" from the typical member of the group you are in. You physically look different, you probably dress different, you have a different accent, and you probably have different social norms.
As such, some of your work colleagues will be trying to hide the fact that they are terrified of you, and some will be strongly attracted to you. And some may be both of the above simultaneously!
The best strategy here is to figure out which people are neither of the above, and start by developing good working relationships with them. As your "novelty factor" wears off over time, your problems with the others will diminish.
Note, I haven't mentioned the gender of the other group members here, and that was deliberate. In my experience (as a male!) interpersonal conflicts between two females can be much worse than between either male and female, or male and male. If that has not been your experience so far, living and working in a non-European culture, be warned!

I don’t think this is true man because of multiculturalism in western European cities you often see Asian people. It’s not that special.

I am a male researcher who has worked alongside attractive female colleagues from different countries. I come from a sexist culture, where casual relationships are common. I think I can provide some general advice.
First and foremost, you have to understand the "fresh meat" physiological phenomenon. You're new to the place, and people are still checking you out (literally) and getting used to your presence. Men are particularly struck by attractive new comers in the scene. This effect should subside after some 2-3 months after they get used to seeing you around, and others arrive to divert their attention.
Furthermore you perhaps fit in some mode of local fetishist stereotype. Asian ladies are frequently a fetish in western societies. In this case I recommend you do not reinforce the fetish by avoiding behaviours and displays associated with the idea. If you think this is the case, and you correctly identify what they're fantasising about when you flutter around.
Finally, just manage your own circle of friends and learn to deal with physical attraction as a background noise to building up a true friendship with someone who's attracted to you. With time, people will appreciate you for what you are instead for what you look like.
Anyway, don't worry. Your aura should be weaker soon enough, naturally.

@LilyOfTheEast I cannot say much without actually being in the situation. This greatly depends on the local fetish (or even small talk, recent events, etc). Often what you think is correcting a main issue  might make matters worse. For instance, many "petite" Thai ladies may look very young or even androgynous (i.e. not quite womanly) and if this is what is considered attractive where you are, dressing in some discrete ways might enhance the appeal. Thus I recommend researching into possible stereotypes. Consider asking somebody local who's openminded and outspoken, who you can trust.

@LilyOfTheEast My understanding is that part of the "asian fetish" is the idea that asian women are meek and submissive. Therefore, being more assertive in pointing out and shutting down this behavior could be doubly effective at discouraging it

@divibisan Depends on the country and the local cultural context, being more assertive can lead to be labeled as a tsundere (ツンデレ) which might actually have the opposite effect.

Ugh, the phrase "new meat" is terrible. But I think you are right about the newness phenomenon.

@Dawn Sorry: I prioritise clarity over PC choice of words. At least among my peers (across different countries) this phrase immediately distills the idea / feeling.

I believe "newness" would convey the same meaning without the feeling of disgust I get by being compared to prey. However, I have not downvoted. I just wanted to alert you in case you were willing to be sensitive to these things.

-1 I recommend you do not reinforce the fetish: NO the OP can do whatever she wants it is the other people who are behaving badly.

OP, might be a regional variant, but "fresh meat" is more common than "new meat." @Dawn I'm not sure "newness" actually does convey the same meaning though - I'm struggling to think of a less blunt and colloquial term though. There might be something in the feminist literature but nothing really comes to mind.

I also hate the verb “flutter” in this answer. It betrays a feeling by the poster of women as “flighty.”

@StrongBad I understand this community is to specifically advise question openers, and not to draw or merchandise some ideal world. Surely you can advise the OP to lecture her colleagues good manners on a separate answer.

@Dawn Note that the notion of linking "meat" to "prey" is not widespread. On a trivial example, flies are no predators.

@StrongBad Are they? Some of the OP's examples of behavior could also just be a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (ex. fashion), or locally "correct" behavior of a man trying to court a  woman given that the OP is in Europe (ex. waiting at the end of the day).  Following someone to a pantry is pretty universality unusual though, but so far I'm still not sure how much is just culture shock. Practically speaking, none of the advice given so far is any good given that Europe is a big place with lots of cultural variation.

The common meaning is someone to be preyed upon. Check urban dictionary if you don’t believe me.

@Dawn Both Wikitonary definition and the UD definition imply being preyed upon, but quite frankly the more prevent theme is the new person. Generally as I've heard the term over the years (ex., freshman at my high school were called "fresh meat") the understanding is that it meant new people in a general sense.

@anonymous "Novelty" would probably convey a similar meaning but then, alas, some will claim being compared to products & merchandise. I am correcting to "fresh meat" as you suggest, thanks: English isn't my 1st language. I am not sure why some "feminist" literature should be the reference -- I was the fresh meat arrival amongst yearning ladies and lads alike before. It's just how life goes in the actual world.

