I commit to publicly document an overview of the regular meetings in the lab, and my expectations for participation
This page collects real-world examples from labs around the world. We encourage all labs implementing the SAFE Labs Handbook to share their own commitments/statements here.
Belgium
Lab meetings are held weekly on Thursdays at 10 AM, unless otherwise announced. Each meeting follows this structure:
- Presentation: A different lab member presents their work or results for 30–40 minutes.
- Round Table Discussion: Every lab member has up to 5 minutes to share updates on their projects, discuss challenges, or seek feedback.
Any changes to the schedule will be communicated in advance.
Journal Club
The Journal Club takes place once a month and provides an opportunity for collaborative learning and discussion.
- Team Selection: Groups of 3–4 members are formed to choose a paper for presentation.
- Paper Approval: The selected paper must be relevant to the lab’s research and approved by the PI before the meeting.
- Presentation: During the session, the group presents the paper to the lab, highlighting key findings, methodologies, and implications, followed by a group discussion.
Brazil
- Group meetings: We will have weekly group meetings for quick updates from everyone, general discussion, announcements, interesting papers, etc. These meetings are important to keep everyone in the lab aware of what each of us are doing.
- Individual meetings: We aim to have short weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly (depending on your preference) individual meetings to discuss project status, personal and professional goals, work through problems, and to build a good supervisor-student relationship.
Canada
Anonymous lab:
During the winter terms, our lab holds weekly 90-minute lab meetings, in person on campus. The first ~30 minutes will be dedicated to individual updates and lab business/announcements. The remaining 60 minutes will be dedicated to the primary topic of the lab meeting.
All lab members will sign up to lead meetings on a rotating basis, and will be responsible for setting the agenda for their weeks. The purpose of these lab meetings is to solicit group feedback on research ideas and progress (and, occasionally, professional development). You might use this time to share a draft of a grant proposal, thesis proposal, or manuscript, discuss a paper relevant to your interests, or give a practice talk.
All lab members are expected to attend weekly, unless in the field, and to provide written comments on materials in advance of the meeting. In-person attendance is expected for those in [the city], but joining remotely is an option when traveling. Please note any virtual attendance or absences on the lab meeting spreadsheet.
We will rotate note-taking responsibilities and maintain notes in the lab Google Drive folder.
We have weekly 1.5 hour lab meetings. Everyone is expected to attend and, more importantly, participate. Participation can come in many forms, including asking questions, presenting, and providing feedback. At a bare minimum, participation means being present and not being distracted by your phones, emails, texts, etc., out of respect for the speaker and everyone else attending.
We’ll usually set aside time at the beginning of the meeting to catch up on everyone’s projects. Each week, a different member will lead the meeting. We’ll likely alternate between project discussions and journal club. However, we’ll also have dedicated weeks for practice talks for conferences and other science-related topics, such as best practices for coding, peer reviewing each other’s writing, and other ideas that we come up with.
Sometimes we also attend the Pruszynski lab meeting, or the Diedrichsen lab meeting, depending upon who is presenting and what is being presented. We should regard the three labs as one cohesive unit, and we should feel free to attend each other’s lab meetings optionally when there is something of interest being presented.
We also meet together with the Pruszynski lab and the Diedrichsen lab for a shared “superlab” meeting & journal club. The exact time & location may change from year to year. You should regard attendance at these as mandatory, unless you have a class that is scheduled in conflict.
Weekly Progress Meetings: We have weekly meetings where people present one experiment they worked on during the past two weeks. The goal is not to present all the work that was done. Presentation of negative results is perfectly adequate. If a person did not work in the lab the last two weeks, they can present a future experiment they want perform, a new idea they want to share or an interesting experiment from a paper they recently read. The presentation is not formal; best is to simply show the “labbook” entries limiting the talk to maximum 5 minutes, thereby allowing plenty of time for discussion. Each person presents every two weeks. The goal is to better know what each person is doing, allow more people to gain knowledge in various experimental approaches and exploit the collective intelligence of the group to get feedback.
Journal club is an opportunity for the lab to discuss recent papers published in the field with your study lead (graduate student/post-doc). During journal club, students will present and critically analyze a research paper.
- Each independent study/thesis student will present 1 paper to their study lead.
- The paper will be assigned to the student.
- The student will then briefly present the paper to their study lead at a time decided by the study lead.
- PowerPoint slides are not permitted; students only need to describe the paper verbally in a 3-minute maximum presentation.
- After the presentation, the study lead and other team members will have an opportunity to ask the student questions about the paper and engage in discussion.
Article Requirements:
- Empirical research articles or review papers. Commentary articles, reports, or correspondence articles do NOT qualify.
- Articles published in the past 3 years.
- Articles never presented at our journal club before (check the Journal Club channel on Teams for previously presented papers).
- Articles that lab members did NOT contribute to.
We hold a 1.5 hour lab meeting every week. The weekly meeting consists of core lab members (Me, graduate students, postdocs and honours students, when possible). Occasionally, other members will be invited to attend as well. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss current projects, to engage in debate or discussion about topics in the literature, and to plan future studies. Mostly, the purpose of the lab meeting is to solve problems. We meet in room 5017 WIRB. I usually schedule lab meetings at a time that is convenient for the maximum number of people. This varies by term, and it may vary even by month. We don’t usually meet as often in the summer.
Full group lab meetings occur weekly. The general format of lab meetings are:
- general announcements;
- research issues to be considered by the group;
- individual updates; and,
- a learning outcome for the group. The learning outcome will change week to week; for example: student data presentations, student practice presentations, journal club, career development, science development, science discussion, tutorial lecture/demonstration, etc.
Denmark
Weekly 1-on-1 meetings of 15-60 minutes as needed. This is for in-depth feedback and discuss results and future plans. If you send me a brief meeting agenda ahead the meeting, I will do my best to prepare accordingly. • If my door is open (which it mostly is), feel free to come discuss/ask whatever needed. It is often much better to get the quick input in the moment than waiting for the weekly meeting. • Half-year meetings: every half year we have a meeting of whatever length needed, where we step back and talk about the bigger picture of your PhD. Not about data and experiments, but about your career track/wellbeing/plans/etc. This is a chance to identify/make needed corrections to the track of your education and our work together.
France
- We meet weekly to discuss our (and other’s) science during labmeetings, on Fridays, 1.30pm-3.30pm. Everyone is expected to attend (in person) and participate. All presentations must be in English. Labmeetings can either consist of data presentation or journal clubs (discussion of a research paper that everyone is expected to read in advance). One presenter is chosen for each week on a rotation basis but the frequency of an individual’s presentation may be adapted, depending on projects or people’s needs. The presentation is followed by a quick round table, with every lab member preparing one slide to discuss the latest results. This round table is meant to help each other solve specific technical issues. The labmeeting usually finishes with any updates there might be, especially from myself and from the labmanager. All labmeetings presentations (data and journal club) should be deposited in the shared folder on our lab server.
- Individual meetings : While informal discussions will occur throughout the week, each lab member will also benefit from one-on-one meetings. For these one-on-one meetings you are expected to prepare a short powerpoint presentation including a summary of the previous meeting, updates on recent progress, and a plan for future experiments. These one-on-one meetings are organized in a proactive way : you will find open slots for one-on-one meetings every week on the lab common calendar that you can book. This allows for flexibility both in the frequency of meetings and time of the meeting in the week. Expected frequency of meetings will be set with each person depending on their needs. Typically, a new group member may be expected to book weekly meetings while more experienced lab members may meet every other week. While lab members are expected to book one-on-one meetings themselves, if you don’t do it, you will be reminded to do it 😊
- Internal and external seminars : Internal seminars at IGH are organized every Thursday at 11.30am, followed by pizzas. Attendance to the internal seminars is compulsory for all lab members. In addition to these internal seminars, external seminars are often organized at various times of the week. Keep an eye out for these external seminars and try to attend those related to your project.
