Many young people are fascinated by the promise of bioelectricity research and email me to ask where they can join a PhD program that focuses on this area. Here is my general advice.
I dream of the day when you can actually do a PhD in a bioelectricity program. That day is not today; to my knowledge, there are no interdisciplinary programs focused on this topic. There are some excellent individual labs though, that do work in aspects of developmental bioelectricity. For example: AiSun Tseng, Wendy Beane, Min Zhao, Emily Bates, Matt Harris, and others (my lab is not currently taking new PhD students).
However, more generally, you do not need to do your PhD in bioelectricity, even if that is your dream for your research future. Your PhD years are a good time to gain critical skills in related fields – biophysics, bioengineering, cell physiology, developmental biology, etc. Also, to mature in the general areas of posing and answering scientific questions, planning experimental approaches, critically analyzing data, honing your intuition to recognize worthwhile hypotheses that may not be obvious to others, and getting that sense of balance of how far and when to stray from mainstream ideas and place bets on yourself.
My advice is: join an excellent department where you will gain those skills and experience; learn the current paradigm’s rules and concepts so that you can break them as needed in your future independent work. Use your PhD to build your toolbox, and then push your passion when you are a post-doc and an independent PI. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t look for a PhD project that lights you up – you absolutely should. But it doesn’t need to already be the big thing that you want to devote your career to, just something that builds your skillset and gives you the needed skills, contacts, and experience in managing success and failure.
That is what I did. I joined Cliff Tabin’s lab in 1992, and spent the next 4 years learning mainstream (but state-of-the-art) approaches in developmental genetics. I knew this would not be what I worked on later, but that was ok because there was so many useful things to learn. I mostly kept my plans and deeper interests to myself, as it was obvious that this was a time to talk less and listen more – lots of useful skills to absorb, and plenty of gaps in knowledge and approach in the field to notice and file away for later. Also there was little chance that anyone was going to listen to wild ideas from a young student who didn’t have a track record yet of producing anything impactful. Use your PhD to develop a history of competence and credibility, and then expand from that base when in a position with more freedom and knowledge. You want a project in which you can begin to hone your intuition, and get a better idea of when is the right time to listen to smart people and when is the right time to pursue things only you can see yet even if everyone else says there’s nothing there. And most of all, you want an excellent mentor who will provide the guidance and space for you to develop (that is more important than which school they are at). It’s also a good time to learn to benefit from the wisdom of people you respect without having to fully take on their vantage-point.
Likewise, for people wanting to work on some other emerging topics, such as diverse intelligence, etc. Things are a bit better here, with some departments and programs having an interdisciplinary scope that includes neuroscience beyond neurons. But again, don’t despair if you can’t find the ideal department stocked with people who want to support your unconventional work – it rarely works that way for new approaches. At best, you will find one or a handful of local allies; much more frequently, you will build your “circle” which will be geographically distributed. You will get experience to understand which community is the right one for you; often, it’s no existing community – you will make plans to build one, especially if you want to work in a novel emerging field. Meanwhile, you study, grow, and learn to understand the landscape and where the opportunities lie, keeping your future path under wraps while you mature the personal tools needed to advance or disrupt, according to your vision. And that is totally alright.
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