The imPerfect Scientist

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3000 downloads anniversary edition: our podcast edition how to use AI tools for next level science!

Attention natural scientists: Our recent podcast series explores the integration of AI in scientific research. We discuss the utilization of tools like Perplexity, Elicit and ChatGPT for various stages of research and literature review. Moreover, we discuss their use to influence of social media to increase visibility of your research. This episode is another valuable listen for any natural scientist interested in improving research efficiency and understanding the growing role of AI in research.

Content includes:

1. AI tools like Perplexity and Elicit transform literature review.
2. AI can be used to identify gaps in existing research soon.
3. AI has the potential for more objective paper review process.
4. Research visibility on social media significantly impacts citations.
5. DeepL and GPT compared: DeepL optimizes grammar, spelling, readability.
6. AI tools like GPT can assist brainstorming and text creation.
7. Use of AI can predict possible reviewer questions.
8. Notion integrates AI for summarizing text, creating bullet points.
9. We discuss privacy concerns with AI tools and suggest alternatives and workarounds.

Immerse yourself in our latest podcast episode exploring the transformative role of artificial intelligence in scientific research. We uncover how AI is reshaping tasks from enhancing text structure to designing experiments and brainstorming ideas with tools like Perplexity, Elicit and ChatGPT. As AI becomes increasingly accessible, discover how it simplifies complex tasks with a single prompt-line approach. We also highlight crucial AI safety measures. This episode is helpful for scientists eager to leverage AI in their work for innovative breakthroughs. Tune in to see the future of scientific work today!

Content

In this podcast we discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on our work as scientists. We talk about how artificial intelligence has been used for things such as automatically segmenting figure panels in research papers, improving text and making it more formal or structured, designing and controlling experiments, brainstorming for projects, summarizing texts, identifying new ideas, making decisions, strategizing, and for aiding in leadership. We also discuss how this technology has become more accessible and that it can assist science in ways that have previously been limited.

1. AI can be used for literature search, summarization, identifying links and gaps, and predicting reviewer comments.

2. AI can assist with scientific research with tools like Perplexity, Elicit and ChatGPT.

3. ChatGPT should not be used for facts as it produces hallucinated output and is not a useful tool for identifying knowledge.

4. Perplexity is a good entry point for becoming knowledgeable about a topic, as it gives citable sources, and allows for highly specific questions to be asked.

5. Elicit is a search engine for scientific literature which provides a table of titles, authors, citations and a single sentence summary for papers.

6. Users can upload their own PDFs and have them read and summarized.

7. AI can help generate arguments and experiments, brainstorm, and generate images.

8. AI gives the user the benefit of bypassing oftentimes tedious sub menus or knobs to enable a single prompt-line approach.

9. AI safety measures like guiding it towards what is desired should be employed.

10. Enjoy! ;-)

Heyyy, folks, we are back!

This is season 2 of our imperfect podcast – thank you for all the positive feedback and your support to boost this journey.

In this podcast season, we, Eva and Daniel, come back to share our experiences as imperfect scientists with a mission: to empower our listeners. We highlight the importance of embracing imperfection, underlining its ubiquity within the our scientific community. And acknowledging that this approach can help reduce anxiety and create a more supportive environment.

Our imperfect scientist podcast serves as a learning platform: for us to learn from our guests but heck, to learn also from each other! How can we own our own personal growth and experiences? Also in Season Two, we will share with you useful tools for coping with challenges faced by scientists. We hope you will find this podcast a valuable resource on our joint journey towards personal and professional growth!

Content contains (but is not limited to 😉):

1. Personal values awareness

2. values re-evaluation experiences

3. Eva's diverse scientific career

4. Values guiding decision-making

5. Self-reflection and personal growth

6. Flexibility, adaptability significance

7. Risk-taking in science

8. Transferable scientific skills

9. Non-traditional career openness

10. Beginner's mindset embrace

Have you ever thought about the term "diversity"? What does it really mean? What implications does it have? 

Chances are you have a notion of what diversity means to *you* and maybe in your scientific working environment. In this episode, we talk with diversity coach and trainer Jule Handschuh and explore the depths of the term diversity. 

In our chat, Jule, Daniel and I talk about: 

• What diversity really could mean
• What dimensions diversity can have
• How to start sharing your privileges 
• What tools can be used to encourage diversity
• Why Jule thinks that diversity should be encouraged 
• We even discuss how AI algorithms could benefit from being more "diverse" 

As you can see, we again have a fascinating topic with many nuances. Join us for this week's discussion with Jule!

