SAFE Labs

CastoriniLin_2026:

By “working through”, I mean follow the instructions, reproduce the results, and send a pull request to add to the reproduction logs. You can send me an email (with pointers to your pull requests) after you’ve progressed through the entire path and covered all the lessons.

CCMLab_2026:

1. Read the lab manual.
2. Submit an Issue (click on Octocat in upper right of the lab manual) regarding the lab manual—i.e., provide a suggestion, comment, or raise a question. You need a GitHub account in order to do this, so if you don’t have one, create one.
3. Accept eventual invitation to join CCM Lab organization on GitHub.
4. Complete TCPS 2 training in order to be added to our human ethics protocol.
5. Add yourself to eligible list of RISe researchers by following the Self-Registering steps at: RISe Access. Once an account is created, new users will receive their researcher numbers via email.
6. Once your RISe account is created, let Hyosub know so he can add you to our study protocols.

VORTEXLab_2026:

At the start of every studentship (undergrad and grad), students will meet one-on-one with Jason in the first month of term to establish some core values and expectations for mentorship throughout their time in the lab. In this meeting we will discuss:

• Expected response times for communications;
• Best ways to keep on top of drafts, applications, and meetings;
• Mentorship meeting frequency and structure;
• Working habits;
• Time off / vacations;
• Strategies to stay ‘on time’ for program milestones (proposal, committee meetings, defences);
• Teaching and volunteer interests;
• Career plans and goals (CIHR Individual Development Plans);
• Conference plan and funding expectations;
• Publishing and authorship expectations;
• Expectations to apply for external funding; and,
• Responsibility for research ethics. In addition, graduate students are expected to engage with the CIHR Individual Development Plan (IDP). Forms will be shared at the initial supervisory meeting and will be expected to be completed within the first month.

BoumendilLab_2026:

Starting in a new lab, and potentially in a new city and country, is stressful. We have several procedures in place to help with this process.

At the institute level, you will have a series of compulsory training on your first day (health and safety, informatics etc…). In the first week(s) every new lab member will have a one-on-one meeting with the PI where some or all of the following points are covered (depending on the role of the team member): (a) this handbook, (b) access to lab calendars and resources, (c) general expectations including work hours, presence, communication, (d) necessary courses and licenses, (e) next steps for practical training and project identification. A complementary presentation by the labmanager, explaining all the rules and practices of the lab will be given on the first day(s) in the lab. In addition, every new lab member will be paired with a « lab buddy » who will be there to help you integrate in the lab.

AppliedMediaSystemsTUIlmenau_2026:

Week 1 – Infrastructure and Orientation

• TU Ilmenau login
• e-mail
• Nextcloud
• Moodle
• GitHub
• Jupyter / Colab / Codespaces
• course chatbot access
• inspect assigned courses

Deliverable:

One-page overview of where all important teaching and research resources are located.

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Week 2 – Course Preparation

For each assigned course:

• chatbot-generated course overview
• study lecture structure
• read selected book chapters
• solve representative exercises
• run notebooks
• complete Moodle quizzes

Deliverable:

Give a 10-minute informal explanation of the course structure and identify three topics likely to be difficult for students.

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Week 3 – Research Orientation

Read selected papers from the group:

• filter-bank papers
• ELD paper
• singing voice separation paper
• multichannel source separation material

Also explore the Audio Coding and Multirate Signal Processing books.

Deliverable:

Give a short presentation of one paper: problem, method, results, limitations, and one possible follow-up idea.

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Week 4 – Teaching Rehearsal

Prepare a short mock seminar.

The session should contain:

1. chatbot warm-up question
2. explanation of one lecture topic
3. Moodle-style quiz questions
4. practical exercise
5. project challenge
6. explicit grading criteria

Deliverable:

Conduct a 20–30 minute mock seminar with members of the group acting as students.

OttLab_2025:

The PI conducts an onboarding meeting introducing you to the lab, the team, and the lab’s resources on Notion. The onboarding process is outlines on our lab Notion wiki and includes the Lab Handbook, how to join our team’s slack, calendar, how to get emails, enroll at the university, find information on housing and international’s support, and so on. In addition, new team members will be doubled with a buddy, usually an experienced lab member.

