What happens when you stand up to the big wigs? A follow-up interview with Anne Scheel

Two years ago, Team CogTales (Sho and Christina) interviewed Anne Scheel. We were impressed how she stood up to ask a tough question at Germany’s largest Psychology conference (the DGPs Kongress) after a keynote presentation. Two years later, Christina and Anne actually met up at the next installment of the very same conference, and a lot has changed in the short time span. So it seems like a perfect moment to catch up and take stock.

How to survive outside of academia: Interview with a data scientist and a science consulting coach

Most of us that are currently grad students or postdocs have experienced colleagues leaving academia for industry jobs. Even though I am currently a happy scholar, I can very well understand those who venture into industry – be it for making impact on a shorter time-scale and in a more direct manner, for more job security and more regular working hours, or simply for higher pay and the possibility to plan a family and get some savings. And indeed, the fluidity between academia and industry has arguably never been that strong. I find it very important for us young cognitive scientists to know that academia is not a one-way street, and the world outside there is welcoming us warmly, should we choose to enter it.

Meet Christine Boylan and Neil Bardhan, who have both recently left the academia cosmos to pursue two very distinct career paths.

An interview with a next generation methodological freedom fighter

Meet Anne Scheel, PhD candidate at LMU Munich. She stood up and asked the author of the opinion piece on “methodological terrorism” for a statement after her keynote at the DGPS conference. Since tough questions in front of big audiences by young women are still a rare thing to encounter at conferences (and elsewhere), we were curious to know how this went down for her. And of course, we also took the opportunity to discuss the content of the piece in question.

Science would be better with more women

Guest post by Katharina Höftmann (author and journalist). Katharina studied Psychology with Sho in her former life, but instead of becoming a cognitive scientist she is now a successful author and journalist, living and working in Tel Aviv. She talked with Professor Daniel  Zajfman, president of the renowned Weizman Institute of Science, about women in science, nobel prizes and the link between industry and science. He is the youngest president in the history of the research institute. Since the 47-year old physicist took over in 2006, the institute became more renowned and more international than ever before. Katharina spoke with Professor Zajfman about Israeli science and his work as president (originally published for Israel between the lines).

Israel Between the Lines (IBTL): It is quite remarkable that so many Nobel Prize winners are from Israel – what is the secret of their success?

On Gating Research

ResearchGate – a social networking site for researchers to interact, connect, and to share papers and knowledge. Since its foundation in 2008, it has by now a (self-reported) 8 million users, and its press coverage has been mostly positive. Interestingly, the rather enthusiastic press articles are contrasting with more critical voices from inside the research community (for instance here or here). Main points of criticism are