If you're anything like us, you've probably wondered at least a few times how you could become more efficient. In this episode, we discuss hacks and tricks to become more efficient with Carsten Rohr. It was a super fun conversation, very enlighting and full of little takeaways. Some of the topics we discuss in this episode include: 

• Our word of the day: perspective
• How to set yourself up for success
• How to set up your PhD/postdoc/research project
• The concept of batching
• The 4 stages of knowledge and how you can make best use of them
• Making your strengths visible to others
• Finding your superpower
• Figuring out your peak day

And much more! So listen in and let us know: what is YOUR trick to be more efficient? ;-)

In this episode we talk about the concept of marketing your research. A concept that is quite often viewed with negative connotations in the scientific community. We present you with our perspective of why we believe that marketing your research can in fact be truly empowering and how to view it so that you don't feel uncomfortable doing it. After all, even if you do produce the best research in the world, you still have to be noticed for it, you still have to advertise it and you still have to make it visible, digestible and attractive to your fellow researchers. 

So join us for this fun episode, in which we talk about how to come out of the "marketing/selling is bad" mindset and to apply it to make the most out of your results!

In this episode we talk about a topic that is very widespread among the scientific community - at least the ones we have been exposed to. We talk about “risk and change” and why they are usually perceived with a negative connotation, when in reality they could be perceived as opportunities. As you might imagine, the “word” of the day is “risk aversion” and we try to dissect why as humans we are so risk averse and why we as scientists generally could be in a better position to deal with risk and change and not find it so aversive.

Some of the topics we touch upon in this episode include:

- Why risk and change are generally perceived as something negative

- What kinds of fears hide behind risk aversion

- How to become unbeatable by facing your fears

- Tools you can use to become less risk-averse

- The “who moved my cheese” story and how it applies to choices relating to risk and change

- Why Daniel become almost depressed after getting a tenure position (after being happy for a little while)

- Examples of how Eva got a positive boost out of several experiences that she was scared of or initially put off by

- Some of the benefits of risk and change

- How to work on your mindset to become more resilient

Another episode filled with anecdotes, stories and our best ideas on how to deal with risk and change, what we have learnt along the process in our careers and personal life.

Hope you enjoy it!

After a very timely break...we're back! You'll see why I say timely in a moment, let me just tell you how this episode is packed with super interesting discussions. And that's the case because we had a very special guest for the restart, Dr. Uta Schmidt. Uta has a super interesting personal and professional story, but most importantly, she has the deepest insight into how to handle change and remain resilient in the process. Some of the topics we discuss with Uta in this episode include:

• Why Uta picked "bamboo" as the word of the day
• Anthony Back, palliative care & oncologist: taking responsibility, victim roles, defining yourself what you want, where you go, living life consciously and fulfilled
• Why it matters to make yourself aware that it is YOUR ability to respond 
• How you can take charge
• Why resilience is an active process
• How "resilience" is (yet again) no more than a set of skills you can work on
• Why it is crucial to move away from destructive environments
• How to develop healthy boundaries (this is difficult with a newborn 😉)
• How sometimes having a Plan B makes you much more resilient even for plan A
• Why you should start working from strengths and make the best of them
• What it means to regulate emotions and how it can be achieved
• How to express reasonable expectations
• The key to staying authentic and true to yourself
• How often resilience develops with age
• Why you should try to not look back in anger
• How hugging can improve your resilience

As you can see, it's a long list of fascinating topics that we chatted about, and we hope you can find some inspiration for your newly developed resilience! 🙂

Oh, and before I forget...the topic of this episode came very timely because I (Eva) recently became a mother ❤️ If giving birth and adjusting to life with a new family member does not require resilience, then what does... ;-) - Enjoy listening and let us know what you think!

How would you feel about this statement?

“Science is not about finding out the truth”

Provocative, isn’t it? ;-) - So is our topic today and our guest Andrew Westhoff, but bear with us because this episode is full of useful and down-to-earth advice on how to approach your research life and how to communicate your science in a non-conventional yet super effective way!

I have to admit that at first my mind rejected this statement for being bold and untrue. But here’s a bit more context:

“Science is not about finding out the truth, but about building useful models”

That made a bit more sense. At the end of the day, we do build hypotheses and models based on our observations and then challenge our own and others’ models agains new evidence. Then we build new models, challenge old ones and this is a never-ending circule that is at the core of scientific advancement.

