Built for both sides
of the bench

What two research worlds—and years of teaching—taught me about guidance

When I was a researcher in my home country, one of our biggest challenges was access to basic research resources. Most research buildings did not have liquid nitrogen tanks for preserving biological samples or conducting temperature-sensitive experiments. Whenever we needed liquid nitrogen, we would load a Dewar flask into a taxi and travel to a neighboring private university to purchase some.

I can still remember the look on our driver's face when he noticed a cloud of vapor escaping from the container.

"It's okay, sir," we told him. "We just need to roll down the windows."

Back home, resource limitations were a routine part of research. Instruments were scarce, budgets were tight, and scientific progress often depended on creativity, persistence, and resourcefulness—finding ways to keep moving despite what was missing.

When I moved to a foreign country for graduate school, much of the culture shock came from the abundance of resources. Almost every research building seemed to have its own liquid nitrogen tank room. Reagents arrived quickly. Core facilities were available. Resources that once felt like luxuries were simply part of the infrastructure.

But it took only a few months for me to realize that abundant resources did not eliminate the challenges of research. They simply changed them.

During orientation, I once asked a senior graduate student a seemingly ordinary question:

"Hi! What year are you in?"
"Shhh. That's one of the questions you should never ask a senior grad student."

The response was made in jest, but it revealed something deeper. Some trainees had been in their programs far longer than expected, often for reasons beyond their control. Behind the joke were pressure, uncertainty, stalled timelines, and the uncomfortable reality of not always knowing when the next milestone would come.

The challenges had changed, but the need for support had not.

Access to world-class facilities often came with world-class expectations. Graduate researchers were expected to produce, publish, secure funding, teach, mentor, network, and plan their next career move—often all at the same time. Without clear guidance and shared expectations, those demands could quickly become overwhelming.

Years later, as I approached the end of my Ph.D., I found myself at another crossroads: academia or industry. At the time, the conversation was often framed as a competition. Industry offered higher salaries, stronger work-life boundaries, and greater appreciation for scientific talent. Academia represented discovery, independence, and the opportunity to train future scientists.

But I have never believed that academia and industry are rivals competing for the same people. They are partners in the same scientific ecosystem. We need talented scientists in academia advancing fundamental knowledge and preparing the next generation. We also need talented scientists in industry translating those discoveries into therapies, technologies, and products that reach the public.

The problem is not that too many researchers choose one path or the other. The problem is that too many are asked to make life-shaping decisions without enough guidance, mentorship, or room to understand what kind of work and environment actually fit them.

And now, we continue to see studies, surveys, and personal accounts describing a persistent crisis among early-career researchers: stress, anxiety, burnout, poor mentoring experiences, and uncertainty about the future. These concerns are not limited to one side of the bench. Trainees are struggling, but many supervisors are also overextended—managing funding pressures, administrative demands, scientific responsibilities, and the increasingly complex work of leading people.

The irony is that academic environments can be among the hardest places in which to make the case that something needs to change. Not necessarily because people do not care, but because almost no one has time. There is always another deadline, manuscript, experiment, grant, meeting, or person who needs something.

Making time to improve how we work can feel impossible when the work itself is already consuming us.

That is unfortunate because the further researchers progress, the more work tends to accumulate. Greater responsibility often brings more projects, more people to support, more administrative demands, and more pressure to keep producing. Instead of creating space to improve how we work, moving forward can leave people with even less time to step back, reflect, and make meaningful changes.

Much of the support created in response still focuses on the individual trainee: communicate better, become more resilient, set stronger boundaries, seek mentorship, and manage your time more effectively. Those skills matter. But research is a two-way street. Healthy research environments cannot be built by trainees alone.

Supervisors and mentors need practical support too—not only for managing projects, but for setting expectations, giving feedback, recognizing capacity, navigating difficult conversations, and leading people whose needs and career goals may differ from their own.

That is why GradLab Compass is built for both sides of the bench.

My approach is also shaped by years of teaching, developing course materials, and creating learning experiences. Before moving abroad, I taught in my home country and looked for ways to make scientific concepts easier to understand, visualize, and remember.

Some of the most memorable lessons were not traditional lectures. I used origami to help students visualize protein structures, and rubber tubing or clay and toothpicks to demonstrate how nucleic acids wrap around histone proteins. With colleagues, we collaboratively created the Chemazing Race, an Amazing Race-inspired activity that used movement, teamwork, and problem-solving to help students review course material before their exams.

When I moved abroad, that instinct did not change. I used Jeopardy-style games to help students review biology concepts and make connections between ideas. I also had the opportunity to create some of the department's first e-learning materials for undergraduate biology students.

These experiences taught me that providing information is not the same as creating learning. People learn when they can engage with an idea, connect it to something familiar, reflect on what it means, and apply it in a way that makes sense for them.

That principle sits at the heart of learning experience design. It asks not only, What information should people receive? but also, What will help them understand it, remember it, discuss it, and use it?

It also shaped the way I approach GradLab Compass. The materials are designed to be self-guided and used at a person's own pace, in their own time—much like e-learning. Researchers do not always have time to attend another workshop or complete a formal program. Sometimes they need a story, question, worksheet, or practical tool they can return to when a particular challenge becomes relevant.

The goal is not to give people more work. It is to make useful guidance available when they are ready for it.

As adult learners and professionals, we often connect most deeply through stories. A story can name a situation that has been difficult to explain. It can help a trainee realize that they are not the only one struggling. It can help a mentor see how an ordinary decision may be experienced from the other side of the bench. It can make a difficult conversation feel safer to begin.

That is the idea behind Habits Not Hacks.

The series uses fictional and composite research-life stories to explore the same challenge from trainee and mentor perspectives. The stories are not intended to provide perfect answers or simplistic formulas. They are designed as short, self-guided learning experiences that help readers pause, recognize familiar patterns, understand the other side, and identify one practical next step.

Readers can begin with the perspective closest to their own role, continue with the perspective from the other side of the bench, and then use the reflection questions, discussion prompts, or related tools at their own pace.

A story might lead to a better mentor meeting, a clearer expectation, a more honest career conversation, or a small but meaningful change in how a research team works together. The goal is to create learning that does not end when the page is closed, but continues through the conversations, decisions, and habits that follow.

Over the years, beyond my own laboratory and teaching experiences, I have learned from conversations with new and senior graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, junior and senior faculty, industry scientists, hiring managers, and retired researchers.

Those conversations eventually became GradLab Compass: a platform that combines stories, practical tools, and thoughtfully designed learning experiences to make the hidden parts of research life easier to navigate.

After working in both resource-limited and resource-rich environments, I have come to appreciate that research ultimately depends on people.

The challenges may differ across institutions, countries, sectors, and career stages. But the need for guidance, connection, and clearer conversations is remarkably universal.

GradLab Compass exists to help make those conversations easier to begin—on both sides of the bench, one story, one habit, and one decision at a time.