Germany
In the lab there is an expectation for active participation in the following types of regular activities (scheduled in the shared calendar):
- weekly lab meetings (rotating journal clubs, project discussions, joint group meetings and state-of-the-lab PI presentations)
- bi-weekly departmental seminars (CMCB life science and CRTD PhD/Postdoc seminars)
- regular one-to-one meetings with PI (the frequency of each will be adjusted to the needs and career level of individual lab members)
- team-building activities (e.g. lab retreats, outings, celebrations)
Expectations for lab meetings and one-to-one meetings:
- please come prepared, whether you are presenting, discussing a paper at journal club or just wanting to discuss data, experimental design, troubleshooting, ideas, or specific requests (time-off, training/conference attendance). Some meetings can easily just be an email.
- do take notes - when discussing your projects it is important to make notes about what we discuss for your future reference. If there are specific deadlines, points or to-dos that we agree on it is good to have that in writing so that there are no misunderstandings at a later date
- lab meetings are expected to be casual, open, and free for the flow of ideas. The PI encourages everyone to ask questions and participate in discussions. For project presentations you need to include sufficient introduction for all lab members to be on the same page, the “why am I doing that?”, information on experimental design, troubleshooting, failures, mistakes, and analysis strategies and not just polished results.
- journal clubs will have two formats - the mini and the in-depth. Mini JC will have every person from the lab giving a short 3-minute presentation of a chosen article of interest. In-depth JC will have one lab member presenting one publication or preprint in detail and encourage an exercise in critical thinking by examining the results, methodology and interpretations of that paper. Ideally those will be of some relevance to the group.
In addition to informal exchange opportunities, such as the daily lunch in the Mensa, there is a 30-minute chair meeting Thursdays at 2 pm during the lecture period on a fortnightly basis. Here, organisational topics and questions relating to teaching are discussed. During the lecture-free period, we also use this meeting from time to time to discuss our teaching vision and direction in more depth. If, as a project member, you don’t have time to take part in these teaching-related meetings due to your own project tasks, it’s perfectly okay if you opt out of the meetings. In principle, however, anyone who has time is welcome to get involved, even if they have no formal teaching commitments.
We meet during the lecture period as part of the Lehrstuhlkolloquium (Thursdays, 2.30 - 4.00 p.m.) for professional dialogue. In addition to presentations of theses being supervised at our group, we also value presentations by all members of the department. Researchers from other universities can also be proactively invited. In this context, it is not relevant to us at what stage a presented project is. We welcome presentations on anything from an initial idea to the results of a completed project. Only one thing is always very important to us: constructive feedback. Regardless of whether your own area of responsibility as a faculty member is more focussed on teaching or research, we greatly appreciate the participation of all colleagues. The presentations at the research colloquium are usually held in German. However, if foreign-language guests are present, we are happy to switch to English.
The PI expects active participation at regular meetings including
- Bi-weekly Data Club with rotating progress reports
- Bi-weekly Journal Club with rotating paper discussions
- Bi-weekly 1-on-1 meetings with the PI
- Yearly appraisals
- Monthly BCCN talks
The PI expects every 1-on-1 meeting is prepared with an agenda and summarized afterwards, highlighting action points (see Notion).
We have journal club currently after lab meeting on Mondays via Zoom, this is compulsory for senior researchers / postdocs, PhD and MSc students and optional for everyone else. The current format is that 3 – 5 selected people each week present a paper of their choice (in about 10 minutes or so). Dr. Mariana Baez is responsible for the journal club schedule.
- We have a group seminar currently on Thursdays at 11 am via Zoom, this is compulsory for postdocs, PhD and MSc students and optional for everyone else. Dr. Fei He is responsible for the seminar schedule.
Italy
We have three types of regular meetings:
- Lab Meetings: Tuesdays 13:30 – 15:30. These meetings are mandatory and to be attended in-person unless otherwise agreed on with the PI. Meetings may last less than 2h. Lab meetings have the following format: Every 2 weeks data/journal club with a main presenter, and every other 2 weeks general lab meetings. In the “general lab meetings” everyone, including the PI, presents for max. 10-15min. Everyone should focus on 1-2 things they achieved in the past 2 weeks (important: an achievement can be a first pilot experiment, having fixed an issue with a setup, having identified an issue, having written 1 paragraph…) and 1-2 things they plan to do in the next two weeks. These presentations should have a very short introduction (max. 1 slide, a few sentences) to the project or technique and the description of the achievements; future plans should be short and concise so that there’s time within 10-15min for feedback/help/ideas. The purpose of these meetings is NOT to compare productivity or judge each other, but to keep everyone updated on what’s going on in the lab and to provide space to discuss “minor” achievements or issues without having to wait weeks for the next data club.
- 1o1 meetings: The PI meets regularly 1o1 with every lab member. PhD candidates can choose between a weekly or biweekly format; postdocs and technicians agree with the PI on a format that works best (regular, when necessary depending on the project status). Master students and interns may have biweekly or monthly meetings with the PI, depending on the degree of supervision by the PhDs/postdocs in the lab. All lab members are requested to send a short summary email to the PI after each 1o1 meeting. These can be bullet-point style but should contain concrete plans/agreements/outcomes. This format ensures that there’s a paper trail of what has been discussed and agreed on, but also that the PI and the lab member have the same understanding of the discussed matter.
- Yearly feedback meetings: At the end of each year, the PI meets with every lab member separately to provide mutual feedback and discuss future plans. These meetings follow a structured outline, require preparation on both the PI and team member side, and ensure that feedback is constructive and bidirectional.
More details can be found in the internal Lab Handbook.
We have three types of regular meetings:
Lab Meetings (Tuesdays, 9:30 – 11:30): These meetings are mandatory and must be attended in person unless otherwise arranged with the PI. Meetings typically last up to two hours. >The format alternates weekly: every two weeks we hold a data/journal club with a designated main presenter, and on alternate weeks we >conduct general lab meetings and data clubs. To promote broad engagement, scientific discussion, and collaborative opportunities, the lab meeting is jointly organized with another research group working on related topics.
1-on-1 Meetings: The PI holds regular one-on-one meetings with each lab member. PhD students, postdocs, and research assistants typically meet weekly (or as >needed, depending on project progress). Master’s students and interns generally meet biweekly, with the frequency adjusted based on the >level of supervision provided by PhD students or postdocs.
Topic Meetings (Fridays, 10:00 – 11:00): Every Friday, we meet for breakfast while each lab member, including the PI, presents a scientific paper in a 10-minute summary, focusing >on key findings and techniques. All presented papers are collected and archived along with brief summaries for future reference.
Lab meetings: The lab meets as a group once per week, on Friday morning from 9 to 11 – breakfast is on the house! We are experimenting with 4 types of meetings:
- Data Clubs
- Journal Clubs
- Literature Review Clubs
- Tutorial Clubs
- Wiki clubs
The expectations for regular meetings are laid out in detail on our lab wiki. All group meetings are in-person events, although we stream them on Teams to allow participation from those who can’t attend in person. Presentations and notes are saved on the lab server for posterity and future references.
1-on-1 Meetings: Federico meets every lab member once per week, typically for around 1 hour, during core work hours, to discuss their project and any other issues. Ahead of the meeting, lab members prepare a presentation summarising the week goals and achievements and plans for the week to come. After each meeting, lab members write a summary of the meeting to ensure that the discussion is recorded, and to serve as a starting point for the next meeting.
Semestral Appraisals: We review the post/project’s long-term progress and provide tailored feedback on work performance during semestral appraisals. This is also an opportunity to give Federico feedback about the experience of working in the lab, and discuss how to improve his support and supervision.
