On April 17, the Research Careers Campus and Postdoc Office had the honor to welcome a Graz-returnee, former postdoctoral researcher Verena Kohler for an expert talk. The event was a collegial forum to gain and share advice and informal knowledge for sucessful academic career trajectories - based on Verena's own journey and questions the 12 participants brought to the table in the university archive.
Find below some of the insights that were shared, but first, who is Verena?
Verena Kohler is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Molecular Biology at Umeå University in Sweden. Since October 2023, she has been leading the research group "Implications of ageing and disease on cellular protein quality control". As a new PI, she continually reflects on best practice in leadership and effective team dynamics. Kohler has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Stockholm and Graz, and previously held an Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). She did her PhD research at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. Her research focusses on cellular proteostasis, particularly during ageing, as well as the significance of membrane contact sites.
What did Verena talk about in her input?
She started by outlining her personal path, and highlighted that when you look at her CV, there’s a lot of stuff you do not see – like the effort put into multiple applications for positions, grants, and the emotional impact repeated rejections can have, and the resilience she built up, and is still working on.
From Verena’s examples, it became clear she sets priorities not only in her career, but also with regards to relationships and practices needed to maintain health and focus, and makes decisions accordingly. These decisions sometimes have to take place without a safety net (going abroad before securing funding, rejecting high-paying industry job offers because the academic path seems more promising, saying no to environments which raise red flags from the outset).
She shared her own success factors to reaching a tenure-track position:
- getting good advice from mentors at the right time
- „starting early“, factor in time to practice writing successful applications
- using feedback from rejections to learn, feedback from supportive peers who mean well, take a step back and critically assess your applications, gain an awareness that failure is part of the process and happens even to ERC grantees
- since it’s not possible to achieve „full marks“ in all areas that are assessed for a tenure track role (publishing, teaching/supervision, international experience, secured funding, lots of luck), finding workarounds
- waiting with important tasks (like writing grant applications) until you are in the flow – stop them if it doesn’t flow (key to this: start as early as possible); if you don’t think you can do a good enough job, let it go completely
What was the transition from postdoc to group leader like?
- it’s useful to find descriptions from other new group leaders about their experiences, so you know what you can expect (e.g. how long it can take to set up a lab) and be less stressed; be careful though whose opinions you take on board, and which better to discard
- negotiations are suddenly part of your life, and you have to prepare for them (but might not have time!)
- the first day might be hard, when you’re suddenly fully and solely responsible, without any guidance from a superior
- you have to find ways to plan your year, calendar, and day that allows for uninterrupted focus (which might mean saying to your team “emergencies only this afternoon”)
- lab handbooks / value manuals help a lot to create a productive work environment that ensures growth for all members
- similarly, you’re now the PI, which means next to your own research goals, you need to take care of PhD candidates and ensure that they meet their career / publication goals
The discussion centered also around publication strategies, finding and defending your own niche in research when you still work in another PIs project, how to assess if an environment will be supportive, and more. We're grateful to Verena for being so open and transparent - and also really impressed by her gripping story-telling!
Report: Johanna Stadlbauer, Apr 17, 2025.