@Scientist I mention the feminist literature because it generally has more socially acceptable terms to use in some cases, but I'm really not sure if there is one in this case. My experience in the US has been that "fresh meat" is incredibly common in hierarchical environments like schools, the military, and prisons.The only way around it might be more verbosity, "First and foremost, you have to understand the physiological phenomenon associated with seeing new people in your environment."

@anonymous Dosn't that convey the same connotation of prey? Of course in neither case are we talking of prey in the sense of huntable food, but rather somewhat metaphorical about potential victims to some kind of violence - and be it pranks or bizutage instead of dating

Is it really a "physiological phenomenon", or did you mean "psychological"?

@HagenvonEitzen In the US, in a general sense, no. My experience has been that the term is used the same way as "frosh" unless the context clues around the use of the term imply otherwise.

@StrongBad "NO the OP can do whatever she wants it is the other people who are behaving badly" - From what I've read so far, she feels somehow "preyed upon" by the mere presence of other people. There certainly is no consensus that "waiting for someone when leaving" is a bad behavior. But ... well, the hypocrisy of "politically and socially correct behavior" has been driven so far that it's impossible to get this right, anyhow, so maybe it just doesn't matter.

@Marco13 Thing is, PC comments and preaching is highly popular nowadays, and is an easy path to anyone towards a lot of votes and shallow positive impressions.

@Marco13, this answer says, don't wear certain clothes and not that the OP is over reacting. Telling someone they cannot wear something because men are/might be have badly because of it, is almost never the right answer. Explaining why they are over reacting would have been fine (assuming they were).

@StrongBad There is nothing about clothes or overreactions in this answer - at least, not explicitly. And I'm certainly not up to arguing about "How short may a skirt be before it's 'too short'?" here. But saying that one person can do "whatever she wants" and at the same time saying that other behavior is "bad" is contradictory, at least. And it's particularly pathetic when the asker herself said that the ""offenders"" did not "say anything or do anything" that could justify an argument at all.

"Telling someone they cannot wear something because men are/might be have badly because of it, is almost never the right answer." -- Sorry if not clearly expressed, but avoiding behaviors and displays goes way beyond "certain clothes". I'd not advise for instance anyone going around looking, speaking, and moving in a way that directly copies some famous hentai character. Particularly around seemingly aroused men, in being the sole lady with Asian features, and not wishing to be desired in any sexual way. But of course, I am not pulling any straightjackets here!.. Europe has a democracy.

"Explaining why they are over reacting" Can't say that without specific info, or actually being in the situation. My main bet is that OP is "exotic" and new to the scene.

I can understand that this is a very annoying problem, and I am truly sorry that you have to deal with that.
Order of business number one is probably to make sure that you are not reinforcing this kind of behavior - it's ok to be a bit cold when people "randomly" drop in on you whenever you happen to get a cup of coffee, and don't even appear to be charmed when they start imitating your style of clothing. In short, try to hang out with the people who act naturally and don't make you feel uncomfortable, and be a bit chilly towards the ones that do. Nothing at all wrong with that. Note that I am not suggesting to be actively unfriendly towards them, just keep your distance and most people will get the message soon enough. Unfortunately, some may not, and in these cases remaining distant is probably the best option.
However, even more importantly than that, I would suggest to find allies. Surely, you are not the only decent-looking girl in the entire organisational unit? Be proactive about this and try to befriend other people in a situation similar to yours. This has two advantages: firstly, you can be fairly certain about their intentions, and secondly you can share and validate your concerns, and discuss how they deal with this behavior. Find a trusted person, and talk openly to them about the behavior of your co-workers. Maybe some of the people that you have seen as creepy are in fact just friendly and/or weird towards all new hires? Having allies is also really important if the problems escalate to a level where you feel you need to report it - if other people have also observed that A, B, and C are acting really strangely towards you, it is much easier to make a case that you are not just imagining it.
Finally - and I understand that this may be little consolation right now - I would assume that the novelty factor of having you around will cool off sooner or later. At that time it should become easier to develop normal workplace relationships with your colleagues (although I understand that by this time you may not really want to have too much of a relationship to some of these guys anymore).

Thank you for your advice xLeitix. I unfortunately am one of the very few female researchers here - this field is rather masculine and male-dominated. Also, I've been here for a few good months now, but it is only recently that this becomes so obvious that it annoys me. I am sure most of these people are harmless (only 1 of the, ergh, old, faculty members who asking me out for dinner via work email who I rejected clearly, twice) - that is what makes the situation difficult. I really want to be nice and gentle to them without causing too much hard feelings.

