Lab Philosophy

Below you can find information on the lab philosophy and expectations of lab members. Text and ideas in places borrow heavily from several faculty at UC Davis. We revise this document every year as a lab.

General Rules

Safety first

Your health and safety are more important than your research. This includes adhering to lab safety codes, as well as maintaining your physical and mental health. Never work in the lab if you are feeling sick, under medications or drugs that might affect your ability to work normally. Avoid working in the lab by yourself, doing potentially dangerous activities, and please be aware of Cornell University resources and training on lab safety.

Respect

I expect lab members to contribute to a productive and friendly environment conducive to learning and research. This includes treating your colleagues with respect, listening to others’ viewpoints and ideas, and ensuring the lab is a place where everybody feels welcome and appreciated. Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, ageist, xenophobic or other harmful comments or behavior will not be tolerated under any circumstance. Our lab is actively fostering an anti-racist and anti-sexist environment. Currently, we are having open conversations about taking action against racism and sexism, and how that will impact and improve our research spaces. The university provides a number of resources (confidential and otherwise) to report or discuss inappropriate comments or behavior. The first step for reporting any harmful comments or behavior in the lab is to contact me.

Mentorship

I come from a historically under-represented group in STEM fields and academia, because of this I strive to address equity issues in my mentoring and lab management. I value regular communication, clear expectations, and autonomy in my mentoring relationships. If you are anxious about your academic performance, stressed about balancing work and life, are unsure about planning your future or have financial concerns (just a few examples), we can talk about it and perhaps I can point you to resources on campus that may be helpful. However, you must be proactive in establishing this mentorship relationship and expressing your needs and concerns with me. More details on expectations are below.

Expectations (for all members)

Work hours

I do not require lab members to come or leave work at a defined time each day. However I do expect lab members to be present during general working hours Monday - Friday (~10am-5pm). This is when most academic activities happen such as seminars, meetings, and journal clubs and it also facilitates lab members working with and learning from each other during the day. I expect people to be actively working ~ 40h per week (reading, seminars, course periods, etc are all part of this). However, sometimes it will be necessary to put in extra time to meet deadlines and to come in to move experiments along during the weekend. It is OK to take breaks during the day and you should do this, but be cognizant of wasting time. If you are not disciplined and multitasking, it can take you 60 hours to complete what a disciplined scientist can complete in ~35 hours.

Work life balance

Science is a marathon, so good work-life balance is important. Take time off for personal life, vacations, and your physical and mental well-being. Don’t work seven days a week; you will burn out and be less creative. If you are disciplined and focused, you can make excellent progress and have good work-life balance.

Communication

Our lab uses slack for all communication related to lab. You should have the app on your computer and be logged in during working hours (~10-5pm). In most cases you should also be responsive to communication within a couple hours during working hours, or in the morning the next day. After working hours, you are welcome to use the app and communicate with lab members, post to channels, post interesting papers, etc, but lab members are not expected to respond to “after hour” slack communication until working hours and during the work week. If you do not log out of slack after working hours it will continue to send you updates, however there is an option to silence all updates during “after hours” and we can help you set this up if you prefer to stay logged on.

Generally, email is only to be used to for time sensitive, personal matters, or emergency situations. You can also call me or text my cell phone for time sensitive or emergency situations.

Open Science

Open science is important and I expect all members of the lab to practice open science. All data produced during your time is property of the Casteel lab and Cornell University. All raw data and experimental designs must be available at all times through the lab Dropbox/Box folder. Your finished code used for your analysis should also be available through Box. This must be in a form that is intelligible and repeatable in the future. You are also expected to have this in your notebook which remains in the lab. All lab members are required to scan their lab notebooks before leaving the lab so we both have a digital copy in addition to the physical copy that will remain in the lab. We also publish preprints as soon as a manuscript is ready for submission.

Seminars, journal clubs and other lab and institutional activities

Attendance at regular lab meetings and individual meetings is expected of all lab members. Casteel lab members also participate in the Plant Virus Group meeting and the Plant Interactions Group meeting and you are expected to attend these meeting regularly and present to these groups. There are additional seminars (Plant Biology, Plant Pathology & Plant-Microbe Biology, Entomology, Ecology & Evolution) that occur each week and may be relevant to your research. Announcements for these are usually posted in the office or sent out via email. You are encouraged to regularly go to one or more each week as part of your normal work day.

Authorship

We follow the IJME rules for authorship rules:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Projects evolve over time and authorship; inclusion and author order will be re-evaluated accordingly.

Vacation and PTO

It is important that you take time off for personal life, vacations, etc. Each member of the lab is encouraged to take up to 15 days of vacation each year in addition to the 13 days of official University holiday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Juneteeth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days), Winter break (6 days)). Please note graduate students do not get summers, course holidays, or spring break off (this will be part of your vacation allotment). For more details see Cornell’s official policy for postdocs/employees and graduate students for vacation and university holidays.

