We talk about encouraging young people to pursue science careers. But are we actually providing good incentives for them to do that? What opportunities are there for people to advance in careers are pure scientists at NASA? Look around you– who are the people in the senior positions? The “decision makers”? They may be people with scientific training, but they’re certainly not workaday scientists. When we ask “Where are all the scientists?”, it might do us good to look around and notice they’re all being promoted out of a job, and into management.
As a so-called young person trying to build a career in science, I’ve been told numerous times I’ll be doing so at the expense of more senior positions, and more pay. When I look around me for good examples, role models, mentors, I frankly have not one senior person in my professional life at NASA who has encouraged me in pursuing a path of pure science.
What I do see is all my friends and colleagues slowly realizing that they are faced with an either-or choice of having greater impact on the directions we go, or continuing to be hands on scientists. Now, this is clearly at its heart a question of philosophical proportions, but it is also one reinforced in the structures of the organization. By distinctly separating the doers from the decision makers, and by involving so much overhead in every action and decision that being part of that process is a full time job, there is a huge gulf between these two communities, which not only creates poor career opportunities in the sciences, but it also makes for much worse policy decisions ostensibly in support of science.
People often say that they like science, but that they want a career where they can interact with people more. They say science is lonely. But you know, I dont think I buy that. Most of us sit at our computers all day regardless of if we’re writing code or sending emails. Science can be as social as management, policy or infrastructure if you take that on as an element of your work; and, if you hide behind your computer all the time, management and policy can be as lonely as people think science is.
I dont think people really mean “lonely.” I think they mean they don’t want to be shut out. They want to be part of the conversations about what we’re doing and how we get there. But ironically, sadly, it’s often a zero-sum game, and the smartest people are being seduced into management by having their hopes and dreams mangled by the policy-makers who have come before them. It’s a worthy fear that, in the limit, all our scientists will have been “promoted” to managers, and for all the great ideas we have about where to go, no one will be left to actually take us there.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:19 am
Great post!!!
When I switched from being a hands on scientist to product marketing and business deveopment, it was for a couple of reasons, one of which was to become a decision maker (not too many people asked scientific programmers to make decisions). The other was because there were too many smart ideas going under since the scientists trying to convert that idea into a business had no idea how to do it.
However, I have also observed that the situation you describe, one in which there is a healthy cross-pollination between scientists and managers, is difficult to implement in practice. Part of the reason is that many science types are happy to remain in the background. However, that is probably due to a culture where they are supposed to do that. In organizations with a different culture, that problem seems to go away.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
My first job at NASA was in a laboratory and it was a lab that was just beginning, again. I worked for Bishun Khare, a brilliant man who was Carl Sagan’s lab scientist for 20+ years. When Sagan died, his lab was moved to NASA Ames, stored in FEMA lockers for two years, then was attempted to be set up in a 5th the square footage. I worked for Bishun during undergrad and between grad schools for a total of 2.5 years, first looking for organic compounds while simulating Europa and secondly using the same apparatus functionalizing nanotubes.
Today, Bishun’s lab is back and thriving looking into the tholin derivative research which he and Sagan discovered when studying Titan’s atmosphere (tholins are thought to be the early precursors to life). But this transition into a functioning lab was not easy.
The Bishun-Sagan team was highly successful - one the visionary, businessman, systems thinker, and communicator while the other the meticulous lab scientist walking around with his hands behind his back and not going home for days at a time.
The point: you need both management and science working together to advance knowledge. When you have world-class scientists forced into proposal writing, managing labs and workers and filling out paperwork, it is hard for the innovation to thrive. Successful research organizations have a healthy mix between the management function and the scientific innovators where both functions are valued and respectful of one another.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Well I think part of the reason that you see the aforementioned “either-or” mindset is a matter of how in depth a single person can be. You can have a scientist who is totally into his work and is absolutely brilliant at what he does. But is he going to have the time to be a manager and to lead a group of scientists while keeping up with his work? And similarly would a leader who is making sure that proper decisions are made still be able to focus on in-depth science and engineering?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Yes, unfortunately we live in a time, that’s been going on for over twenty-five years now, where we still produce more graduate scientists than are available for pure research jobs (think how many graduate researchers your PhD or MSc supervisor will put out in their career, and you can see that the system generates far more people than available research positions!).