@LilyOfTheEast In the entire department / company? Maybe you need to look a bit further out of your immediate surroundings. I also work in a very male-dominated field (CS), but there are still at least a dozen or two women in our entire department.

This is rather weird, but the entire department so far has only one female visiting faculty. The other females who work here are either in the admin function, or on short-term research supporting roles.

@ Monika, thank you for your reply. It is really nice to hear that this is a rather common phenomena. I hope that I'll learn to be comfortable with the situation soon, or that their attention will subside earlier than that.

I'm good with my boss/advisor. The thing is that he doesn't make all the hiring decisions for the faculty - they are done through the hiring committee I'd guess, and sadly, most of the top researchers in our field are indeed male.

@LilyOfTheEast Still, raise the issue with him if you feel comfortable doing so. He should be aware how you feel, even if he can't immediately do anything about it.

"Surely, you are not the only decent-looking girl in the entire organisational unit?" Why should the appearance of your allies make any difference whatsoever?

@Buffy Lived experience?

This answer will be very different, I hope, from the others here. It is based on a different assumption. I assume that you want to be a success in this place and want to actually work with your male colleagues, not just to avoid their, possibly improper, advances. This advice should apply not only to women, of whatever physical appearance, but also to minorities in the workplace, whether racial, ethnic, religious, or whatever.
For some balance, go watch the movie Hidden Figures about a group of women who made the US Space program work by doing the computations needed to get to space in the age before computers existed. They where called "computers" actually, and had very low status, though many of them were brilliant mathematicians.
The way to succeed is to be better than everyone else. At least 25% better. Maybe more. Outshine everyone. Become the person that other go to for answers and solutions. Become the resource that everyone needs.
Interestingly, you don't need to be the best at everything. But if you are the one everyone goes to for some small but essential part of the common work, it can be enough.
Again, it is unfortunate that the world seems to be wired in such a way as to make that necessary, but it generally is. Furthermore, though you need to work harder than everyone else to do this, it can be the path to success. Even then, it isn't guaranteed. As I noted in a comment here, in at least one case the scientific work of a woman led to a Nobel Prize for her male advisor. The world isn't especially fair, it seems.
Defer to no-one in scientific skill or knowledge. Help those people you work with so that they have a vested interest in your success.
But also, and this is essential, don't try to work alone. Fine allies to work with and protect you as needed. Those allies can make your life easier, but can also help make the world into a better place so that advice like this isn't necessary in the future. Nor the advice given in other answers. here.

Great answer. I think people starting to pay attention to your expertise over your physical appearance is the crux of why this dissipates over time.  My only critique is that you seem to assume/imply that OP is not already working as hard as she can. I don’t have any evidence of that.

I love your answer Buffy. This is a great answer, as Dawn has mentioned Thank you.

@Dawn, Actually, you may not need to actually work any harder, but simply share the expertise you have already gained more widely. Become more visible. But no, I seldom make such assumptions. But, as a woman yourself, I'm guessing that you already know about the "be better than everyone" idea. It isn't subtle.

Fine words, but it still seems so wrong that one should have to work at being perceived as better at something in order to be treated as an equal.

@beldaz, you are right of course. Somehow the world got wired up wrong.

This could backfire and make @LilyOfTheEast even more 'attractive' so to speak, netting even more unwanted attention.

@Pharap, but at least the attention would be for the right thing.

@Buffy Assuming for a moment that these men are indeed showing the OP unwanted attention, what you're essentially saying is that it's alright for them to perv over her if it's because of her intellect and not her appearance?

@Pharap. I'm saying no such thing. She wants a healthy working relationship with colleagues. She doesn't want to hide from them.

@Buffy Exactly, so trying to outdo everyone else is just avoiding the actual issue. And if executed badly it could even have the opposite effect, it could lead other colleagues to resent the OP for being a 'know-it-all'.

It might actually be good if your colleagues see this and come to realize that you aren't interested and that you find it awkward.  I don't doubt that this is happening to you, males can be that way (nope I'm not saying it is okay, just that it is common)
Some of the attention should wear off when you aren't as new, and haven't responded in an encouraging way to any of it.  You might try shortening your answers instead of being intentionally cold since you say you want to be seen as friendly.  (Keep being cold to the ones you've already started down that path with, or they may take it as encouragement)

I guess some people might say, well, just tell them openly that you are not interested.
  I simply am not able to do that

If you don't want to say anything to them, I guess about the only thing you can do is dress in a way that is less flattering to your body style.
Please note that:

I am not saying or trying to imply that "you asked for it" because of how you dressed
Nor am I saying/impling that you should have to put up with it.