Japan
報告の持ち時間は１５分（超過時間は打ち切り）です．１５分は国際会議での標準的な報告時間ですので，ポイントを絞ればどんな研究も１５分内で報告できるはずです．報告は研究室メンバー全員の人生の時間を奪う行為ですので，十分に準備してください（一度は発表練習をしてから望んでください．進捗がない人は，報告をパスしてください）．報告者以外の方は，目上（教授）だろうが目下だろうが，他人の研究には遠慮なく批判・コメントをし，研究室というチームで良い研究ができるように心掛けてください．正しいか否かだけで判断されるのが学問の素晴らしいところです．研究に上下関係は不要です．
English translation:
Each report is allowed 15 minutes (anything over is cut off). Fifteen minutes is the standard talk length at international conferences, so if you focus on the key points, any research can be reported within 15 minutes. A report takes up time from the lives of every lab member, so prepare thoroughly (do at least one practice run before you present. If you have made no progress, skip your report). Everyone other than the presenter, whether senior (the professor) or junior, should feel free to criticise and comment on others’ research, and help the lab work as a team to do good research. The wonderful thing about scholarship is that things are judged only on whether they are right. There is no place for hierarchy in research.
【ゼミ】
予定は別表の通り。全員出席のこと（単位対象）。ゼミでは必ず質問する。あるいは意見を述べる。質問しないのは発表者に対して失礼な振る舞いである。
- 研究報告：前回からの研究の進捗状況報告。詳細別紙。
- 文献紹介（雑誌会）：自分の興味のある分野の論文を紹介する。詳細別紙。
- 学会報告：学会に出席したら興味を持った発表を紹介する。詳細別紙。
- Current Journal：最近の論文を３分以内で紹介する。詳細別紙。
English translation:
[Seminar]
The schedule is in a separate table. Everyone attends (it counts for credit). In the seminar, always ask a question or give an opinion. Not asking questions is rude to the presenter.
- Research report: progress on your research since the last report. Details on a separate sheet.
- Literature presentation (journal club): present a paper in a field you are interested in. Details on a separate sheet.
- Conference report: after attending a conference, present the talks you found interesting. Details on a separate sheet.
- Current Journal: present a recent paper in under 3 minutes. Details on a separate sheet.
毎週月曜のお昼に10-30分のオンライン全員ミーティング（昼mtg）を行っています。これは研究室内での状況共有が第一の目的です。毎週1回、対面でのゼミを行い、輪講，論文紹介，学会で見聞きした研究の紹介，自分の研究発表の練習などをしています。なお，対面ゼミ以外では必ず研究室に居なければいけないコアタイムはありません（ただし、学部4年生は原則として研究室で対面で研究をしてもらいます）。もちろん、研究室に来て実験をしなければ卒業することは難しいと思います（研究テーマや方法にもよります）。
研究の定例mtgは週に1回のペースです。1対1あるいは上級生や他の教員，テーマによっては他大学や海外の研究者も入れて2-4人くらいで行います。今はほとんどオンラインです。研究の進捗がない場合でも参加し、状況を話し合います。ただし、毎週や毎月の進捗レポートの義務はありません。
English translation:
Every Monday at lunchtime we hold a 10-30 minute online meeting for everyone (the lunch meeting). Its main purpose is to share what is happening in the lab. Once a week we hold an in-person seminar, with reading groups, paper presentations, introductions to research seen or heard at conferences, practice for presenting your own research, and so on. Apart from the in-person seminar, there is no core time when you must be in the lab (although, as a rule, fourth-year undergraduates do their research in person in the lab). Of course, I think it would be difficult to graduate without coming to the lab to do experiments (depending on the research topic and methods).
Regular research meetings take place about once a week. They are one-to-one, or with around 2-4 people including senior students, other faculty and, depending on the topic, researchers from other universities or abroad. At the moment they are mostly online. You attend even when there has been no progress, and we discuss how things are going. However, there is no obligation to write weekly or monthly progress reports.
毎週月曜9時から研究室全体でオンラインミーティングを行っています。ひとりずつ「先週の進捗や課題」と「今週何をやるつもりなのか」について手短に報告してもらいます。それを元にして、その週のマシンタイムを調整したり、今後の研究室の予定を確認します。全体ミーティングは決して長引かせず、合計1時間で終了することを心がけています。ひとりあたりの発表時間は5分程度しかないので、要点を押さえて的確に報告してもらう必要があります。それぞれの報告内容を聞いて、詳しいディスカッションが必要だと判断したら個別の対面ミーティングをどんどん設定します。
隔週木曜10時から2時間かけて、1人の担当者が自分が最近興味を持った文献(1-3編程度)について研究室メンバー全員に向けて詳細に解説します。プレゼンテーション能力の向上も意図しています。参加者全員の時間を2時間奪うことになるので、担当者は参加者全員にとって有意義な時間になるように質の高い発表をしてもらう必要があります。参加者は基本的なことから専門的なことまでどんどん質問します。年に2,3回ほど担当が回ってきて、その都度パワーポイントで約30枚程度の準備が必要です。発表は日本語でもOKですが、資料は英語で用意します。
English translation:
Every Monday from 9:00 the whole lab holds an online meeting. Each person briefly reports on “last week’s progress and problems” and “what they plan to do this week”. Based on this, we adjust that week’s machine time and check upcoming lab plans. We make a point of never letting the whole-lab meeting drag on, and aim to finish within an hour in total. Each person only has about 5 minutes, so reports need to be concise and to the point. If, after hearing a report, we decide a detailed discussion is needed, we readily set up individual face-to-face meetings.
Every other Thursday from 10:00, for two hours, one person presents 1-3 papers they have recently been interested in, in detail, to the whole lab. It is also meant to improve presentation skills. Since it takes two hours of everyone’s time, the presenter needs to give a high-quality talk that makes it worthwhile for all. Participants ask lots of questions, from basic to specialist. Each person’s turn comes round 2-3 times a year, and each time needs about 30 PowerPoint slides. Presentations can be in Japanese, but the slides are prepared in English.
What is the seminar like? The seminar is held once a week (on Friday afternoons for the 2022 academic year), and several students present their research progress in English or Japanese. In addition, there are lectures from faculty members or seniors on how to conduct research and basic optical technology. Sometimes, we also practice presenting at academic conferences. Every time, everyone is required to participate in discussions and express their opinions. Until midway through the 2022 academic year, the seminar was held online, but now it is held in person.
Netherlands
The lab meets monthly for a round table, to discuss ongoing research, present project proposals, and read relevant literature. Lab members are expected to be present in person for events organized by other lab members, including the lab meetings.
LifespanCognitiveDynamicsLab_2026:
Every lab member, from RA to PI, will have admin jobs they should have done last week but never get round to. During Eat The Frog sessions (usually 14-15 on Thursday) we sit together in one space and (only!) work on these tasks, writing what you will finish on the whiteboard at the start. Some examples include updating your CV, filling out paperwork, updating an online profile or finishing the references in your paper. Use this hour productively so that these endless small tasks don’t affect you the rest of your week.
Discussing scientific progress is essential for the success of our projects. I expect all lab members to actively participate in our scheduled meetings:
- On Monday or Tuesday (see Gcal for the lab), our own CoCoSys lab meeting
- On Thursday, the weekly CogPsy meeting and CO-squared joint lab meeting.
Every semester (2x/year), we also aim to have a writing week (often in Leiden’s Academy Building) and a lab social/outing.
Spain
The whole group meets once a week. Each meeting has two parts:
- A short update from every member, about five minutes each: what you did this week, what worked, what didn’t, what you are doing next.
- One longer presentation by a single member on the status of their project. The long slot follows a rota, so everyone knows well in advance when their turn is. It is sometimes replaced by a journal club.
What the group meeting is for: visibility. Everyone should have a rough idea of what everyone else is doing, so that you know who to ask when you hit a problem someone else has already solved, and so that the group spots overlaps and connections between projects.
Switzerland
Notice that there are different kinds of meetings with different modalities and goals. For instance, if we are collaborating closely, we will have regular one-on-one meetings. These meetings are time that belongs to you, and you can fill it with anything that comes to your mind. I might have some direct questions about checking in with you, but apart from that, you fully control the flow of these meetings; indeed, you can and should feel free to ask me anything. The primary purpose of these meetings, next to being able to see each other on a regular basis, is for me to help you get unstuck.
Taiwan
All lab members will discuss lab business every Friday (4:30-5:00 PM). Lab members are encouraged to report their technical problems or common interests in the meeting. It provides a great opportunity for information exchange and for everyone to contribute their thoughts and ideas.