To request time off please prepare a written time-off plan prior to the requested dates. I expect time-off plans to be prepared at least double the time you are requesting off for. For example, if you are requesting 1 work day off, your plan must be finalized at least 2 work days before that date, if you are requesting 5 work days off, you must put in a request at least 10 work days beforehand. Request for longer than two weeks off require significant planning and should be discussed as soon as possible. If you are requesting off when you have a responsibility due (deadline, report to funding agency due, experiment in progress, weekly lab chores, lab meeting presentation, meeting with me, watering duty) you must arrange to have another lab member take care of this for you, work with me to reschedule the meeting, or arrange to switch duties/presentation dates with another lab member. Postdocs and technicians are supposed to also enter time-off in their workday account after it is approved.

The final time-off plan should include the following and be posted in the time-off planning channel:

1. Name

2. End and start date of days off request

3. Total # work days requested off

4. What arrangements were made to take care of your responsibilities? Please include who, what they are doing, and on what dates. If there are no tasks that need to be taken care of please clarify this in #4.

Over the years there have been many misunderstandings between lab members over who is taking care of what during vacations. To prevent this from happening, I will evaluate your time-off plan for clarity on what specifically needs to be done, by who, and when it needs to be done, and ask for more details if needed. Written time-off plans are generally posted in the time-off slack channel and I ask for more information there if needed. If you are not comfortable fine-tuning the plan with me on the slack channel, you can message me directly first, but the final plan must be posted in the slack channel, so that everyone in the lab knows if they should expect to see you in the lab or not, and if they can reach out to you for questions or help in slack.

Although you must take breaks and holidays to ensure your health and happiness. I cannot approve everyone taking a holiday at the same time or the lab will not function. In cases where multiple people have requested off at the same time I will approve all requests if possible, and if not possible, I will approve the request that was submitted first. So please send in requests early!

Also, as a member of a team working with living organisms that require care, we all must take turns maintaining plants, insects, and experiments during university holidays.

Sick leave

If you are sick you should not come to work. Please let me know by 10 am by email, if you will need to take the day off because you are ill.

Cornell’s official policy for postdocs/employees and graduate student policy for sick leave are available through these links.

Conferences

Travel Budget: Everyone on a salary or stipend is encouraged to attend at least one conference a year, and this is considered part of your job and not vacation. Members of the lab regularly attend such meetings as the American Society of Plant Biology (ASPB), Entomological Society of America (ENTSOC), Ecological Society of America (ESA), Gordan Conference on Plant-Herbivore Interactions, and the Phytochemical Society of America. Whenever possible, I will provide up to $1500 for each lab member to attend one national conference per year on the condition that you are presenting a poster or talk at the meeting, there are funds available, and adequate progress has been made on your project. The department, the university, and each society/meeting offer travel funding for graduate students and postdocs, and you are expected to apply for external sources of funding to help cover travel expenses. For example, all graduate students are eligible for a $700 conference travel from the graduate school (https://gradschool.cornell.edu/financial-support/travel-funding-opportunities/) and I expect all graduate students to apply for this.

If you apply for travel support and are not successful, I will still cover any reasonable costs of travel that exceed $1500, as long as there are funds available for this. If you do not try to apply for travel support I can only reimburse you up to $1500, and only if funds are available. If you would like to take vacation before or after the meeting to explore the location that is ok, but travel costs associated with travel before the first day the meeting or after the last day of the meeting are not supported.

Attending a conference “the process”:

Once you have identified a meeting, please contact me before registering to discuss your goals in attending, the data you plan to present, and any travel grant or funding opportunities that can be used to support your travel. Adding this information to your weekly slides on needs/discussion points would be a great way to bring it up.
If we agree on a meeting, you will be expected to apply for travel grants and funding opportunities before the deadlines. Often these require I write a letter of support for you and for you to write an purpose statement as part of the application. Please provide ample time before the deadline for reviewing the travel grant applications, and for writing letters of recommendations. I need at least 2 weeks to prepare a well-crafted recommendation letter.
Typically there is a registration cost associated with attending a meeting ~$400-800 and these costs increase over time (sometimes this is significantly!), so all members are encouraged to register early when costs are low. Typically you will pay for this on your own upfront (keep the receipt!), and you will get reimbursed after you travel, but there may be other options if needed.
You will be required to submit an abstract at the time of registration or shortly after by a certain date. I must approve the abstract before you submit it, so please provide your draft at least two weeks before the deadline so there is ample time for review and edits if needed.
Next you will need to find an affordable flight, a roommate to share a hotel room with (required), and an affordable hotel. If you are not sure what affordable means, ask . :) Often the conference will have a list or system for finding roommates, which can be a great way to meet scientists from other areas. Typically you will also pay for these costs on your own also (keep the receipts!), and get reimbursed after you travel, but there may be other options if needed.
Two to four weeks before you leave for the meeting you will prepare a poster or talk. Typically you will be expected to present a “practice talk” to the lab or provide a draft poster for review to the lab. I will also review and approve the final version before you leave, so please provide ample time before the deadlines for reviewing posters/practice talks, and edits.
During the conference you should keep the receipts for all meals and taxis, as you make be able to be reimbursed for these if you do not go over budget.
After the meeting assemble all costs in an excel and organize your receipts. Send me a copy for approval and then I will help you get reimbursed.