You asked for help and constrained my advice by saying you didn't want to be blunt, so this is what I have.
I'm not familiar enough with your culture or your university's, but there is a small chance that something you're doing is being perceived as encouraging and you aren't aware of it.
Speaking to a female colleague (another candidate or faculty member, not a female researcher or administrative staff person) could help with this.
You could also speak to someone (female; preferably attractive) from your culture and ask for ideas.

P.S.

... some of them might not even really want to pursue a relationship
  (they are married, or too young/too old for me anyway), but just kind
  of show some sort of admiration I guess

Yes, some of them are just being nice, they want to be friendly with the 'pretty girl'. If you can "talk shop" with them and they speak to you as equals, it is a good indicator that it is okay to be pleasant to them.
Don't assume that all of the ones who are "too old" or "too young" know that fact.

@Dawn I didn't mind your first comment - just explaining :–)

I actually don’t know what happened to my first comment. Maybe I was censored for being sexist.

@dawn Don't know how to find out. I deleted mine as it makes no sense without yours in front of it.

Please give me some advice on how to handle a situation like this.

I note that you just ask how to "handle" the situation. You don't ask us how to make them go away (but if that is what you are interested in, feel free to update or comment).

These male colleagues are decent, respectable, and in some cases, brilliant and achieved people. There is no inappropriate advance from them or anything creepy in this (or it would be rather easy to handle the situation). It is just the continued, affectionate attention that is making me uncomfortable.

Aside from measures to stop the males from their behaviour, how about re-framing for yourself, by looking to how this behaviour comes to be (and I notice specifically that you say that those guys are good-natured and not creepy; this answer only makes sense if everything is good-natured, not overtly sexual, and not a power-play).
Evolution turned out so that for most mammals, it is the male that has the job of actively finding, proposing to, and winning a female to produce offspring. Females, instead, usually have the job of trying their best to keep males away. This must be this way as the female can biologically only produce the offspring for one male at a time - the male obviously does not have this limitation, instead it must get as many offspring on the way as it can, to increase the chances of distributing its genes.
So far, so good, this at least tells it that both the behaviour of the males in your vincinity (reacting to your presence) and your own instinct (trying to get them away) is, biologically speaking, perfectly normal and to be expected. The fact that they are still gentlemen (not creepy, not actually "doing" anything untoward) also tells us that they are quite able to suppress their instincts in your institution, to keep them from acting in any way more uncomfortable or unacceptable - so society and its constraints absolutely do seem to work quite well.

However, I also feel very uncomfortable about that.

There is still that. You already got a lot of answers which tell you ways to change the behaviour of your colleagues (dressing down, being 25% better than them, lying about being in a relationship etc.). Those probably work in some way or other to change the colleagues, but they require you to lie or change your outward behaviour; depending on your disposition, this may be even more uncomfortable for you, and would be a very straight way into unhappiness for me.
So, another possibility is to make yourself not feeling very uncomfortable about it is to see how it is:

It is normal behaviour for a mammalian species.
It is sufficiently curbed by society so that you are neither in danger, not have to fend off actually creeping advances.
It shows you that you are - speaking objectively/statistically  - a very nice person. Don't change that!

I know an example in my company who has your "problem" - very friendly, charismatic, intelligent, knowledgeable, with a huge network of people. You can imagine what happens if he enters a room; everybody (male and female) zooms in on him.
I've known him from the time when he obviously could not really handle it; it was a huge burden (and not in a sexual way, all work related). Everybody was heaping a lot on him - because he could and would do anything that everybody else just couldn't. At the end, he radically changed. He is still all that I listed above, but now he just does not accept advances (like being asked for help, being asked to do jobs, being asked to speak with XYZ, and so on) at all. Zero. He still does his job (which is on the C-level of the company), but he goes out to people, not the other way 'round. You can see how it worked wonders, he looks more healthy and relaxed than ever, the stress level has gone down a lot, and he still performs as well as before.
So: pick your fights. Yes, they happen to appear where you are, but so what. As long as they do literally nothing but indirectly let you know that you are probably the greatest being in their lives, just ignore it. Be glad, smile (just not at them specifically). You're probably making their day.

I am by nature a nice and friendly person. I really feel bad about being cold and unfriendly to other people.