Datablitz:
Students will give brief (<10 min; 2-3 slides) progress reports on their own work every Friday (5:00-5:50 PM) and the free, unhampered discussion that follows. Presenters will be assigned in advance by the lab Head.
United Kingdom
Anonymous lab:
The content of the lab meetings runs on an 8-week cycle and comprises skill building, scientific and pastoral (goal reflection) sessions. One meeting every 8-weeks is a dual meeting with [another group in the School].
These meetings provide an opportunity to meet and catch-up with other members of the group. All members of [the lab] are expected to attend and we ask that you do your best to protect this time to ensure your availability and attend in person where possible. All members are expected to lead or present at a lab meeting during their time in [the lab].
Once per month, the lab meeting offers “feedback” sessions, where you can submit something (e.g., grant idea/application, job application, CV, paper) for discussion. These require materials to be sent one week in advance to give other group members time to read the submission. These are informal and supportive sessions designed to help you when dedicated feedback is needed. There is also an expectation that you will read and feedback on other people’s submissions where possible. If you would like to request support via a feedback session, email [the lab admin] or speak to your theme lead.
Lab meetings are held weekly. Currently these happen on Monday 9am. If a team member is regularly unable to attend, the timing of this meeting can be changed on discussion with the whole group. These meetings are scheduled for 1 h but may not always last this long. This is an opportunity to discuss lab issues, experimental issues, data or to practice presentations. These meetings should be open and informal and it is important that all members are treated with respect and kindness to foster this open discussion.
Group meetings (weekly, ~90 minutes)
Weekly group meetings are for sharing work and helping each other. Participation is expected of all group members — if you can’t make it, send advance notice.
Every group meeting has a rotating chair. The chair is responsible for conducting the meeting in an inclusive manner that gives everyone the chance to contribute.
Structure
The meeting starts with the chair sharing something not directly related to their own research — something from their life, something they found interesting, or anything else. Each person then briefly says what they’re focusing on.
The main part of the meeting consists of three presentation slots of around 20 minutes each:
- 10 minutes: Presentation — cover your current work, what you’re stuck on or have questions about, and how others can help or get involved.
- 5 minutes: Clarifying questions
- 5 minutes: Silent written feedback in a shared Google Doc (named, to allow follow-up)
- Brief summary by presenter and follow-up on any points of particular interest
Other meeting types
At longer intervals we use group meetings to:
- Formulate and review broad goals, aims and progress
- Run post-mortems on past projects (what went well, what didn’t)
- Update this manual
- Practice talks ahead of conferences — everyone who presents work from the group should have the opportunity to present it to group members for feedback
Journal club (monthly)
A monthly session to discuss papers, methods or broader topics relevant to the group’s work.
Coffee walks (monthly)
A monthly walk to a coffee shop or similar, replacing a regular meeting. These encourage smaller 2-3 person conversations that don’t happen easily in a full group.
Epi groups meetings: the lab meeting is ran in a “scrum” format and is shared with the Mallon group. A scrum is where everyone presents a very short list of; what they have been up to during the last week, what they plan to do during the next week and any problems they have. This is not to “check you’re working”, the purpose of this is to help you plan your time and make sure you don’t get stuck for too long on a problem. One person each week also presents either; some new results, a paper or something else interesting. I expect you to attend and let me know in advance if you can’t make it. If you cannot present in your allocated slot, it is your responsibility to swap with someone else.
Steve aims to have 1-to-1 meetings with all senior lab members (PhD students and postdocs) on a regular (weekly or biweekly) basis. Sarah will set these up taking into account availability. It is often useful if you can send any documents related to the meeting (slides with figures, drafts of writing, code, etc) the night before the meeting so that Steve can get a headstart on thinking through the problem with you.
Outside of this, Steve’s door is always open and he is keen for people to drop by to chat.
Other meetings
The ICN hosts weekly seminars during term time at 315pm on Mondays in B01. These speakers cover the full range of cognitive neuroscience and ICN GLs rotate responsibility for inviting and hosting the speakers. If there are speakers you would be keen to invite, please let Steve know.
The MetaLab runs the Consciousness Club meetings where guest speakers from a range of disciplines come to discuss all things consciousness- and metacognition-related. These meetings are usually held at 11am every Wednesday on Zoom.
Every Friday at 2pm the FIL holds “Project Presentations” - presentations of future projects that will use neuroimaging resources at 12 Queen Sq. This is a great opportunity to see what other groups are planning, and to learn about issues affecting both experimental design and neuroimaging data acquisition and analysis.
Immediately after Project Presentations at 315pm there is the “Brain Meeting” seminar, with a mix of both internal and external spakers. These are valuable meetings and all MetaLab members are expected to attend each week during term time. These can take up most of Friday afternoon so plan accordingly!
During term time, meetings take place on most Thursdays, 13:00-14:30. Location varies: see Teams calendar for details.
3.2 Standing agenda
- Logistics: Is anything broken? Are there scheduling conflicts/difficulties? Programs to troubleshoot?
- Progress report: PI will ask a selection of members for a progress report. In semester 1, these are typically to guide UG project students as they begin their projects.
- OSF Review: We’ll check whether any milestones have been reached lately
- Research content (ordered by priority; we won’t do all things every meeting): Lab members starting a new study will give their elevator speech and demo their program, lab members with new data will describe it for us (must have a graph!), we will discuss a relevant research paper
Discussing scientific progress is essential for academic success. I expect all the lab members to participate in our scheduled meetings. I will schedule all meetings during the ICR’s working hours, from 9 am to 5 pm.
1. Radzisheuskaya lab meetings: every 3 weeks, 2 speakers on a rotating schedule present an informal progress report. There will be time allocated for discussion of general lab issues. The meetings typically last 90-120 min. The schedule is sent via Outlook Calendar.
Each speaker will have around 45 minutes. To make this meeting productive and to facilitate discussion, do not prepare long introduction or long presentation on the old data (>6 months old). Use the bulk of your allocated time on the latest results, current struggles, immediate plans or new ideas for the project. You can also use your time to discuss a recent paper that is directly relevant to your project.
2. Joint Helin-Radzisheuskaya lab meetings: weekly, 1 speaker on a rotating schedule presents a progress report for the past 3-5 months. The schedule can be accessed here: link not public.
3. Joint Helin-Radzisheuskaya journal club meetings: bi-weekly, 2 speakers on a rotating schedule present a paper of their choice. Paper suggestions and schedule can be found here: link not public.
4. 1-on-1 meetings: These are 30- to 60-minute weekly meetings to review progress and plans. The agenda is prepared in an individual Word document and updated during or after the discussion. I have an open-door policy should additional discussion points arise between these meetings. The schedule is sent via Outlook Calendar.
Since these are weekly meetings, it is understandable that you will not always have new results to discuss. Still, I prefer these meetings to occur irrespective of whether you have finished experiments or questions, as this allows us to reflect on the project and brainstorm together. If you feel that bi-weekly individual meetings would work better for you, I will support that and rearrange the timetable accordingly.
If you want my help or advice on specific experiments, please come with raw data for me to look at. Describing your observations verbally will not help me troubleshoot your problems.
At the time of writing, the lab meets as a group twice per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10am–pastries are provided! These are typically Journal Clubs (presentation of a paper) on Tuesdays and Data Clubs (update on a project) on Thursdays. However, meetings are sometimes focused on other lab business, including training, external speakers, feedback sessions, or mini-hackathons.
The expectations for regular meetings are laid out in detail on our lab wiki, but most meetings have a presenter, responsible for leading the meeting, and someone taking notes on the content. All group meetings are in-person events, although we record meetings online for posterity, and to allow participation from those who can’t attend in person.
Individually, I meet with every lab member at least once per week, unless one of us is out of town, to discuss their project and any other issues. After each meeting, lab members write a brief summary of the meeting to ensure that the discussion is recorded, and to serve as a starting point for the next meeting.
Discussing scientific progress is essential for academic success. I expect all lab members to actively participate in our scheduled lab meetings. These meetings serve as a platform to present work-in-progress, to engage in discussions about research, and to explore general topics around research practice. It is also a useful way for lab members to stay informed about, and learn from, each others’ work, and to share achievements and challenges together.