I made a partial shift myself - I shifted from quantum cosmology and black hole physics to collaborative science networking, and then onto collaborative space systems networking and planetary explorations operations and IT infrastructure, because I wanted to have more impact in my lifetime and “do something” - which has generally been successful for me. However, lately, I’ve been told I “do too much” and would have more impact if I just did managing. This seems nuts to me, because my work is based on being on the bleeding edge of technology, and then trying to apply that technology to human spaceflight - if I stopped being involved in building systems, I think I’d be pretty darned rusty in a year or two, and could no longer offer the kinds of insight I’m generally paid to come up with! I find these kinds of remarks come from folks who took the “pure management” approach to life - dropped the bleeding edge research, even if they do some low-level research. Unfortunately, our space agencies are filled of a lot of folks with that attitude, and it’s what allows those agencies to have management that doesn’t see the urgency to move beyond the status quo - they end up being so far from the science and technology generating edge that they can no longer see how the world can change. So, to them, everything becomes “difficult” or “impossible in the present space and government world” rather than folks who work with the future, who can see that the future is out there. I think we all need to keep ourselves true to our science and technology interests - if enough of us do, we’ve got a far better chance of moving into the future, and building what’s possible with science and technology. “Do” by being involved in management, but always, always, building, and really “Doing” things!
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Really thought-provoking post! I do think some science positions are isolating, and many leave science for that reason, but it takes all kinds.
One of the exceptions to higher ups who still actively do science is Dr. Charlie Wade, who was at NASA Ames until a few years ago, when NASA biology research priorities shifted. He was an amazing mentor to many young people, and actively spent time in the lab, published a lot, and was a valuable management contibutor.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Great thread! I’ll contribute by sharing my own experiences…
I graduated with a Ph.D. in physiology in June 0f 2003, just a few months after the Columbia tragedy. Note: Charlie Wade (mentioned in the above post) was on my dissertation committee.
The position I had lined up at NASA JSC disappeared along with a lot of basic sciences research in the wake of the accident investigation.
I bid my time doing a post doc in another government agency until NASA re-started a post doctoral program though both NSBRI (National Space and Biomedical Research Institute) and USRA (Universities Space Research Association). A ray of light! NASA knows that it needs to attract young scientists!
I finished a post doc project at JSC and was subsequently hired as a scientist by the division that I was a part of.
The gem is that I am a scientist. I am not being forced into management. Why? I am with USRA. NASA has contracted USRA to bring in scientists to be scientists. There aren’t many of us, but we are a part of life sciences, planetary sciences, radiation biology, and more. There is a USRA office associated with most NASA centers.
Do I have a NASA badge? No. Do I have to be a manager? No. Do I get to do science? Yes.
There is hope.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Great post. I’m so glad I found this blog. I hope my 19 year old son sticks with his computer science degree; engineering wasn’t for him, but he has a great future in front of him, I believe. Thanks for making a mom feel better about a) choosing to work at NASA JSC and b) allowing my son to follow his own dream, rather than mine.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Reading about lwarren’s experience, I feel compelled to share my own. I am a young NASA engineer recruited to work at NASA HQ doing policy work. The decisions about reducing the biological research portfolio are partly on my hands and those of some of my good friends.
I put in another post that next gen folks have been in most of the agency’s major decisions. I don’t usually think its appropriate for those of us behind the scenes generating the analysis that drives these decisions to talk much about them, so I won’t really. However, I will share some specifics so that you can really understand what I mean when I say that next gen folks “own” these decisions as much as anyone.
I personally drew many of the charts that went to the administrator regarding the decision to reduce the number of Shuttle flights. We were conducting a major trade study with input from people all over the agency - all kinds of people. We knew quite well what this decision meant for things like the centrifuge and biological research time on the ISS. We put forward our data and I am proud of that work. It was accurate, fair, and yes painful. Many of us bear the scars of that work but there is also pride in the positive things that came of it.