International meetings: International meetings cost significantly more to attend than national meetings, so I cannot regularly support travel to international meetings. One issue is that the budgets of most grants are not large enough to include international travel every year and also pay salary/research costs. There are also limits on the ability to pay for international travel on some funding sources, such as with Federal Capacity Funds. However, whenever possible I try to include one international conference in the second or third year of the grant. If you are able to secure funding to help support the costs of international travel, I am supportive of you attending an international meeting. You can use your $1500 travel budget to help cover costs of attending as long as the funding source that is supporting you allows this. Because of budget limits, I cannot guarantee that I can cover all costs that exceed the $1500 for international travel if you apply for a travel grants and are not successful, but I will cover as much as possible. I am happy to discuss other options for meetings that you think are particularly important for your success. There are some excellent international meetings related to our discipline such as, the International Symposium on Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions (IS-MPMI), International Symposium on Insect-Plant Interactions (SIP), and International Symposium on Chemical Ecology (ISCE).

Behaviors we do not tolerate

Dishonesty. If you do not understand a technique, a procedure, or a concept, please let us know. We are happy to repeat instructions or demonstrations as many times as it takes for you to understand. It is important to us that you do ‘get it’ so help us to achieve that.
Unkindness. The lab has to be a pleasant place to work. We treat everyone with respect and dignity and we will expect you to do the same.
Silence. If you are unhappy with your tasks, your interaction with others, or feel distressed, please set an appointment to talk to Dr. Casteel. In the lab, if you do not understand how an instrument works, ask. If you are unsure of what you should do next; ask.
Withholding credit. If you are given help; acknowledge it. Do not misrepresent your effort. This is one of the worse things you can do in academia, because all we have are our ideas and efforts. This is a lose-lose situation because no one would be inclined to offer you help again.
Not owning up to your mistakes. This takes courage. Try to be brave and let us know if you inadvertently did something wrong. There will be no retaliation. We will respect you for stepping up and accepting responsibility.

Specific rules for the different members of the lab

Postdocs and senior PhD students

My responsibilities to postdocs and senior PhD students:

1.Develop project ideas.

2. Interpret results.

3. Proof-read manuscripts.

4. Discuss future career goals (e.g., do you want to teach, go into academia, industry, continue in research?), and help you plan ways to facilitate these goals.

5. Meet at every two weeks to discuss goals, progress, what you learned/pitfalls, and professional development .

Expectations of postdocs and senior PhD students:

1. Acknowledge that you have the primary responsibility for successfully completing your project, degree, and career trajectory. This includes commitment to your work in classes for students, and in the lab for all. You should maintain a high level of professionalism, motivation, engagement, scientific curiosity, and ethical standards.

2. Organize your work week. Plan experiments and tasks that need to be done each week and allot time for them. Keep a running list of smaller experiments/tasks to do as well. Multi-task while you are in the lab to maximize your research output.

3. Prepare for our regular individual meetings. Prepare agendas and slides for the meetings 48 hours before our meeting and send them to me or message me when they are complete. This will give me time to look at your slides and allow me to give you useful feedback. You can also use this time to communicate any new ideas, professional development, or problems that you are facing by putting it in the agenda. Remember, I cannot address issues or advise you about them if you do not bring them to my attention.

4. Try to figure out answers on your own before approaching me. My time is limited. Be resourceful and come up with potential experimental designs and approaches before meeting with me. Try to figure out answers to questions using your own resources and the literature first. Read old lab members notebooks. If you have tried and need help, I am here. But I don’t want to spend time answering questions you can find out or troubleshoot on your own.

5. Write and submit manuscripts. I strongly encourage collaboration. On average, I expect your time as a postdoc in the lab to generate 1-2 papers per year (first or co-authored), for PhD students to produce 3-5 publications from their time in our lab(first or co-authored), and MS students to produce 1-3 publications from their time in the lab (first or co-authored), and in general this expectation seems to be not unreasonable.

6. Maintain an organized set of lab notebooks and online resources, including inventories, data sets, data analysis codes/results, and detailed methods/protocols used for your experiments. This needs to be sufficient to reproduce results without any instructions. You are not allowed to take your lab book off campus. All data generated is the property of the University and needs to treated as such.