Lab meetings are held weekly, currently on Wednesdays from 13:00-14:30 UK. If I am your primary supervisor, you are required to attend these meetings in person. If you must attend virtually or are unable to attend a meeting, let Reshanne know as soon as possible.
One-to-one supervision meetings are held weekly (for full-time PhD students) or bi-weekly (for part-time PhD students).
Full supervisory meetings (including secondary supervisors) are held monthly (for full-time students) or bi-monthly (for part-time students).
For all supervision meetings, please send an agenda ahead of each meeting, and a summary of what was discussed following each meeting. Please upload these to your dedicated PhD Teams channel, and send copies by email to supervisors who do not have access to Teams.
United States
Lab meetings & open meetings
- When: Lab meetings are Mondays 9:30am-11am in the conference room. Everyone is expected to attend and be on time. If you must miss a lab meeting, let the presenter and Emily know, and talk to the presenter afterwards to learn about what you missed.
- Format: Slides recommended, but not required. If you’re presenting a project update, plan to present background slides establishing the scientific premise for your project. Share with the lab what types of feedback you’re seeking (e.g. overall project direction, new experiments, figure nit-picking). If you’re presenting a journal club, please send a link to or pdf of the paper to the lab via the #journal_club channel at least a week in advance, so everyone has time to read it.
- Topics:
- 1st meeting of the month is journal club
- 3rd meeting of the month is a workshop (pick whatever topic and teach us)
- Whenever someone attends a meeting, take the next available lab meeting to share what you learned.
- Each lab member gives a formal progress update every 3 months
One-on-one meetings
- Frequency: 1-on-1 meetings with me start at weekly frequency and can slow to less frequent (but at least once a month) when you’re particularly busy (e.g. during data collection or a full-time workshop) or as you gain independence.
- Topics: These meetings are a good time to share personal and professional status updates; lay out future plans for the following week, month or year; share results; get verbal feedback on writing or figures you’ve shared with me in advance; or anything you want to bring up. Anything personal you share with me in our 1-on-1s is kept confidential.
- Prep: Think about how I can be most helpful in your goals. Do you want feedback on a plan? Guidance on where to start? Advice on a professional development topic? Anything you can share with me in advance can help me prepare, from a simple 1-sentence idea of what we’re discussing to a whole folder full of figures.
AllisonAdolescentResearchLab_2026:
3.3.1. Lab or Team Meetings One hour weekly virtual lab meetings provide space for 1) sharing progress, 2) getting feedback on lab procedures, data collection or analysis, presentations, or manuscripts, and 3) any other lab business. These will be scheduled with a recurring calendar hold and Zoom link at the beginning of each semester to account for changing schedules with courses and other responsibilities. Punctuality is expected for meetings and lab activities. Please notify me if you will be late or unable to attend. Our research coordinator or I will send an agenda 24 hours in advance using a live link with responsibility assigned to the team member leading that portion of the meeting. We expect that lab members will add additional items that need to be discussed during the meeting. We will also have one in-person gathering, at the end of the Fall semester and at the end of the Spring semester at a time that works best for the majority of team members. Because these are unique opportunities to meet and spend time in person, I expect lab members to make an effort to be there. 3.3.2. One-on-One Individual Meetings I will meet with each lab member regularly (weekly to biweekly) for at least 30 minutes. When we begin working together, let’s set up a time for a scheduled recurring meeting. These meetings are to discuss your personal progress and any challenges you’re having with the research or in the lab, your professional development and goals, and any personal factors that might be impeding your progress. 3.3.3. As-Needed Meetings Though we try to limit additional meetings, sometimes they may be necessary if we are in certain phases of projects (e.g., launching a new project, or discussing data interpretation).
Weekly lab meetings (~1.5 hours each) are meant to be a forum for trainees to present project ideas and/or data to get feedback from the rest of the group. Projects at any level of completion (or even not yet started!) benefit from being presented. These lab meetings can also be used to talk about methods, statistical analyses, new papers, and career development. For paper discussions, everyone must come to lab meeting having read the paper and prepared with comments and questions to contribute. Some weeks we may explore a particular issue and have people read different papers — in that case, come to lab meeting having read your paper and be prepared to summarize it for the group.
Each lab member is expected to present at least once every semester. These meetings are informal, and you can do what you wish with your slot — just be prepared to contribute something substantive. Lab members are also expected to attend every meeting (obviously, illnesses, doctor appointments, family issues, etc are a valid reason for missing a meeting). Undergraduate students are encouraged to attend as often as possible (assuming it fits in their course schedule).
We may have joint lab meetings with other faculty — these may be combined with our weekly lab meeting or an additional meeting. We will also use lab meetings (or ad-hoc scheduled meetings) to prepare for conference presentations and give feedback on job talks or other external presentations.
During the academic year, we meet every week with a mix of research updates, lab upkeep meetings, and professional development.
- During the summer quarter, we meet every week but we alternate between research updates and journal club.
- All lab members are expected to attend.
- Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars present their research roughly twice a year.
- Present both your results and successes and the challenges you faced getting there. Sharing what went wrong helps destigmatize failure, a necessary practice in research, and often leads to better ideas from the room.
The Byers lab currently has a unique approach to weekly lab meetings. Jeb typically attends the first 30 minutes of the lab meeting, and then the rest of us take over for the next hour. Jeb may or may not be asked to attend the second part of the meeting, depending on the content. The topic of the lab meeting varies weekly, but typically, one person signs up to lead a lab meeting and presents their research, or provides a manuscript that we review. It’s the expectation that every lab member (except for undergraduates) leads at least one lab meeting per semester. If that lab member wants feedback on a manuscript, they are expected to distribute a draft to the rest of the lab at least 3 weekdays prior. If no one is signed up to present, we typically pick a published paper to review, or just get together and chat about current events, general questions about a career in science, how to navigate grad school, etc. We have decided to reserve every 3rd lab meeting to discuss social justice issues and what we can do as individuals and as a lab to increase diversity and inclusivity in science.
I (Dr. Chory) maintain an open door policy to ensure accessibility for all lab members. If my personal calendar shows I’m not in a meeting, feel free to drop by to discuss any matters.
- 1:1 Meetings: 1:1 meetings are available upon request for anyone needing individual guidance on their project, career goals, or any concerns. To schedule a 1:1, lab members are encouraged to book a 1:1 meeting through the scheduling link provided in the lab portal, ensuring dedicated time for focused discussion.
- Science “Office Hours”: To support our collaborative and educational goals, 2 hours every week are dedicated to ‘science office hours’. These hours are set aside for discussions on scientific literature, experimental design, data analysis, or any scientific inquiries.
Every sixth or seventh week, if not presenting some nascent or ancillary project myself, I will suggest some papers to read critically or discuss as a lab. I’ll pick those papers at least a week in advance. Everyone is expected to show up having read and critically thought about the papers. Additionally, you might want to request people read a particularly important paper for a project-focused lab meeting.
You’re welcome to schedule additional meetings to discuss papers, give practice talks, etc., at any time yourself.
Lab meetings. We hold weekly lab meetings. If you are an active lab member, you are expected to attend our lab meetings unless you let Jeremy know that you have a conflict (e.g., a course that meets at the same time, another commitment that comes up, etc.). Prioritizing lab meeting attendance helps build and maintain a lab culture of collaboration and ongoing participation.
During lab meetings we typically focus on things that project teams want input on beyond their immediate group. We also use lab meetings to discuss logistics, give feedback on upcoming talks or poster presentations, and/or share project updates that might be of interest beyond one project team. Generally we spend most of the time going around the room and having each person give a brief informal update about something they are working on, planning to work on, or thinking about.
Project meetings. Many of our collaborative projects involve regular coordination within the lab and/or with external collaborators. Attendees: all project team members and any other interested active lab members.
One-on-one meetings. Jeremy holds regular one-on-one meetings with lab members who request them. These are scheduled as part of the term scheduling process (below) and typically take place in Moore 349 or on Zoom.