Today’s episode is all about breaking dogmas in how to think about your research, an in particular about how to think about it and how to communicate it. Our guest is Andrew Westhoff and it is totally worth it to listen to how he thinks of these topics.

Some of the topics we discuss today include:

• Why Andrew believes that “Homo sapiens” is a terrible designation for our species, both the “homo” and the “sapiens” and what a better designation might be
• What the “Pan narrans” is and how it is relevant for your research
• What processed of induction, deduction and abduction are and how to use them in your daily work in the lab
• Why Andrew starts his lectures on glioblastoma talking about Scottish battles for independence
• Why Andrew recommends that his PhD students read a couple of Agatha Christie novels before starting to write their dissertation
• How detective stories can be used as a guide to write scientific papers that your readers will actually remember
• Why throwing off people can be a fantastic tool to get attention AND to get your audience to be open-minded and much more likely to collaborate

So you see, once more a rather unconventional chat full of surprises and usable skills and tools you can test in your every lab life!

Looking forward to your feedback :-)

If you’re anything like us, you probably believe(d) that a scientific career is a pretty straightforward thing. That you can think of it as a pretty straight “line” starting with your studies, going into your masters, PhD, postdoc, junior professorship, tenure track, etc. The thing is - like most things in life - this does not always work like that. Sure, that’s kind of the standard path, but there’s a lot of opportunities for side-entering and side-leaving.

In today’s episode, we talk to Iris Beirith, who has a completely different story to tell about how she ended up doing her PhD in pancreatic cancer research. Iris is a super energetic person with a positive mindset and a question in mind that she asks herself again and again, and that is: “why not?”

And you know, with this question as a tool, Iris has gone from being a semi-professional dancer to founding her own dance school, participating in a weightlessness experiment, doing 2 masters at the same time and finally doing her PhD in pancreatic cancer.

As you can see, the range of topics we cover with Iris is pretty wild, but there’s a unifying theme and that’s how we chose the word of the episode “positive pro-activity”

So come along and listen in for this episode of “the imPerfect Scientist”, we believe that this one can be really inspiring if you’re the kind of person who tends to doubt yourself and think you might not make it. Because, you know, “why not?”

What do you think of when you think of the word “uncertainty”? What kinds of feelings does that trigger in you? Maybe you are thinking of the uncertainty of scientific contracts, maybe about the uncertainty and the unpredictability of research per se. 

Uncertainty is a big topic in research and during your scientific career. As scientists, most of us feel comfortable handling some level of experimental uncertainty which goes along with the very idea of testing a hypothesis and figuring out how things work. But we are also - understandably - quite anxious about uncertainty in the professional environment. And we come to decisions points quite often, where uncertainty certainly (see what I did there? -wink!) plays a big role. 

In this week’s episode, Daniel and talk about our experiences with uncertainty and how we have learned to embrace it and even welcome it under certain circumstances. As always, we discuss tools that have helped us move on despite uncertainty and give you examples of our dealings with uncertainty in our scientific career. 

Some of the topics we discuss in this episode include:

• What a V.U.C.A. world is and how you can use VUCA to deal with uncertainty
• How Eva intuitively used VUCA to make the decision to move internationally twice within less than 12 months 
• Why Daniel got sh* scared when he got his permanent position and how he overcame it
• How thinking about what your life would be like if everything in it was certain can help you overcome the anxiety that usually goes with uncertainty
• Why setting goals is an excellent tool, but focusing on defining your values and on the process rather than the end are even better tools
• How you can turn volatility and complexity into an actionable course of action 
• Why focusing on your actions can be much more effective than getting tangled up in the uncertainty spiral 
• Why we both believe that dealing with uncertainty is as much a skill as anything else that you can train and get better at and how to do so
• Why we believe that being able to maneuver around a VUCA world will be an essential skill for the future

As you can see, this is again an episode loaded with interesting information that we believe you will be able to relate to from your daily life. Now tell us about your own uncertainties!

Are you considering a transition from academia to industry? If you are, do you feel like:

• You can’t really relate much to the job postings?
  
• You feel insecure and don’t know if it’s “the right move”?
  
• You have a hard time writing motivation letters?
  
• You don’t know what skills you could bring to the new position?
  

If you do, you are not alone! Today in the podcast, we talk to Dr. Ute Pokorny, currently the Director of Global Business Excellence at Leica and about how she went through the process of transitioning from academia to industry.

