3. How The Lab Works
1. Communication
Mattermost is the primary means of communication in the group. Mattermost is an open source and self-hosted application, comparable to some extent with the functionalities in Discord and Slack. Mattermost allows us to communicate between us more effectively, share resources, schedule meetings, and plan of our projects with organization boards, among others. All lab members, undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and postdocs are encouraged to use Mattermost from the browser or install it on their desktops, laptops, or phones. Invitation to Mattermost will be provided upon onboarding to the lab. You can get started using Mattermost by reviewing their official documentation: https://docs.mattermost.com/. Please review the lab-specific Code of Conduct for mattermost guidelines before joining the server.
2. Group Lab Meetings
We will hold hybrid or virtual weekly or bi-weekly meetings throughout Spring, Summer and Fall semesters. Every lab member is expected to actively participate in these. Lab meetings are expected to last 1 hour. The lab manager will compile everyone’s availability before the first week of the semester. Lab meetings are mostly focused on discussions for topics of internal relevance within the lab. Journal clubs, with invited PIs or students, are used for wider discussions on particular papers or new approaches either in biology or data science.
There will be flexibility in the meeting schedule, allowing for some weeks to hold informal sessions for training in different topics, practice of job talks, among others. Some of the main goals of the group meeting are to provide lab members a chance to practice public speaking, discuss potential problems and troubleshoot as a group, and for each of the members to teach the rest of the group about some aspect of their work, as well as to learn how to listen and ask questions.
< Schedule can be found under general information tab to the left.
Lab Meeting Structure:
- Introduction of new members
- Funding applications
- Active discussion
- Job talks
- Member led component: current research, relevant paper, tutorial
Journal Club
- Selected papers
- Defined during first week of the semester
- Led by one lab member
- PIs and other guests are invited
The location of meetings will be mainly online, with an option to access the zoom meeting in a physical shared space via our conference room setup in Harvill 320C or remotely on zoom (maybe Nextcloud talk).
An initial group lab meeting will be scheduled early in the semester. This initial meeting is mostly administrative – we will introduce ourselves, talk about resources in the lab, projects, grants, and similar topics. We will also allocate some time to discuss expectations in the lab, sessions of interest, potential invited speakers, among other topics. The rest of the meetings during the semester will help to support communication within the lab.
3. One on One Meetings
Staff and students are expected to meet with Dr. Roman-Palacios once a week (or as often as agreed upon during an initial meeting). The lab manager will also meet with all the lab members at least once during the semester for checkups. Note that all meetings will be scheduled in the beginning of the semester and run through the entire academic semester.
4. Lab Group
The group consists of different people and resources working together to achieve our mission and maintain our core values. The PI (principal investigator) is Dr. Roman-Palacios, Assistant Professor at School of Information, at the University of Arizona. The PI has responsibility for setting the research directions, managing personnel, and securing funding. Multiple graduate students, data specialists, research assistants, lab manager, and postdocs in the lab carry out much of the work. Graduate students have earned their bachelor’s degree and are working toward earning their PhD or a master's degree. The experience and capabilities of graduate students can vary widely depending on many factors. Postdoctoral associates (postdocs) have already earned their PhD and are pursuing additional years of training, often with the goal of securing a faculty position. Undergraduate researchers work on smaller projects, generally under the supervision of one or more graduate students or postdoctoral associates.