TiroshLab_2026:

1. Ask Yael Lepek to pool your userID to this department and connect you to any services you may need to use (at least WEXAC and email will be necessary, and RSA very useful), note, if you have userID in other department, pooling you will erase your old server folder.
2. Ask Yael to add you to the lab dropbox.
3. Order a computer – available options are found at the DIS site Check with Itay before ordering.
4. Natali Yikne supplies the network cable, opens the network connection point near to your desk and makes your registration to the internet - for that, you will have to supply your ETHERNET code (found on the Ethernet outlet) and the computer’s MAC address.
5. Ask Itay to get the lab google calendar so you can update and know future plans.
6. If you’re a foreigner, go to the FGS for help to set up banking and insurance.
7. Also as a foreigner you can arrange housing through the visiting scientist centre.
8. Provide your bank account to Yael so you can get paid.
9. After registering you will get emails about doing a medical checkup, lab safety introduction and having your photo taken so you can get a Weizmann badge.
10. Instructions for setting up EVPN so that you can access the server and other Weizmann resources remotely can be found here: https://www.weizmann.ac.il/WIT/remote-connection-f5-client-vpn-windows-10

ReinhardLab_2025:

Starting in a new lab, and potentially in a new city and country, is stressful. We have several procedures in place to help with this process.

In the first week(s) every new lab member will have a 1o1 meeting with the PI where some or all of the following points are covered (depending on the role of the team member): (a) this handbook, (b) access to lab calendars and resources, (c) general expectations including work hours, presence, communication, (d) necessary courses and licenses, (e) next steps for practical training and project identification.

Furthermore, the following information and help is provided:

PhD candidates: Since PhD candidates are hired by the graduate school and not by individual labs, help with visa, travel, paperwork as well as first introductions to the institute will be organized by the student secretariat. A lot of useful information can also be found in the student wiki. All lab members are willing to help in individual cases with translating from Italian, communicating at different offices etc. The first weeks and months are dedicated to courses and identifying the best lab for each candidate.

MSc students / interns: Also here the student secretariat will be involved in most of the administrative aspects.

Postdocs / technicians: The Mobility office of SISSA is responsible to help new researchers and technicians, especially if they come from abroad.

ItoLab_2026:

そのうえで、本学への進学を決意された場合は、研究生として入学するまでに、こちらで指定した日本語の社会学の教科書を使って、日本人の学生とのレッスンを受けます（もちろん料金などは発生しません）。まず、教科書に登場する重要語句について、その内容と自分で考えた具体例を日本語でまとめてもらいます。1章ごとに完成したら、メールで送ってもらいます。内容や日本語表現が不正確なところを指摘しますので、さらに修正して再提出してもらいます。それでも修正しきれていない箇所は、正答例を教えます。

研究生として来日後は、学部のさまざまな社会学の講義やゼミに参加してもらうとともに、入学前に読んでもらっていた教科書を使って、次の課題に取り組んでもらいます。その際には、チューターの日本人学生から指導や助言（最大40時間）を受けることもできます。

English translation:

Once you have decided to enrol at our university, you will take lessons with a Japanese student before you begin as a research student (a non-degree pre-enrolment status common at Japanese universities). The lessons use a Japanese sociology textbook that I assign, and they are free of charge. First, you will summarise in Japanese the key terms that appear in the textbook, explaining what each term means and giving examples you have thought of yourself. Each time you complete a chapter, you will send your summary to me by email. I will point out anything inaccurate in the content or in your Japanese, and you will revise and resubmit it. If some points still need correcting after that, I will show you a model answer. After you arrive in Japan as a research student, you will attend a range of sociology lectures and seminars in the faculty, and you will work on further assignments using the textbook you read before enrolling. During this period, you can also receive guidance and advice from a Japanese student tutor for up to 40 hours.

TreurLab_2025: The full onboarding document is still under construction, but as an example some snippets are provided here:

As a PhD student, you will first be enrolled in the Amsterdam UMC doctoral school. You can find further information about the doctoral school, which also provides many interesting courses that you can follow here. At the beginning of your PhD you need to contact the doctoral school to register and complete a form about the content of your PhD and your supervision team (co-promotor(s) and promotor(s)).

Within Amsterdam UMC there are eight so-called Research Institutes. You can be affiliated with a maximum of two Research institutes. Being affiliated with a research institute is useful because they organize symposia, networking events, workshops and it allows you to stay up to day with what others in your field are doing. The most relevant ones for our group are: Amsterdam Neuroscience, Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam Cardiovascular Sciences. Within the Research institutes, there are specific subgroups that you can join (again a maximum of 2).

Besides the official Research Institutes, members of our group recently initiated the Genetics Network Amsterdam (GENE Amsterdam) which is a network of researchers working in the broader field of genetics across Amsterdam. An official website was launched in November 2022. We recommend you to get your own personal page added to the website and to publish any relevant news item or blogs about your research on the website (contact x for anything related to the website). GENE Amsterdam also has regular research meetings which are very useful to attend, please e-mail x to get added to the GENE Amsterdam mailing list. There is also an annual research meeting of GENE Amsterdam.