Whatever they actually ask of you, deny (in a friendly way). I.e., if they want to hold open doors for you, or pay your meals, or go with you anywhere, or whatever; just deny it. I can't tell you how because you haven't really given examples. Ignore them as if they were air, even after noticing them, but not turning yourself into something unfriendly that you do not wish to be. If your sights cross, give them the same small nod you would give everybody else, and then simply go on with whatever it has been you've been doing.
At the end, they will either lose interest, or they will actually talk to you (in which case you can tell them in friendly but firm terms that you are not available), or, if they keep doing what they're doing, they will reduce themselves to clowns of the evolution, which you can maybe handle with humour.
This is quite difficult, and admittedly more a journey than a quick fix; but if you can get yourself to make it a fun journey (play with their reactions, objectify them in a good-natured way), then it can be a fine thing and much easier than trying to change their behaviour without changing yours in a way you do not wish to.

All this is fine:
"I wouldn't be able to take the 'dressing down' advice. I like to dress in a classy and elegant way and that makes me feel good ... I don't see anything wrong with it and don't want to punish myself with other people's reactions to me. I have become more convinced that the solution to this type of issue is not to make women less feminine/attractive."
... but you have to expect that if you are conventionally attractive, you will attract the masculine gaze. That is also normal.  Particularly with elevated hemlines. You can tell someone who hits on you to "beat it".  If they come back for more, tell them to leave you alone.  And if that doesn't stop it, find out who their supervisor or department head is.
You have every right to dress in a tasteful, elegant, and feminine manner and you have every right to be treated with professional dignity and respect.  Personally, I like it that attractive women appear as such in the workplace and I don't hit on them (my wife might not approve if I did).  But you cannot expect that if you are attractive and dress attractively, that you will not catch men's gazes.  But they should respect you and your position enough not to hit on you at work.

i didn't know i was addressing "building healthy working relationships".  i was telling Lily that she has a right to both wear a cute mini and be treated with respect and safety in her academic workplace.  but she has to expect the occasional masculine gaze if she does.

"Personally, I like it that attractive women appear as such in the workplace and I don't hit on them (my wife might not approve if I did)."  But you would treat women inappropriately in the workplace if it were okay with your wife?  (I have heard this sort of "my wife says..." comment many times over the years.  I think it used to come off much better than it does in 2018.)

@PeteL.Clark, no one should be "treat[ing] women inappropriately" at all. nor men.  at the workplace or anywhere else. we should always treat everybody we come in contact with appropriately.  are we all agreed about what is "appropriate"? consider an unmarried and unattached person of either gender that may be attracted to another person that one learns is also unmarried and unattached. are both persons simply forbidden to flirt or "make a pass" or inquire about a social date simply because they both work? must one of them quit the job so that the relationship that comes out of it is legit?

@robert: I did not say or mean to imply that there can be no legitimate workplace romances.  Upon reflection, the term "hit on" is quite ambiguous.  I took it to mean "Flirt aggressively, signalling sexual intent."  It doesn't have to mean that, and in many workplaces there are acceptably mild ways to flirt with certain coworkers...but you yourself seem to suggest the above meaning with the line "But they should respect you and your position enough not to hit on you at work."  So I confess I am a bit confused as to what you mean and why your wife is relevant to the OP's question.

i understand @PeteL.Clark, your take of "hit on" is the same as mine qualitatively, but maybe not quantitatively.  and i still think that even an office romance has to be done very carefully, if at all.  but any romance begins somehow when one party, in some sense of the word, hits on the other.  someone breaks the ice (as if there were any) first.  someone asks the other "what'cha doing tonight".  now that person should not be considered a scoundrel for doing that.  but if it is unwelcome (and such is communicated) that person needs to take the hint and leave it alone.

//So I confess I am a bit confused as to what you mean and why your wife is relevant to the OP's question.//  i wouldn't want my wife to be seriously flirting with another man.  it might make me and our marriage seem a bit insecure.  i imaging my wife feels the same.  that said, a cute chick, mildly provocatively dressed in a public context will still catch my gaze.  my wife might slug me for that if she detects it.  but if i go up to that cute chick and hit on her, that could be very problematic for our marriage.

I know this feeling very well and I actually think this is in many cases not purely related to romantic/sexual interest (as suggested in many answers so I will focus on a different aspect and based on the additions to the question). In my personal experience many guys are just trying to build a friendly relationship (even if they wouldn't mind more) but with so much effort that it becomes unnatural and annoying.
If you want to have a purely work based relationship with someone, try to keep the conversations in this direction. Do not answer non-work related questions at length and do not show much interest in their stories. This doesn't mean you have to become cold or rude to them. Maybe think about a collection of research topics/questions that you can bring up if the conversation becomes personal and then you can change the topic without seeming distant. (This has the additional positive effect that people will probably think you are really smart and a dedicated researcher.)
If you are getting any "special" treatment (anything, like being invited to coffee), try to bring other people into it or share. This can always be seen as humble/social but diffuses any intimate atmosphere.
The average person will stop certain behaviors after some time if they are not reproduced at all. If they do not, this is normally a big red flag.