7. Proof-read manuscripts from other lab members.

8. Apply for external funding (either individual postdoc fellowships, graduate student fellowships, or by contributing to larger lab grant writing).

9. Participate in general lab responsibilities (maintain common areas, take turns hosting visitors, maintain plants/insects, keep personal area clean, and clean-up after your research experiments).

10. Participate in talk rehearsals of your colleagues.

11. Optional, but encouraged: Mentor at least one undergraduate student.

12. Optional, but encouraged: Involvement in DEI initiatives, lectures, and training.

Master and PhD students

At the start of your program Dr. Casteel will develop a research plan with you. Broad goals and associated tasks that we hope you will tackle as part of your project will be listed, with proposed completion dates. After goals and tasks for your project are developed, I expect you to write a two-page proposal describing how you plan to address these, before starting on your research. You project goals and tasks should be challenging but manageable, and we can ‘dial-up’ or ‘dial-back’ tasks based on your experience and course load. If you feel we need to ‘dial-up’ or ‘dial-back’ tasks please set up a meeting with Dr. Casteel to discuss how she can facilitate this.

My responsibilities to Master and junior PhD students:

1. Develop project ideas.

2. Interpret results.

3. Proof-read and contribute to writing of thesis, abstracts, and manuscripts.

4. Discuss future career goals (e.g., do you want to teach, go into academia, continue in research?), and help you plan ways to facilitate these goals.

5. Meet at every two weeks to discuss goals, progress, what you learned/pitfalls, and professional development .

Expectations of Master and junior PhD students:

1. Acknowledge that you have the primary responsibility for successfully completing your project, degree, and career trajectory. This includes commitment to your class work and in the lab. You should maintain a high level of professionalism, motivation, engagement, scientific curiosity, and ethical standards.

5. Write and submit manuscripts. On average, I expect most PhD students to produce 3-5 publications from their time in our lab (first or co-authored), and MS students to produce 1-3 publications from their time in the lab (first or co-authored) .

7. Write thesis in due time. Give your committee enough time to read your thesis before your oral defense.

8. Be knowledgeable about the policies, deadlines, requirements of the graduate program, school, and university.

9. Meet with your committee once a year to update them about your research progress.

10. Proof-read manuscripts from other lab members.

11. Participate in talk rehearsals of your colleagues.

12. Participate in general lab responsibilities (maintain common areas, taking turns hosting visitors, maintain plants/insects, keep personal area clean, and clean-up after your research experiments).

13. Optional, but encouraged: Mentor at least one undergraduate student.

14. Optional, but encouraged: Involvement in DEI initiatives, lectures, and training.

Technicians and Research Assistants

At the start of your position/internship Dr. Casteel or your graduate student/postdoc mentor will develop a research plan for you. Specific tasks we hope you will tackle will be listed there, with hoped completion dates. These tasks should be challenging but manageable, and we can ‘dial-up’ or ‘dial-back’ these tasks based on your experience and time commitment.

My responsibilities to Technicians and Research Assistants:

Outlining your research project with the help of your mentor.
Interpret results.
Proof-read and contribute to writing of undergraduate thesis, abstracts and manuscripts.
Discuss future career goals (e.g., do you want to teach, go into academia, continue in research?), and help you plan ways to facilitate these goals.
Meet every other week with you and your mentor to discuss goals, progress, what you learned/pitfalls, and professional development .

Expectations of Technicians and Research Assistants:

1. Organize your work week. Plan experiments and tasks that need to be done each week and allot time for them. Keep a running list of smaller experiments/tasks to do as well. Multi-task while you are in the lab to maximize your research output.

2. Prepare for our regular meetings. Prepare agendas and slides for the meetings 48 hours before our meeting and send them to me, or message me when they are complete and uploaded in box. This will give me time to look at your slides and allow me to give you useful feedback. You can also use this time to communicate any new ideas, professional development, or problems that you are facing by putting it in the agenda. Remember, I cannot address issues or advise you if you do not bring needs and issues to my attention.

3. Complete assigned tasks. If you commit to a project you must understand that we are depending on you. Occasionally, some lab work may need to be done outside of normal business hours. However, this should not occur regularly. We will discuss the likelihood of this happening and modify plans so it does not happen regularly.

4. Maintain an organized set of lab notebooks and online resources, including inventories, data sets, data analysis codes/results, and detailed methods/protocols used for your experiments. This needs to be sufficient to reproduce results without any instructions. You are not allowed to take your lab book off campus. All data generated is the property of the University and needs to treated as such.

5. Participate in general lab responsibilities (maintain common areas, taking turns hosting visitors, maintain plants/insects, keep personal area clean, and clean-up after your research experiments).

6. Optional, but encouraged: Involvement in DEI initiatives, lectures, and training.