INSIGHTLab_2026:

When joining the lab:

• Read this Lab Manual
• Read the Code of Conduct
• Talk to the MTO Secretariat (Anne-Marie van der Heijden) about your room, your IT equipment, your IT account
• Request a key card from the Library
• Install software described in Section 9
• Subscribe to platforms mentioned in Section 9.2, or an open source alternative

UraiLab_2026:

When your contract starts, you will get a LU account (email address, card for printing/library etc). Anne will add you to the Google lab calendar (where you can see lab events, talks etc). Anne will add you to the CoCoSys lab teams. This is the main communication channel for the lab, where we also store shared files: posters, templates, forms. We will schedule an onboarding session, specifically to together write our Mentoring agreement together, ideally in the first weeks of you joining the lab.

LienLab_2026:

The Buddy System is designed to break in new students and give them a helping hand and make sure they find their way around and settle in more quickly. All new students are assigned a buddy group. The old-timers help the new students by answering questions and showing them around. Together the group can enjoy all the lab activities that takes place at the start of the semester.

ComputationalLightLaboratory_2026:

Make sure to meet other members. Send emails! They are listed on this website. Ask about their experiences and thoughts. Explore what they are conducting in their research.

• Make sure to discuss with Kaan Akşit to see how you can contribute to Odak in the near future.
• Do you know what you will be focusing on? Do you know what projects are carried out in the team? Are you up-to-date with what the team has achieved recently?
• Are you listed as a member in the GitHub organization? In that organization which team do you belong to? Reach out to Kaan and ask, kaanaksit@kaanaksit.com.
• Do you have a weekly 1:1 meeting arranged with Kaan? Reach out to Kaan and ask, kaanaksit@kaanksit.com.
• Are you receiving calendar invitations for weekly group meetings? Reach out to Kaan or any other team member and ask, kaanaksit@kaanaksit.com.
• Do you have a research plan? What are your goals? How will your research impact the society in the near and far future? Tinker deeply in a structured manner. Agree with Kaan and your other supervisors. Reach out to them and initiate conversations about your roadmap towards your degree.

RadzisheuskayaLab_2025:

We follow the standard ICR onboarding process, which can be found here: LINK NOT PUBLIC. In addition, every new lab member will be paired with a “lab buddy” who will arrange for you an introduction to all the lab resources.

SuperLab_2026:

Be comfortable making and admitting mistakes. It is all part of the learning process! But if you hide mistakes, I cannot help you.

There is no “one right answer”. Your PhD is about discovery, and your goal is to become the ultimate expert of your project. This means that for the most part, you must discover the answer as you go and there will be a high amount of uncertainty about whether it is right or not. Embrace the uncertainty!

Work from a university-licensed cloud app (UOL’s is OneDrive) to write and store all your documents. Download the OneDrive app on your PC if it is not already there, then create or copy folders straight onto the app. When you open a new or in-progress document, make sure Autosave is turned on. This will ensure your files are automatically and immediately available on the cloud, with no fear of losing files due to hard drive corruption, stolen laptop, etc.

Immerse yourself in the literature. Set up Google Scholar alerts for the latest preprints and publications in your research area. You are expected to be reading literature on your topic daily.

Automate as much as you can! Especially things like data entry/reference management. I use Python to automate data entry/analysis pipelines. I use Zotero for reference management.

You should transition to independence (in your ideas, networking, writing, designing experiments, coding, creating presentations, etc.) before the end of your PhD, but you are not expected to know how to do all of these things from the beginning! Expect a lot of help in the first 1-2 years, and less help with these things as you progress.

CoenLab_2025:

These are some initial admin steps that should happen (some even before you arrive at UCL). If you’ve been in the lab for a week and any of these haven’t been covered, ask someone!

• Sign a contract/enroll
• Get added to payroll
• Schedule weekly One-on-One meeting with Pip
  • Make sure you have your own notion page
• Create your own lab notebook in the lab repo
• Get your UCL ID, email and access card
• Add you information to the Lab Members database
• Arrange a desk and computer set up that works for you
• Get your Personal License (PIL) for animal work
  • Get an induction to the BSU and complete schedule 1 training
• Fire and health and safety inductions
• Get added to:
  • The Lab Calendar
  • Mailing list (which gives access to OneDrive, order sheets, etc.)
  • The lab Splitwise
  • Lab slack (and change your image from the default!)
  • Anat4 slack (and change your image from the default!)
  • Lab notion—if you can see this, you are added already ;)
• Lab Fusion 360 workspace for CAD modelling.
• Set up a health test with occupational-health-services (required for access to BSU)
• Get an account on the Lab Server and make sure you can login.
• Complete all online mandatory courses

AeryJonesLab_2026:

A complete and frequently updated onboarding checklist is on the lab wiki.