This answer might be a little bit to pragmatic, but I think it will bring about the desired effect.
Basically, find a way to tell these men that you are in a relationship and are not currently looking for a man, regardless of whether it is true or not. If they are as polite and kind as you are saying in your question, this should get them to back off.
As to how to get this point across, there are a variety of ways it can be done. An easy way is to get a picture of a man, and stick it on your desk, where these guys can see it. Even better if you can pose with a friend at a restaurant.
Of course, it is unfortunate that you would need to do any of this subterfuge at all, and I have certain ideological issues with this plan. However, it is pragmatic and efficient.

Most answers so far seem to address the question at a level where they silently assume that there is a problematic behavior. Maybe I'm insensitive (and being a nerd, this is even very likely), but let's dissect the points that you mentioned:

For example, these gentlemen seem to be giving me a bit of extra attention:

Others already mentioned that being "the new one" may cause some curiosity in any case. Beyond that, you did not clearly say in how far this "attention" goes further than the usual attention that "seniors" tend to show towards "juniors": There is often the feeling of being in the role of an "advisor", even when this is formally and technically not the case.
So I have to assume that this refers to what you described next:

following me to the pantry;

When one of my colleagues grabs his mug and walks towards the pantry, I'd likely say: "Having a coffee break? Wait a minute, I also need one...", or just follow them silently. (Male colleagues. And I'm not gay, for that matter...)

"appearing" several times at the same time at the place that I'd show up;

You are working together. If "(randomly) being at the same place as other people" is problematic, you should consider remote work. (That's not meant to be cynical. That's really an option to consider for someone who is lacking certain social skills. Note that this would not improve your social skills, though. I can tell that for sure...)

or even try to wait for me when I leave.

When I'm about to leave and ready to go, and notice that one of my colleagues shuts down his PC, I'd wait for him, to maybe have a short chit-chat on our way out.

(Please don't suggest that I might be overreacting - I am quite confident that I'm not exaggerating here.)

I do suggest that. When you feel "uncomfortable" in a social environment or during normal social interaction, you cannot simply accuse others of misbehavior and attribute this to your "young-ish"-ness, "attactive-ish"-ness, "asian-ish"-ness or "woman-ish"-ness. Sometimes, feeling uncomfortable, insecure, annoyed or even anxious among others has other reasons. I feel this all the time, and I'm an old, ugly, caucasian man.
So, this is certainly going to be downvoted a lot. I know that when a question comes up here on stackexchange that says nothing more than "I'm a woman and feel uncomfortable, what should I do?", some people hastily start talking about the oppressive sexually discriminatory misbehavior of men, up to a point where any answer that even dares to ask where the actual problem is will be downvoted into oblivion. But seriously: We have to figure out where the limit is, and whether there are reasons for feeling uncomfortable that other people can not be blamed for.

I have to try to distance myself from some of them who I have had some friendly exchanges before. I've become a bit cold and unapproachable to them.

I suspect that this tactic will probably be enough to work - it is likely that this will put them off from continued interest.  Indeed, I suspect that even if you backed it off from "cold" to just neutral, that would be enough to dissuade continuing pursuit after a period of non-reciprocation of interest.  With most men, I think you will find that if they are interested in you then they will try their luck for a period of time after they first meet you, and if that interest is not reciprocated after a reasonable period of time, they will accept that and get on with other pursuits.  If there is a continuing problem after a longer period then you might need to escalate to some greater response, but you can probably just wait it out.

(American dude with a PhD here)
One subtle way you might indicate that you're open to professional and maybe friendly connections with these fellows, but not interested in romance with any one of them, would be to find moments where you can invite a group of them to get lunch, coffee, dinner, whatever together, or even ask them to attend a practice run for a presentation you're preparing. This establishes a sense of camaraderie, while putting it in a clearly communal rather than diadic context.
For the ones who either don't realize they're subconsciously acting out an attraction to you, or who are maybe consciously interested but decently aware of social cues, this will steer them toward the kind of interaction you'd welcome with them. Sustained interaction with these guys will likely yield some friendships as well if desired.
Unfortunately, there may be at least some of these guys who are oblivious to your disinterest, or (the creep case) aren't interested in leaving you alone just because you haven't shown any reciprocal interest. My suggested approach might kinda help with them, in that it cuts down on time they're spending around just you. Ultimately, if they end up still being a big presence, the advice given by others here will be more applicable.