We were of course working tightly with the ESAS team. It was actually a very dedicated team of exceptional analysts, many of them in their late 20’s and early 30’s, who did the ESAS research & technology portfolio work. They were building a portfolio commensurate with the final ISS configuration our team was working. They feel they own their part of the agency decision. It was their blood and sweat and tears and they generally feel they produced a painful but objective and rigorous result. Young researchers should know that they were very much in the minds of their peers who did this hard but necessary duty.
Back in the mid 90’s, I was finishing my aerospace engineering degree at a school with a focus on hypersonics. At the same time, NASA changed its direction and funding dried up. I couldn’t understand what that was from where I was sitting in the fluids lab. I got myself a technology policy degree and now I know the answer. I’ve even helped change NASA’s direction and left young versions of me sitting in labs around the country wondering what just happened.
I used to think the hardest math was partials or tensors or quantum state vectors. I was wrong. The hardest math has nothing to do with the difficultly of the arithmetic operations. The hardest math is when the numbers represent people. And the hardest part of that hard math is when you have two options and only one will get picked, such as only of of two excellent proposals will get funding or one of two struggling projects will get terminated.
You have peers everywhere who get to work on amazing things. The remarkable thing to me is the phenomenal talent of this generation - despite the tough road we’ve all had since the industry-wide hiring freeze of 1993. We shouldn’t ask to be part of things because we already are a part of things.
Now, we do have a duty to recognize that there are paltry few of us, so we need to help our fellows get to participate too. You should know that your voice in this matter is more crucial than ever. In addition to being part of the regular business of exploring space, this is an extra duty, a duty I’m so pleased to see done such good credit on this site.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I read this post and heard myself speaking, given the artistic license to substitute “engineer” for “scientist”. For the record, I am one of the Generation X-Y straddlers.
A few weeks ago, I sat down and listed out several items that I consider to be workforce barriers to maintaining a technical career path. It dawned on me while I was banging out my diatribe that the real issue boiled down to perspective. My baby-boomer mother instilled in me the sense of importance in “writing letters” to gain personal clarity and perspective on issues. What I do not do well is share those insights. In fact, I find myself carefully critiquing what I am writing here, wishing to censor my true thoughts and feelings.
Regarding the issue of perspective, there have been, in the past several years, many movements within the Agency to “streamline” and make efficiency “improvements”. However, from my Generation X-Y perspective, most of these improvements are focused on pushing more management responsibilities down onto the workforce instead of empowering and enabling the workforce. Also, I have noted in my career and in the career of several others whom I know well in this same age demographic, that even when we clearly state to management our career goals, if their own career goals and beliefs are not in line with ours, we feel extreme pressure (and sometimes even feel no choice) in taking on increasing leadership and management roles and responsibilities.
In other words, technical employees often feel that instead of being rewarded for technical achievements and skills, they are punished for being good at what they do by being promoted out of their desired area of interest (see “Peter Principle” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle). I am going to quote directly from that Wikipedia entry: “One complication is that competent employees sometimes pretend to be incompetent. … It may often happen for cultural reasons, such as a strong identification with the working class leading someone to remain in a working-class job rather than “selling out” or the disdain highly-skilled workers have for management decisions, leading them to avoid management jobs.” I have seen this “dynamic effect” adversely affect many people, from those who by must needs interact with people who purposely perform poorly, to watching the frustration and anger build until some feel their last resort is to behave in such a way as to not be promoted out of their area of interest. As a detail-oriented over-achiever (by all accounts), I cannot fathom how desperate people would need to feel in order to act so against their nature.
Honestly, I would be much happier taking a pay cut if I were allowed to pursue my true career interests. I do not have a colleague that I can look up to and say, I want to model my career after him/her. This concerns me.