Term scheduling process. Prior to the start of each term, Jeremy will post a scheduling survey on Slack. All active lab members are expected to:
Fill out their weekly availability for the upcoming term.
Indicate which project meetings they plan to attend.
Indicate whether they would like to schedule regular one-on-one meetings with Jeremy, and if so, specify the preferred frequency (weekly or biweekly) and duration.
Based on the collected responses, Jeremy will run a scheduling algorithm to find optimal meeting times for lab meetings, project meetings, and one-on-one meetings. The finalized schedule is posted and pinned to the #general Slack channel and added to the CDL Google Calendar.
Lab meetings are usually held weekly or biweekly. Graduate students, lab staff, and undergraduate students taking research for credit are expected to attend all lab meetings and to arrive prepared (i.e., having read any assigned papers before the lab meeting). If you can’t attend a meeting, you must let Hua know ahead of time. Lab meeting topics (including any readings) will be announced weekly in advance via Slack
#sharing.We typically use lab meetings to get feedback on new research ideas or a manuscript in progress, practice for an upcoming talk, or discuss a paper. Grad students, postdocs, and thesis students are required to present in lab meetings regularly. RAs are not required to do so, but they can give a project idea or a good suggestion for a discussion topic.
A goal of reading one publication per week is a minimum standard and as a lab we will help you meet this goal by running a weekly ‘News’ meeting where you will be expected to briefly present the article you read. Each member of the lab will do the same and this allows us, as a lab, to remain on top of research advances in our field. It is very important that you actually carefully read the publication so that you are confident presenting the article in a meaningful way. This will also help facilitate better science communication skills. If you miss a week, that is excusable; however, if you continue to not present a paper or do so in only a cursory level, we will discuss whatever barriers are preventing your participation.
One-on-one meetings are 45-min, weekly meetings between each trainee and me. You can also schedule one-off one-on-one meetings with me. When scheduling your one-on-one and other meetings, send all of your available times (between 9am and 5pm), not just your preferred times! You may indicate which of your available times are preferred or less preferred. One-on-one meetings are designed for us to discuss any training and research-related issues in detail and to form plans for the near future, in addition to any challenges. Make sure that you also use this time to communicate new ideas that you have about your work and challenges that you are facing. Remember: I cannot address or advise about issues that you do not bring to my attention. I expect trainees to attend all their one-on-one meetings. I understand that sometimes there is nothing to report, so occasional cancellation is fine. That said, note that even if you have nothing to report, sometimes having the meeting can still be advantageous and it may be worth our time to still check in. Do not cancel meetings with me if you feel that you have not made adequate progress on your research; these might be the most critical times to meet with a mentor.
I meet with postdocs and graduate students individually once every two weeks for check-ins (if this is not sufficient, additional meetings are scheduled on an as-needed basis). I meet with full-time RAs/post-bacs as a group every two weeks. I meet with undergraduates on an as-needed basis. In addition to these check-in meetings, I meet with different sets of labbies regularly about various ongoing projects. In general, in spite of the many demands on my time, I will always make time to meet with you.
HealthPolicyDataScienceLab_2026:
Lab trainees meet individually with Dr. Rose regularly. This is typically weekly or every other week depending on the needs of the trainee and their projects. Meetings are either 25 minutes or 50 minutes to allow for breaks between meetings. Dr. Rose expects trainees to manage the meeting such that it ends on time.
In general, Dr. Rose expects progress to be made between each meeting. Progress can include struggling with the material. Dr. Rose cares that you are engaged and taking initiative to advance the project. We’ll discuss what you learned and where you are still confused. When we identify areas where you have gaps, Dr. Rose does expect you to invest in learning the required material and to follow through to fill those gaps. All trainees must be making satisfactory academic progress in line with the expectations of their graduate degree program.
If you do not need to meet a particular week (e.g., making steady progress and don’t have questions), please email Dr. Rose in advance so she can efficiently reallocate the meeting time. Your physical and mental health are important. If you need to cancel a meeting for health or personal reasons, email Dr. Rose. As much notice as is possible is helpful, but it is always better to cancel a meeting short notice than to attend when you are sick!
If there are repeated meeting cancellations, we should discuss the underlying reasons.
- Present once per term: As an active member, you’ll present at least one lab meeting each term. It can be anything related to your work or something cool you’ve discovered!
Possible topics include:
- A half-baked idea or a topic you’re exploring
- A paper you found intriguing
- A tool or software package you learned about
- A tutorial or brief skill share
- A hackathon update or project progress
- Something you’re confused about—ask for feedback!
- Practice presentations: Talk or poster you’d like input on
You can take up to an hour, but shorter is fine! You can also co-present with a teammate if you like. Hemanth will send out a Google Sheets link for scheduling at the start of each term.
Lab meetings. Lab meetings are held once a week. Each semester, students are generally responsible for two to three presentations covering overall project goals, sub-aims, data, completed work, and planned work. Lab meetings are a space for troubleshooting and constructive scientific criticism. Agendas are managed through GitHub Projects or Notion.
Science Meeting
- 2 people, 1 hr each (40 min + questions), every 2 weeks
- Every person in the group will present ~5-6 times per year
- Scheduling of the next meeting decided at the start of each meeting, by looking at the group calendar.
- The research meeting is devoted 100% to group research presentations
- Attendance is Mandatory. Notify Jose in advance if you can’t make it or have to arrive late or leave early.
- Business Meeting
- 1 hr brown bag lunch in a meeting room, every 3 weeks
- Business items, Journal Club
- Attendance is Mandatory. Notify Jose in advance if you can’t make it or have to arrive late or leave early.
- Grp Lunch every Thu @ 1pm in Atrium (optional)
- Student + Jose lunch, every 3 weeks
- Postdocs + Research Scientists + Jose lunch, every 3 weeks
- Student Informal Prez w/ Postdocs, w/o Jose (1.5 hrs, 1 per mo)
Lab retreats. We engage in lab retreats twice a year centered around research presentations, project feedback, and brainstorming. All members of the lab attend these 2-3 day retreats, one of which is local and the other is a destination. During these retreats, we engage in team building activities, such as lab olympics.
- Lab meetings – Grad students and postdocs will be expected to lead (at least) one lab meeting/quarter. If materials will be discussed at lab meeting (i.e. paper, or draft) then these need to be sent around to everyone at least 5 working days prior to lab meeting. You are always expected to participate in and contribute to discussions during lab meeting.
• Regular check-ins: The PI commits to regular one-on-one meetings (biweekly with students, monthly with staff and postdocs) and expects lab members to come prepared to discuss progress and concerns. These meetings are led by the lab member and are meant to encourage strategic thinking about ongoing and future work. Even when there’s little new data to show, it’s valuable to reflect on behind-the-scenes efforts, ideas in development, or challenges encountered. Using slides to structure the discussion is encouraged. The PI also welcomes feedback from lab members during these meetings to improve the lab experience.
Regular lab meetings
1 hr - 90 min. Link to Schedule
Attendance Please show up by the start of the meeting. If you are running behind, tell a labmate or post on Slack so we know that we can start without you. Attendance and participation is expected of full-time personnel and encouraged for undergraduates. (Obviously illnesses, doctor appointment, family issues, travel are valid reasons for missing a meeting). We will try to have lab meetings on Tues, Weds, or Thurs to provide flexibility for occasional long weekends. However, teaching/class schedules may coerce us onto M/F for some quarters, so try not to travel during lab meetings.
If you are the presenter:
- bring double-sided, stapled print-outs for each member of the lab.
Changing the lab meeting schedule. If a conflict arises and you cannot meet your presenter obligations, identify a labmate who is willing to switch days with you. Edit the schedule in the Google Doc and notify the lab of the change via Slack (linking the doc). You don’t need to get permission from Tiffany. Just manage yourself and communicate the change to the team.
Meeting Format
- Lab business (<5 min). Discuss routine lab issues like equipment and reagent needs/problems, shared responsibilities, upcoming events, new member introductions, safety training and discussions, etc. If any of this information can be broadcast/coordinated through Slack, we can have shorter in-person meetings.