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


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Do I need to inform my PI about every single project I am working on?
I feel like my PI doesn't care much about my thesis (as if I already had one), and keeps assigning me several unrelated tasks to support the publications of his postdocs. Even worse, I don't feel like he is my "academic" advisor: every weekly meeting revolves around grant writing and research expense rather than the experiment itself. And the worst? We differ in our approach to science: his is data-driven, mine is hypothesis-driven.
At the same time, I greatly enjoy the mentoring I have been receiving from three  members of my thesis committee. We did have many exciting sessions of exchanging ideas and fruitful follow-ups. I feel like with their help, I am becoming the kind of scientist I always try to be. Last but not least, although they are experts in different fields, they respect each other and are happy to collaborate through my thesis.
Here is my problem: I have several ideas with each of my three committee members, and want to turn them into publications. However, these are deemed not the interests of my PI's lab. Do I need to inform my PI that I am working on these projects? Do I need to describe these projects in detail (he will yawn his way through the meeting anyways)? And if I can get some publications, should I put my PI's name there?

Any reason you can't just send your PI an email saying "Hey, I am working on some awesome projects with A, B, and C, let me know if you'd like me to tell you more about them sometime"?

how are you funded?

@JackeJR: Excellent point. 100% from my PI.

So I think he needs to know how you are spending your time. I think you should seek approval from him to work on these. It is being resepctful. It can be in the form of I have some ideas I would like to develop with Prof xxx and Prof yyy, can I go ahead and discuss with them? Your PI would probably also need assurances that working with them does not compromise too much in your abilitty to support his lab.

And lastly remember this. It is in your best interests that relationships between your advisor and you remain cordial.

@JackeJR: Please post this as an answer so that it can be upvoted.

Your work to support publications by his postdocs should lead to you being a co-author on their publications, which is a good thing.

In your comments you mentioned that you are funded by your PI, which changes the dynamics and expectations somewhat between you and your PI; and I think he needs to know how you are spending your time.
My suggestion would be to seek approval from him to work on these. This is to show him that you are respectful and value his opinions on if these are worth working on. It can be in the form of I have some ideas I would like to develop with Prof xxx and Prof yyy, can I go ahead and discuss with them?
Your PI would probably also need assurances that working with them does not compromise too much in your abilitty to support his lab. And lastly remember this. It is in your best interests that relationships between your advisor and you remain cordial.


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Graduate training programs from other departments, how helpful are they?
I notice that there are quite a number of graduate training programs across departments in my university that encourage multidisciplinary researches. For my case, I am an EECS/ Computational Biology grad student, and I am considering a training program in biophysics/nanotech.
I don't mind taking one more course per semester, and finding co-supervisors from other departments as the program requires. My main concern: will there be any real advantages of getting that certification in term of (academic) career prospects?
In one of his famous blog post, Sean Carroll advised:

Don’t dabble. Another slightly counter-intuitive one. You might think that, while most of your research work is in area A, the fact that you wrote a couple of papers in area B will be taken as positive evidence of your breadth and intellectual strength. Very wrong. What will actually happen is that your work in area B will be compared to the best people in the world who spend all their time thinking about area B, and you will probably come up wanting. Even worse, it will be taken as evidence that your interests may wander over time — so that, whereas you were hired to be an expert in area A, maybe in a few years you won’t be doing that at all. Kiss of death. Deep down, there is a strongly anti-intellectual strain within academia; you were hired to work in a specialty and that’s what they expect you to do. Once you get tenure, of course, you can do whatever you want; so it’s important that the department be reassured that you don’t want to do anything else.

I wonder if people will look down on me if they deem biophysics/nanotech a discipline too far away from computational biology (even when my thesis are dealing with all of them)?

In my experience, Sean Carroll is completely and utterly wrong on this point.  If anything, being too narrow is the kiss of death.

Yes, as @JeffE attests, there is at least a balance to be struck in the diversification of your skills and perspectives versus having a clear focus that will mark out your niche. You can overdo either one. My perspective, as someone who has been involved in inter-disciplinary research for 15 years, and who has had a lot of advice from much more senior folk about this, does err somewhat on the side of Carroll. In particular, your goal is to mark out a well defined territory that is not too diffuse. "Trajectory" in your career (mainly your pub record) is a primary consideration for hiring and promotion, and it's difficult to build up a body of work if you dabble in many areas.
My own perspective resonates with Carroll's here: continual, long-term dabbling is Bad for getting tenure. It will dilute what others will be able to confidently perceive/predict about your current and future impact in a specific field. But being a "drone" who just followed faithfully in the footsteps of his/her PhD mentor, using the same perspective that might already be "old-fashioned" and not future-proof to the growing inter-disciplinary pressures (you should be able to insert your own field-specific examples here!), is also Bad. Either because you find eventually yourself bored or devalued as a "mere follower" rather than innovator, or because your micro-focused view dries up in terms of peer interest or funding.
Remember that institutions at least pay lip service to inter-disciplinary work. Some actually really support it in a meaningful way, and look for fresh, innovative thinkers to join them. As a junior academic, now is a good time to explore what's not too far from your area and learn more about how to position yourself with a unique and/or highly desirable set of skills and body of knowledge. So, this can be exactly how you end up being successful in contributing in a clear direction in exactly the way I interpret from Carroll's blog post.
For you, ask your mentors and colleagues how they see the current and future combination of the two disciplines you are talking about, and what the interesting questions are. Then try to see how you could fit into that and do something innovative while remaining feasible and concrete. It's tricky, but finding that sweet spot should get you a long way, and it could be much more rewarding. Just be careful who you work for. Some places or people talk the talk but don't walk the walk. When it comes to decisions involving money, if your institution's administration or your peers don't know how to properly evaluate your highly innovative inter-disciplinary work then you might "fall between the cracks" and be passed over for a more traditional candidate whose work they can, at least, easily understand! Good luck