As so many have said here, thank you for providing this platform to communicate through.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Patience, persistence and a sense of humour are the skills I see in some most excellent “science” mentors I have had…
With enough persons out there in the world, eventually someone will disagree regarding the initial post supposition of the lack of real careers in actual science. Although science at NASA is undergoing, as is the rest of the agency, a new rebirth (as all groups do eventually), I can name several successfully producing scientists in the agency who equally are good mentors for me to continue learning from and working with as a young scientist, while at the same time foster my own career in actual science.
I’ve been at NASA Ames for over 7 years now, hired as a young 28 year old, now, 35, and I never felt that one needed to “go into management” to get promoted. Scientists in our division have been rewarded time and time again within the agency, and even more especially, outside the agency, for their unique contributions to their fields. And this was even during a rather bleak period in the agency when the actual role of the “NASA scientist” was being debated (as it still is to a lesser degree). They have persevered, and still succeed in bringing in grants, winning awards, writing seminal papers, and featured as invited speakers at several international conferences. If that is not the “epitome” of a successful scientist, than I am thoroughly confused. And **none** of them are in management. The division is lucky to have management positions filled by scientists who chose that path and also by others highly skilled in “herding” a group of free thinkers and smoothing out the bureaucratic waves along the way.
If you are new to a research group or institution, you’ll find that scientists are often difficult to interact with. It takes time to foster relationships with mentors, and yes, they will not come to you, you go to them and with time you see what works and what does not. (And you veer away from the “bad apples.”) I’ve drifted between three or four mentors in the past seven years at Ames, excluding a few from other institutions. Some worked, others were rather grim and uninspiring. In fact, I grew apart from an initial mentor and found myself enjoying a new-found relationship with him after five years, mainly due to fact that my career has been evolving and it “now just feels right.” I would say it probably took me about 4-5 years to strengthen relationships to see who are the better mentors for me. Luckily I was able to stay in my research groups to see the fruits of my patience and observations of those around me. All in the same time as finding my knowledge of the universe around me increase with every seminar I attend and hallway discussions with both the “manager scientist” and the “everyday scientist.”
Being a NASA scientist is indeed a happy privilege for me and I hope for others as well.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
thanks so much for the comments everyone! school has been keeping me busy, but i wanted to respond to a couple of points.
@schingler - i think we’re actually in agreement. but i did want to emphasize that it’s not that i think we dont need managers; rather than i think we have an imbalance right now. we have too many managers, and ironically, a lot of that imbalance is because good scientists are chosing to or being promoted out of their applied work, into more of a decision making role.
which brings me to @steve braham’s comment. unfortunately, being a decision maker but still “staying true to” our scientific work would be nice, but i think there are many inherent aspects to the design of the organization which effectively prevent this. namely, that the structures and complexity of the organization, the relationships needed, the processes for getting money, and the “networking” required to be an effective manager is more than a full time job at a place like NASA. this tends to necessitate a rather binary separation of duties. perhaps a flatter organizational structure would address this “peter principle” effect (thanks for the reference @tjones!)?
finally, @kes, i think it’s awesome you’ve had such a positive experience! apologies if it came across as though i was suggesting there are NO scientists at NASA. but i DO see more people around me with technical training going for business degrees than phds. now, we definitely need some people to do that! but not all of them.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I’ll throw in my two cents too…
If you define scientists as people who spend most of their time doing research, they are indeed probably at a disadvantage for vying for management positions. Scientists fill a niche that doesn’t lend itself to upward advancement in an organization.
If you define scientists as people trained in science but who actually spend their work time doing non-research tasks, they are probably better candidates for management. Unfortunately, there aren’t many academic programs that prepare scientists for non-science jobs, which might explain why scientists often make lousy managers.
Some people want to do science research because they get a thrill out of discovering new things and reporting them to the community. Others pursue scientific careers because of an interest an aptitude for science, although they prefer to deal more with “big picture” issues rather than the details of research. I’m in the second camp. I have multiple science degrees and a science job, but my career objectives do not include being a “scientist” in the purest sense of the word (e.g., a researcher).
