1. Welcome message and lab values
Welcome to the Dinneny lab! As a place where you will do great science, make dear colleagues and friends, and grow as an individual, I consider it a great gift to be here to support you on this journey. The philosophy that guides how I manage the lab and serve as your advisor has been informed by my own research experiences as a student and postdoc, as well as my time as a PI since the lab’s founding in 2008. While I play a large role in setting the tone of the lab, how well the lab runs and the maintenance of a supportive lab culture is the responsibility of everyone, as well. Below you will find what I see as my responsibilities and your responsibilities. At the heart of our lab culture is the mutual respect for everyone in the lab, for our institution, for our science and for our planet. This should be considered a living document and open for improvement. Please feel free to share your thoughts on how I can support your work and the work of others more effectively.
My responsibilities as your research advisor:
- I will treat you with respect as a person, a scientist and as a life-long learner. I will respect you regardless of your gender identification, age, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic background. I will value the contribution you make to the lab culture based on your interests, background and scientific style.
- I will be available to talk with you about research progress, professional development, and personal challenges, in a timely manner. While I need to balance my commitments to my family, University and lab, I will be sure to respond to you as promptly as possible.
- I will give you full attention when we speak and do my best to provide sound advice that helps move your research forward.
- I will provide sufficient funds for you to move your work forward. If research funds become limiting, I will clearly communicate these limitations and work with you to secure additional funds to support you and your research.
- I will support career development activities such as taking supplementary courses at Stanford, online or at other institutions.
- I will support your attendance at one research conference per year. This will depend on the availability of funds.
- I will work with you on fellowship applications and provide constructive comments in a timely manner.
- I will provide letters of recommendation that highlight the best contributions that you have made to the lab. If I feel that I can not provide you with a strong letter of recommendation, I will tell you at the time you request one.
Your responsibilities:
- You will treat your research advisor (me) with mutual respect and understand that being an advisor can often be a challenging task and that the best decisions are made collaboratively between the advisor and advisee.
- You will treat all of your colleagues with respect. This involves respecting each person regardless of their gender identification, age, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic background.
- You will be an advocate for everyone in the lab at the professional and personal level. You will provide timely advice on experimental protocols and the location of lab resources to others.
- You will work as a scientist of the utmost integrity. You will make observations and take notes without bias and consider the use double blinded experiments. You will accurately document your experiments at the time the work is being done and not leave this for later. All your experiments will be recorded using the lab Google Drive Database through your Stanford account.
- You will communicate all of your experimental results to your research advisor accurately and without secrecy. Data will not be modified to alter the results or interpretation.
- You will work in a timely manner to draft a manuscript on your research findings. This process will be done in close consultation with your research advisor.
- You will ensure that lab resources are used sparingly and with good justification. Wasting lab resources impacts the sustainability of the lab.
- You will follow all safety guidelines as outlined in the lab guide and through the EH&S University resources. You will immediately report any unsafe circumstances in the lab or injury you incur during your work in the lab.
- When you leave the lab, you will ensure that your lab notes, seeds, microbial strains, plasmids, data files, images and notes are all in order and recorded in the associated lab databases.
- After you depart from the lab, you will ensure you are responsive to e-mail communications and work to draft any remaining publications of your work.
2. Authorship
Authorship on any manuscript is a responsibility earned through substantial contribution at the intellectual level. These are examples of work that will be recognized with authorship on a manuscript:
- Providing a novel unpublished protocol.
- Providing an unpublished genetic stock.
- Performing an experiment that generates data described in the manuscript.
- Performing data analysis where the results are described in the manuscript.
- Mentorship that results in substantial intellectual contribution to the manuscript.
Lead authorship
Leading authors are designated on a manuscript to indicate scientists that have played the most substantial role in data generation, analysis and manuscript preparation. Common criteria for a lead author are:
- Performed the majority of experiments presented in the manuscript.
- Performed the majority of data analysis presented.
- Having initiated the project and substantially contributed to its inception and design.
- Wrote the first draft of the manuscript.
Corresponding authorship
As the Principal Investigator of the lab, it is my responsibility to oversee and advise all research being conducted. This responsibility is acknowledged through different mechanisms. Manuscripts that are led by members of this lab will almost certainly include an acknowledgement of me as a corresponding author. If you are working extensively on a project that is led by another lab, it is imperative that we discuss the implications of this work on your ability to spend time on projects core to the goals of the Dinneny lab. It is important that we accomplish the goals outlined in our grants, which fund each member of the lab, and produce publications that acknowledge these sources of support, not only in the acknowledgements section, but also in the types of authorship listed.
Dinneny lab 