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Is it possible to submit a conference paper without results?
I am writing a paper for my first conference which is actually about my MSc dissertation. In my dissertation I designed a system and tested it with a number of users however, I don't want to include the testing/results in the conference paper because I believe it needs more testing (on a larger number of users).
I'm not sure though if I can submit the paper without results or will it be rejected because of that?

Normally, you would include some preliminary results and convert your gut-feeling into a founded explanation as to WHY the system need more testing.

You certainly may submit the paper. It very well may be rejected.

If the papers published in this conference in the past all include results, that's a signal that unexceptional submissions without results probably won't be accepted.

I'd include your results as preliminary and explain why more data is required to obtain a significant result.

(as you are talking about a system that needs to be evaluated on a number of users, I have the impression that you may be in a field related to software engineering, so that's what I am working with in the rest of the answer - but other fields will likely not be much different, just the examples I provide below may be of less relevance)
The answer to this question largely depends on what conference you plan to submit to, and how preliminary your results are. Different conferences value different things, and differently ranked conferences need results on different levels of maturity.
Some examples from the wider field of systems and software engineering:

ICSE is the major conference in software engineering. You will need a solid idea and a strong, convincing evaluation. Testing on a significant number of real users will be required (what this means exactly depends a bit on the type of system, of course). Generally, reviewers at ICSE are not so interested in the concrete software you built, more in the processes, concepts and methodologies underlying your system.
USENIX Middleware is another major conference, but with a completely separate focus. Here, the actual system implementation is what counts. Few Middleware papers have user studies etc., but all of them provide detailed performance analysis and comparisons with existing tools and systems. Providing your system in a useable (!) way for download is almost mandatory.
The World Wide Web Conference is the premier conference for Web engineering. What really counts here is the data you have. Access to real-life data (e.g., usage data, search logs, social network data sets, etc.) is really important, more so than testing with real users. Papers that provide a new publicly available set of real-life data with some interesting characteristics are often valued highly. Implementation generally counts less than algorithms.
ICSOC is an example of a smaller, more subfield-oriented conference. Here, you need a good idea and some preliminary or intermediary results, but most papers are not evaluated very strictly. Most papers submitted here are still, at least to some extend, work-in-progress.

Basically all sub-fields have their own smaller conferences similar to ICSOC (last example). While they are usually at least one tier below the more general conferences, they are usually a good first outlet for publication, as they are often less competitive and do not require a fully evaluated and finished research project. However, do not think that smaller conferences accept everything. ICSOC still sports an acceptance rate between 15% and 20%.
What I am trying to say is that different conferences work completely differently, and submitting the same paper to two (even equally good) conferences can easily end in a Strong Reject followed by Strong Accept. It is important to know how papers in a given conference typically look like, how they are presented, and how they are evaluated. Going against the mainstream in a conference is usually not the best idea, especially not in the beginning. This is were you need the advise of a senior person, who should have experience in writing papers for the relevant conferences in your field. If that is not available, you can also try to carefully survey previous proceedings, and see if you can find patterns and overall styles yourself. However, be prepared that you may miss nuances if you do this yourself. For instance, if your target conference typically does not have many applied papers, it is difficult to tell without knowing an experienced insider whether this is because applied papers are not often submitted there, or because the TPC always rejects almost all applied papers.
Edit:
I noticed that I rambled on without ever really answering your questions ...

I'm not sure though if I can submit the paper without results or will it be rejected because of that?

Without any results may be difficult, although you can still try to submit to a workshop or work-in-progress track. However, if you already have some preliminary results, it sounds like a smaller, more specialized conference may be a good choice for you. Of course the validity of this depends a bit on how small your evaluation was...