Our word of the day is “playground”, and if you feel like this is not a word you’d typically associate with industry, bear with us and listen in to Ute’s insider view on how things work in industry.

Today’s episode is full of interesting and valuable messages, including:

• How Ute started 2 career paths before committing to medical studies
  
• How Ute struggled with the transition from academia to industry for over 1.5 years and how she finally managed to get unstuck
  
• Ute’s advice and lessons learned from the transition period
  
• How to define your transferable skills and why this is critical to any transition you want to make
  
• Why Ute thinks that working in academia is like being in a playground
  
• How to look out for those ‘aha’ moments that can set your path
  
• Why career guidance books didn’t work for Ute and what she recommends to do instead
  
• How to think of your career as a series of subsequent steps and take it “one step at a time”
  
• Why you should step out of your comfort zone and how Ute deals with the stress that comes with it
  

As you can see, we talk about a lot of very hot and interesting topics in this episode, so listen in and let us know what you learned. And if you want to know more about Ute’s transition or about our view and advice on how to do it, contact us!

Having trouble making decisions?

In this episode, we talk about a topic that you can all probably relate to: decision-making. Have you ever felt that like the decision you were making was going to “change your life”? Well, believe us, been there done that :-)

What we share with you in this episode, is all of our experiences making decisions and the tools we’ve learned along the way. Some of the things we cover include:

- The Samurai technique for making decisions

- Why most decisions are made emotionally but are then rationalised afterwards

- Why you might be better off with “only” 80% of the information

- Techniques you can use to reconnect with your “inner wisdom” or initial intuition

- How focusing on the positive aspects of a choice can help you be happier about it

- How Daniel faced his divorce and the time after and what he learned in terms of decision-making

- How Eva decided to move from Germany to Span and back to Germany and what she learned from this

- Why we are so risk averse and how to overcome your biggest fears when it comes to decision-making

And much more!

We also talk about a few resources that you could find useful and inspiring:

- Simon Sinek’s TED talk “The why”

- Mel Robbins’ TED talk “The 5 second rule”

- Thinking fast and slow

We hope that you enjoy this very personal episode! We would love to hear your stories about decision making!xn

In this episode of the podcast, we talk about scientific collaboration. We discuss the kind of mindset you can pursue when starting a collaboration, about being open to new collaborations, and about being brave. Because collaborating can be a lot of fun, and in our experience it also takes courage to engage with someone you don't know upfront and suggest to do something together. So that's why we say "Sharing is caring, but it is also daring" 

For this episode, we have a special guest, Dr. Florian Kuchenbauer, an established group leader with a lot of collaborators all over the globe. Florian has been all over the place, as we like to say "there and back again" ;-) and he has made very useful experiences finding and setting up new collaborations in his career. 

So bear with us, because in the  episode of the podcast, we talk about exciting topics, such as: 

• How turning group leader was the most difficult step for Florian
• Why Florian believes that combining work with life also applies to collaboration
• How to think of collaboration as a skill set that you can learn
• Why Florian believes that bidirectional trust is essential for fruitful collaborations
• How sometimes constraints can lead to being more creative about collaborations. For example, as Florian's supervisor was on sabbatical
• Why you should teach yourself to be proactive and take the step to approach people
• How to use hardship and difficult times in research to spark collaborations
• Why you always need to think of creating a win-win situation with a collaboration and how to do it

As you can see, this is an episode full of very interesting aspects of scientific collaboration. Florian is great fun to talk to and super energetic, so we are sure that you will find this episode of the podcast not only informative but also very entertaining!

Leave us a comment if you have any questions or feedback!

Do you know the concept? It says "build the plane while flying it" and while it may sound scary, we have found that it is indeed a very valuable way of going through your projects in life. Not to say that you shouldn't plan and leave all to improvisation, but it doesn't hurt to remind yourself that it is always possible to adapt and adjust as you go!

In this episode of the podcast, we have a guest who is a strong advocate for the "build the plan while flying it" motto: Dr. Alexander Schiller. 

Alexander is a chemist by training and now a professional coach and facilitator. He believes in immersive training and in the concept of "touching people's lives" and he shares with us his background, how he learned about immersive training, his background in improvisation theatre and about one of the masters of interactive training: Thiagi.

Our word of the day is "liminality" - and if you don't know what that means, don't worry because we also did not before recording this episode! :-) 

Amongst others, we leave you Alexander's tips for your career, which include: 

- Learn how to present

- Look for a mentor

- Learn transferrable skills

- Read books, listen to podcasts, use the resources around you to build transferrable skills

- Learn to use the "yes, AND" technique

So sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode full of useful advice for your career and for letting go of constraints and excessive planning.