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I think that scientist needs to become a higher profile position. It should not be exlusively the managers running the scientisis; these are two seperate but equal career paths. There is absolutely a need for people to be full time managers and full time scientists. The problem is, oftentimes scientists don’t have the time to go to the meetings and sit in on the discussions. The current solution to that problem has been to have lab managers (in charge of the lab) represent each lab at these meetings. Thus, in order for a scientist to have any say in what they do, they have to “move up” to become a manager.
I submit that the scientist truly be made equal to the manager- The scientist should be in charge of the lab, with the manager reporting to them what happened at the meeting. In this method, the scientist will have the freedom to attend meetings, but also have a full-time coworker interacting and keeping track of the day-to-day managing of subordinates and making sure the basics are in place for running the lab.
There are probably reasons why this doesn’t always work, but a new policy that grants greater autonomy and a higher media profile to scientists would be a great way to remold it into a viable career path. There would also be the fringe benefit of attracting more young people to the sciences. This move would help to correct the balance of power between managers and scientists in NASA and based on our success, the nation. After all, NASA sets the standard.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Wow, this is such a fascinating post. What really strikes me is how little people know about the culture of being a scientist. There are so many things I read here that made me realize I have no clue about what it’s like to work in a lab with visionary people, really really really smart people. I’ve spent some time around extraordinary people, I was working for What Is Enlightenment? magazine at the main branch for 4 years. The amazing thing was meeting all of the amazing people we’d interview in our magazine: Dr. Don Beck, Brian Swimme, Steve McIntosh–cosmologists, philosophers, spiritual teachers (Deepak Chopra has swung by a few times), and fascinating REALLY SMART people. Not just that, but in general there’s a sense of being only a few degrees away from extraordinary minds. I’m not trying to plug the magazine but trying to convey my experience of being in an intense place of inquiry while surrounded by genius.
As a person viewing this world from the outside (I’m a designer, not an engineer, scientist, or physicist), it’s really a treat to begin to understand this world. Science is like a meditation and you speak of your colleagues with esteem for their work and their passion for science.
I was reading one reading the second comment by Shingler about research that Carl Sagan and Bishun Khare. What you guys study Titan’s atmosphere? Really? What the hell is a Tholin? That literally blows my mind. I can’t imagine how amazing is that to be working on the team doing that. You guys are like f**king wizards. Seriously. I’m not kidding. I can’t imagine that you’d have trouble finding people take positions in the lab if you’re studying things that will forever change humanity. You’re adding to the database of human knowledge exquisite gems.
Most people will only get credit for a bad string of youtube videos where they talk about their relationship with their fembot (watch the RealDolls catch up in 5 years). What strikes me is how “under or nose” this whole situation is. I’m doubtless that things will change in the near future. The world of science has yet to meet its golden destiny where scientists are rock stars.
In the developed information society we give contribution to information we perceive as valuable, which in the large cloud of information will become increasingly rare (relative to all the junk).
For the people who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s an example: Internet=Space. In the universe 94% of the universe is dark matter and dark energy. Which I is a complete mystery. The remainding 4 percent is our observable universe. From that, only a fraction is matter condensed into clusters of galaxies, solar systems, planets, and the last, life sustaining planets. I have no clue what the percentage is of matter transformed into life is, it’s probably like .00000000001 percent. So this is the most “valuable” mass around. It’s like the gold of the universe. The internet works the same way. As time passes, more and more “stata” (my new word for useless “stuff that is data” that takes up internet space). As information get’s old, it’s less used. Search engines and social networks keep us afloat in current data. And as time moves on we will put more attention on “perennial data” which is the data that we’ll always use and build on. Science produces an abundance of “perennial data”—the useful gold that lasts.
Scientists are rock stars. I think this blog is a part of the turn in our culture’s understanding of that. Scientists live in an aura of creativity and discovery. Your labs are dojos under the reigns of a great sensei. In the future to be a scientist will even resemble more our current adoration for two-dimensional celebrities.
So cool.
PS: Sorry for the long post, I’ve been travelling all day and this was my little break to write and think.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
A darn, I should’ve proofed this before I posted…I’ll post a proofed version on my site (kosmographica.com).