- Main Event (~50 min). Meetings will be a Research Update or a Round-table.
Updates: Every other week our research group meeting will be an “updates” meeting. These are opportunities for you to share what you’ve been thinking about over the week with others. I expect every group member to post a short “group update” on the slack channel before these meetings, which will help you to gather your thoughts about what you’d like to share with the group and also help identify overlap between your work and the expertise of others. Quite often, it leads to help where you’re stuck on a project! During the meeting, group members volunteer to go over their update and have others ask questions and provide feedback. These updates are NOT polished, professional talks – they are opportunities for informal, low-stakes collaborative feedback and help from our collective research group.
Research group meetings occur every week. (See the McNeil Group “Shared Drive” Group Meeting Schedule folder for the schedule.) Each member of the presenting subgroup has 30 min to present something that they want to discuss. Students should think carefully about how to use this time. Do you want us to help you troubleshoot an experiment? Do you need help with planning what experiments to do next? Do you want a second opinion on your data analysis and interpretation? Do you think your project should switch directions? Then the student should craft a short (but polished) slide presentation with all necessary information to accomplish their goal.
Weekly lab meetings will be focused on project presentations, going over new data or methods, and journal club discussions. Lab meetings will generally last no longer than 1.5 hours. Lab meeting plans and notes will be maintained in the #lab-meetings channel on Slack. All full-time lab members are expected to attend the weekly lab meeting. All part-time lab members (including undergraduates) are welcome to attend but attendance is not required, except for students earning course credit. This policy might change by semester depending on the number of students in the lab and their availability.
During extended periods of working remotely, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will also have regular lab “check-ins” to set up our goals for the week, encourage casual interactions, etc.
Undergraduates and high school students will meet with Dr. Kat for 15 minutes every other week. This can be increased as needed, or you can schedule an appointment for a longer discussion as needed. You are highly encouraged to meet more frequently with your direct mentor in the lab
- Graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and technicians will meet with Dr. Kat for 30 minutes every week. This can be increased as needed, or you can schedule an appointment for a longer discussion as needed
- Available for drop-ins and appointments for other discussions.
Weekly general lab meetings: Lab meetings will occur weekly at a time voted on by all lab members at the start of each academic term. A meal will be provided to all in-person participants. Lab meetings will be carried out jointly with the Harimoto Lab for the time being. The following proposed format is subject to change pending discussion with Prof. Harimoto.
- Lab meetings will begin with a discussion of announcements and news (~5 minutes).
- Next, any topics requiring lab discussion will be addressed (~10 minutes). If the topic requires more than 10 minutes of discussion, a separate meeting with those involved will be scheduled to address the issue.
- The bulk of the lab meeting (45–60 minutes) consists of a lab member presenting an informal progress report on their research on a rotating schedule. These reports should succinctly introduce your project, highlight the main research questions, and focus on recent achievements and challenges. This allows for productive group discussions to advance your project. Progress report presentations are accessible via our lab’s shared resources. Presenters should expect frequent questions and interaction.
One-on-one meetings: Pablo runs weekly one-on-one meetings with each lab member, typically lasting 45 minutes. These meetings are designed to support lab members in achieving their goals in scientific and career development, including the successful implementation of research projects. The structure of these meetings involves setting and reviewing goals for research projects and the lab member’s career at MsEE Lab. Pablo will also ask for feedback on mentorship strategy. Pablo is also available for additional (or fewer) meetings upon request.
Once you start on a project, I will assign you a research subgroup, and you should plan to attend the weekly subgroup meetings for that group. You must present at least one slide about what you did in the past week, and at least one slide on what your goals for the next week are.
Lab meetings (~1 hour) are scheduled at the same time every week during the semester and are held in person in Lutz 440. Lab meetings are usually the only time all of us are gathered in person, so it’s our weekly chance to connect with and learn from each other—and grow as a lab community. Any lab member can set the agenda, but every meeting needs an agenda. Typically, the person who sets the agenda will run the meeting, but they can also invite a guest speaker based on a topic of their choosing. Leading is like being the moderator in a conference talk. You don’t have to create content, but you’re in charge of making sure the meeting is instructive. Meeting agendas should be posted on Notion at least 5 days ahead of the meeting time so lab members can prepare appropriately. Lab meetings follow a rotating list of topics based on a monthly schedule, starting from the first week of the month: Journal Club, Didactics, Project Discussion, and remaining weeks are “Wild Cards.” Lab members take turns to choose topics so that everyone has a chance to lead a meeting.
All researchers in the lab are expected to attend the weekly lab meeting, except in cases of unavoidable conflict (such as course scheduling). It generally lasts 1-2 hours and all the members are invited to share the main activities of the last week. Additional activities at the lab meeting include: presentations of research projects or data; talks by external speakers; discussions of specific research papers; code reviews in which a lab member’s code is reviewed online with a focus on refactoring.
1:1 with the PI
Weekly, 30 minutes. Every lab member has one. Come prepared.
Lab meeting
Weekly during the academic year, biweekly in summer. All lab members are expected to attend. At lab meeting, everyone is expected to come prepared to present on their own project, to listen carefully to others, to ask questions, and to propose next steps: for all projects, not only their own.
Project meetings
Held as needed, typically biweekly. Attendance is determined by project involvement. The same expectations apply: come prepared, listen, ask questions, propose next steps.
Journal club
Not currently in place, but under consideration. If you have a well-thought-out proposal for how to run this effectively, bring it to the PI.
I will make myself available to meet with you at least once, for at least 30 minutes, each week. If you would like to meet more often or for longer, please ask. I will do my best to accommodate such requests. But, our meetings do not have to fill the entire 30 minutes, and if you tell me “I only need 5 minutes today,” that is totally fine. However, I will discourage you from cancelling more than one meeting in a row, as this is a red flag for me that something is not right.
On a biweekly cadence (~1.5 hours), all members discuss activities since the last meeting, planned work for the next two weeks, and project blockers. Goals are set each meeting and reported on at the next. Graduate students also meet one-on-one with Steven on this cadence; see Environment and Expectations.
Weekly Science Hour (optional)
Fridays — casual time to hang out and sometimes tackle science as a group (debugging scripts, interpreting analyses or figures, longer conceptual discussions). Optional, but highly encouraged.
Other meetings
- Practice presentation meetings (as needed): Before conferences or symposia, schedule extra time for a practice talk and feedback (e.g. ~1 hour for a 15-minute talk).
- Targeted topic meetings (as needed): When a subset of the lab agrees a focused session would help.
We have 3 types of weekly lab meetings: business meetings, work in progress (WIP) meetings, and journal clubs.
- Business meetings - usually at the beggining of every semester, or when there are new members joining the lab.
- WIPs - at least once every month, where we go around the table and everybody presents their ongoing work. Sometimes, when a member(s) is close to publish, we will have a Big Update instead, where they will go over their proposed manuscript data (i.e. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).
- Journal clubs – one person presents a recent (or relevant) paper related to the lab research topics. Please email the paper at least 2-3 days in advance such that everybody has time to read it.
Attendance is very important, and is required for all members except undergraduate students (but if your schedule allows it, please make an effort to attend). These lab group meetings will not last more than 1.5 hours. If by 1.5 hours we haven’t finish, we will schedule another meeting.
I may also have weekly Individual meetings. These will be scheduled at the beggining of each semester when needed, and will not be more than 30 minutes. Not everybody needs a weekly one-on-one meeting, given my open-door policy, but if you need the guidance and/or the certainty of a fixed time to discuss your research, let me know.
Lab meetings - Our weekly lab meeting is a training activity that includes top-down (me to you) and peer-to-peer (you to everyone else) instruction and feedback. Regardless of whether you are in the “instructor” or “learner” role at any given moment, we will benefit from these activities proportional to the effort that you put into them
- There is significant latitude for how you approach leading your segment of a lab meeting - feel free to experiment
- The slides for your research talk, papers for journal club, and anything that needs to be downloaded or installed, should be announced two business days before your lab meeting presentation
- Everyone is expected to read the slides and paper before lab meeting
- Only one person speaks at a time
Formal group meeting presentations for each individual lab member happen only three to four times per year and are therefore inappropriate as the mechanism for communicating details of research progress specifically to me. Instead, group meetings are meant to inform the other lab members about your research progress, as well as to foster discussions about possible different or new research directions for yourself and other lab members based on current findings. In general, I expect that lab members will not routinely use their group meetings as the primary means of showing me new data or updating me on their overall research progress.