If you have interviewed for a PhD or postdoc position, or for an industry position you really really liked, then you know how nervous you can get going into it. Sometimes you are so nervous you might not even "be yourself". And that exactly, being yourself, is one of the keys to nailing your next interview. Well, that and the not-so-secret but often forgotten fact that you should always consider in any one interview process: "what is in it for you, what is in it for them"?

In this week's episode, we talk about interviewing, about our experiences on both sides of the hiring wheel, about tools you can use to prepare for the interview and to be authentic during the interview. Because it's all about you and we know that you can nail that interview!

Topics we discuss in this episode: 

• We talk about the STAR method, a simple tool to be super authentic without even rehearsing
• Why you should always consider what's in it for them
• Consider how YOU can solve THEIR problem
• The interview process goes both ways: you also get to say if this is a fit for you
• How being detached from the interview process can give you incredible power to be an attractive and convincing candidate
• Skills are only part of the hiring process: an interview can tip the balance 

In this episode, we talk about "visualization" in scientific terms. We discuss why visuals are so powerful and what are ways in which you can make your visuals stronger!

We talk about:

• Signal-to-noise ratio
• Why you should consider how to tell a story also with your figures
• How to produce a bulletproof figure
• Our mistakes and learnings in the world of scientific visualization and illustrations

Let us know how YOU go about creating your scientific visualizations! We read you in the comments!

This episode of our podcast “The imPerfect Scientist” is about finding your career sweet spot. So you

don’t have to adapt to the job. Rather you find or even create the job that suits you best, suits best

your strengths and values. We might be intuitively aware of our strengths and of our values. Yet the

more consciously and clearly we are aware of them, the more we are aware of how we are able to

respond to opportunities. Funny enough, the word “responsibility” actually derives from “response-

ability”, being able to respond. So don't feel weighed-down and restricted by responsibility. Being

able to respond to options provides us with more freedom.

One way to reach that sweet spot is just to watch yourself and identify the situations, jobs, people

where things are easy and you are productive and get excellent feedback. Then you might have

found your recipe for success.

This is what we discuss in the most recent episode of our podcast “The imPerfect Scientist”.

I must admit this is one of my favorite episodes so far.

In this episode, we talk about why telling a story - yes, a story also for your scientific work - is so important. We talk about: 

• How humans process information
• Why the beginning and the end are crucial
• Using the “elevator pitch” to define and refine your story
• How to break with the mold and actually tell a story that people will remember
• Why is telling a story important? --> emotionalisation
• Word of the day: “storyteller”

Join us for today's episode and tell us how YOU build up your scientific stories 🙂

In this episode, we talk about a topic that is very close to our hearts: How to present your research in a way that it will be remembered. In our opinion, anything and any format in which you present should be all about getting information across. Sadly, that's often not the case. 

In this episode, we talk about: 

• Being memorable: this is our word of the day!
• Why most times we present our research we fail to give the most important information
• Simple fixes to make your science memorable (disclaimer: "simple" does not equal easy)
• Our own learning experiences in becoming better at presenting our science
• Why adapting to the audience is essential and things to consider - even if the audience is just 1 person.

In this episode, we share the "soft skills" that have changed us the most during our scientific careers. 

We discuss how soft skills can be acquired and practiced and share some of our experiences dealing with challenging situations.

Topics we discuss:

- Why "soft skills" should probably not be called "soft skills"

- Daniel's most changing soft skill and how it has changed how he works

- How Daniel had to let someone go 

- Eva's most changing soft skill and how it has changed her interaction with other scientists

- How Eva went from having a neighbour that hated her to being good friends with them

This is the pilot episode of "The imPerfect Scientist", a podcast from Scientists to Scientists where we share our experiences in scientific life and discuss tools to empower YOU.

In this pilot episode, we talk about:

- How the podcast was born
- The "why" of the podcast. Why do we even do this?
- Where the name comes from
- Who we are
- What kind of topics we are going to discuss in coming episodes

Who are we?

Daniel Mertens is a leukemia researcher with two labs at the University Hospital in Ulm and the Germany Cancer Research Center DKFZ in Heidelberg. The publications from his research labs have been cited by more than 4000 other scientific publications, but the number of mistakes he has made during his career is even higher.