ContextualDynamicsLab_2026:

The lab uses an automated onboarding system to help new members get set up quickly and consistently. To start the onboarding process, use the “Join the lab!” workflow in Slack. You can also access this workflow in the #general channel through the Workflows menu (usually near the top left of the window). When you initiate the workflow, you’ll be asked to provide:

• Your GitHub username

• Your email address (preferably Gmail or Dartmouth)

• Your preferred name for the lab website

• A short bio (2–3 sentences about yourself and your research interests)

• A link to your personal website (optional)

NOTE: After submitting the workflow, please also send a profile photo to Jeremy via Slack DM. Once approved, your photo and bio will be added to the lab website.

Once you submit this information, Jeremy will review your submission and approve your onboarding. The system will then automatically:

• Send you an invitation to the ContextLab GitHub organization

• Grant you access to the lab’s Google Calendars (Contextual Dynamics Lab, Out of lab, and CDL Resources)

• Add your profile to the lab website via a pull request

• Update the lab’s internal records

You will receive notifications in Slack as each step completes. If any issues arise during the process, Jeremy will reach out to help resolve them.

MsEELab_2026:

New members should review the Handbook and communicate any questions, concerns, or suggestions to Pablo. Additionally, part of the onboarding process will include completing worksheets on Mentoring Expectation Scales, Mentee Needs and Wants, and the Mentorship Agreement included in the Cornell FAIM Practical Toolkit for Mentoring within the Effective Mentorship Plan folder.

NicholGroup_2026:

(Mentor) Train the student on relevant skills needed. This is the upfront time cost from the mentor. Do a good and thorough job here, and you’ll be saving time later.  (Mentor) Introduce the student to everyone in the lab as soon as possible. Have each person give a brief overview of what they are working on. Even better, set up scheduled meetings (they can be as short as 10 minutes) between the student and everyone in the lab so they can introduce themselves and explain what they work on. By the end of the second week, they should know everyone.

PinskyLab_2026:

1. Read the GCRG Working Agreement.
2. If you’re a PhD student, check out Malin’s Notes on a PhD Degree (also has some useful postdoc-related resources)
3. Read the GCRG Data Management Policy.
4. Get your keys and ID card through UCSC (talk with the EEB Grad Program Coordinator and/or the EEB Assistant Administrator). Add CBB 139 for the GCRG Molecular lab, a key for the CBB analytical labs if you’re doing pop gen lab work, and a key for the CBB showers if you want.
5. Make a GitHub account if you don’t have one already.
6. Ask Roy to help you join our Google Spaces (General, Science Communication, DEIB, Climate Biogeography, Genomics, Random, Lab Meeting, Santa Cruz, Computing & Data, Conferences, Lab Website, Lab Space, and Help Coding) for messaging (a Slack equivalent), our shared google calendar, our Github Organization, and the GCRG mailing list (pinsky-lab@googlegroups.com) (talk to Roy Roberts).
7. Connect to the “Global Change Research Group” Shared Google Drive by asking Roy to share it with you.
8. Add your information to the “Global Change Research Group (GCRG) Members” google doc (in the top level of the Global Change Research Group shared drive)
9. Send your contact information, photo, and web address to Roy to add to our lab webpage here. If you don’t have webpage, they can help you make a page on our website.
10. Write an Independent Development Plan, copy your IDP goals to a new google document in Shared Drive/How_we_work/Group_member_goals/ (see the template in the directory), share it with Malin, and set up a time to discuss it.

RIPLRT_2026:

RIPLRT members are expected to read this manual and sign a form within your first 7 days in the RIPLRT indicates that the RIPLRt member have done so.

SnyderGroup_2026:

Each new member will be assigned a mentor that will help guide them as necessary. This involves getting accustomed to the city, group environment, and chemistry department. Mentors are expected to provide a comfortable amount of time for familiarizing the mentee with the basics such as training, procedures, etc. Mentors should keep in mind that not all mentees have the same background knowledge as themselves and should treat each mentee with appropriate respect. Furthermore, mentees should always feel comfortable and never hesitate to ask. Mentors are there to help you feel comfortable and learn, so mentees should never feel burdened or afraid to ask questions. Mentors will be provided a checklist to ensure they are training the mentees appropriately.