We currently have weekly lab meetings with our neighboring lab, the Kaufman lab. This setting provides a larger and more scientifically diverse audience to present to. I believe this helps everyone with their presentation skills and provides better opportunities for feedback on their projects. We also attend the weekly “Stem Cell Meeting” which mainly focuses on hematopoietic projects. Trainees present approximately once per month.
Journal club
Science moves fast and keeping up with all the literature is not an easy task. In our lab, each member is tasked with monitoring several journals about the latest articles on chromatin, epigenetics and cancer, or the latest technologies in biomedical research. We meet informally once a month and discuss the latest science over coffee and treats! Often we pick a single paper and go over it extensively if it is relevant to our work.
Thus, I do not meet with individuals regularly. Instead, I have weekly group meetings on Fridays at 2 pm (usually last 90 minutes or so). These may include a single research presentation and a short 15-minute talk from another group member, with other meetings devoted to job interviews, oral prelim or final exam practices, poster and talk medleys before major conferences, or even group visitors. You are expected to attend the group meetings when you are in town and available. Yes, at times, someone has a course at the same time; this is fine for a semester. Subgroup meetings are smaller and allow a chance for individual feedback and everyone will be expected to attend one or more of these. I also aim to meet one-on-one each semester and ask for a short summary of recent progress and expectations for the coming months.
We start each meeting with announcements, including celebrating recent grants, fellowships, and personal milestones. Each lab member then gives a 1 minute “elevator pitch”, filling in the lab on their research progress in the past week. Our main talk (30-45 minutes), is presented by one lab member and limited to 10 slides. The goal is to get feedback about ongoing experiments, not to comprehensively summarize all the amazing work they’ve done in the past. Speakers are welcome to present new ideas, inspirational papers, or talk about career issues.
UofSCExerciseOncologyLab_2026:
We will have weekly lab meetings to discuss ongoing projects, plans/ideas or to work through problems. This is a negotiable part of our lab. We might work through ethics problems, strategise study ideas, discuss papers, or just talk shop and/or career development. We will periodically hold presentations within our lab or for other students to get experience presenting and fielding questions on your topic of interest.
Individual Meetings At the beginning of each semester, we will set a schedule for weekly meetings. Each full-time lab member (RAs, graduate students, post-docs) will have a one-hour slot set aside to meet with me. If scheduling conflicts arise (e.g., because of travel), we can try to reschedule for another day that week. If there is nothing to discuss, feel free to cancel the meeting or just drop by for a brief chat.
We support each other’s scientific development. Our lab holds biweekly Idea Clubs where two members present any scientific ideas where a lab-wide discussion could be helpful for them. We also hold biweekly Journal Clubs where different groups of members present a paper for the entire lab to discuss. We make time in our days to attend these meetings to listen, provide feedback, and contribute to these discussions. Likewise, we often hold practice scientific talks for presenters, and we all aim to attend each other’s presentation
Typically each week, there will be a one-on-one meeting with Josh that is scheduled to run for 30 minutes (though usually takes less time). This is an opportunity to regularly update Josh on your research outside of group presentations (more to follow on that!), address any questions or concerns you have regarding your research, and keep track of your own progress as you are going along in your PhD. To prepare for this meeting, upload a word document (in your folder in the Box folder for weekly updates) listing your goals for the past week, what you’ve actually done (goals accomplished, in progress, what went wrong, etc), and what your new goals are for the next week. You are strongly encouraged to include items like data figures, synthetic schemes, and other visual aids. Remember that Josh is trying to keep track of ~10 student projects, so it is your responsibility to frame your work for the week in the context of your long- and short-term goals. Don’t assume that he remembers the details of a plot you showed him two weeks ago – repeat data if necessary to give the proper context. You should upload this document even if Josh is traveling/out sick/etc so that he can still keep up with what you’re doing.
- Weekly Group Meetings (ACE35, Fridays) - We convene weekly as a group to discuss literature, present tutorials, or share research; usually these last about two hours (although I wouldn’t argue with them being shorter!). The first meeting of every month (except January or if falling on a Holiday) is dedicated to literature reviews and tutorials (and food!). The remaining slots are used for research updates. The updates are informal and interactive. These meetings are intended more for the benefit of the researchers than for me as I should have a good handle on what everyone is already doing (but I am happy to be surprised by new things!). In any case, I encourage and prefer interruptions/questions/involvement from everyone. The current schedule can be found here. To balance the load of preparation, the schedule is based on a rotating format wherein different sub-groups are responsible for a given week’s content.
- Biweekly Joint Group Meetings - Every other week during the academic year, we also convene with the Panagiotopoulos group and the Graves group to share and discuss research with each other. Meetings are over lunch (provided by the PIs) and feature 1-2 junior researchers giving research informal presentations. The current schedule can be found here
- Biweekly Journal Clubs - Approximately every other week, we meet with members of the Jacobs group for a detailed discussion and analysis of a research article. The article is selected (by myself and Prof. Jacobs) from a set of three articles proposed by the discussion leader. The discussion leader rotates each week, such that each junior researcher leads about once per year.
Problem-Solving Sessions
- Purpose: To get feedback from the lab to address issues that are limiting progress. This could be getting feedback on statistical approaches, data collection issues, interpretation of results, computational challenges, or other activities. This is your chance to leverage the lab’s collective knowledge to address challenges you are facing.
- Format: A presentation that presents a single focal issue that the leader needs feedback on. The presentation should be focused and no longer than 15 minutes (5 minutes of background, 5 minutes explaining the problem, 1-3 explicit questions - i.e., not ‘what do you think?’ - that you are asking the group).
For our weekly meetings, I expect you to prepare ppt slides or other documents to provide me with an update on your progress, struggles, and new ideas. These weekly updates can include (raw) data, graphs, schematics, plots, images, videos, thoughts in bullet‐points, etc.. Ideally, you also include a brief section on self‐reflection: what went well, what didn’t, why did it go well or not, etc..
The main way we will meet is through a weekly research group meetings. Group meetings are a 2-hour meeting. All students under my direct supervision are expected to attend that occurs weekly during the Fall and Spring semesters. The general structure of these meetings is:
- Good new updates
- 5 minutes for continuing education piece (relevant slides live in
presentations/)- 5 minutes for each attendee to briefly state what they would like to discuss that week (to help me triage)
- The remaining times is for individual-specific discussion
You may need additional time for an individual meeting beyond the research group meeting. If you need additional time, I expect you to reach out to me. Please email me to schedule an individual meeting time as needed.
Occasionally we might modify the structure to discuss a paper we have collectively read or allot for time from a guest attendee. These lab meetings can also be used to talk about methods, statistical analyses, new papers, and career development. If you would like to suggest a reading, please email me or bring up the suggested reading during a meeting.
An idea behind the choice of group meetings is to provide opportunities for peer-mentorship and feedback.
Lab meetings will be held one hour per week to be determined to best accomodate the schedules of the majority of current lab members.
- All lab members are expected to attend our lab meeting.
- Everyone will iteratively present their reserach project progresses at lab meeting.
- Please contact Prof. Zhang in advance if someone is not able to attend due to research business like attending conference or training, etc.
Journal club
Fan will select a paper that is relevant to our lab’s interests and cutting-edge. Each lab member will select 1 or 2 figures to present, and lead the discussions. Let’s focus on 5 aspects of this paper through discussions:
- Motivation: why? a needed tool, a knowledge gap, etc?
- Novelty of methodology: computational biology and machine learning
- Significant scientific results: systems biology interpretation
- Relevence to our work: method benchmarking, study design, modeling, logic, etc?
- Limitations of this work