Lab Philosophy

Lab’s environment

We strive to create a lab culture that is both productive and welcoming. Every member is expected to contribute to a respectful and collaborative atmosphere by valuing each other’s perspectives and ideas. Our lab embraces diversity in all its forms—cultural, personal, and intellectual—and we aim to foster an inclusive space where everyone feels valued and supported, regardless of background, ethnicity, gender, or other identity factors.

Mentorship

At the beginning of our collaboration, we will clarify mutual expectations, including levels of independence, timelines, and meeting schedules. I, as the principal investigator, prioritize open and ongoing communication. If you ever feel overwhelmed by academic pressures, struggle with work-life balance, or are uncertain about your career path, please feel free to bring these issues up—we can work through them together.

Collaborations

While many of us are funded through specific research grants and have corresponding responsibilities, we strongly encourage intellectual curiosity and innovation. You are welcome—and encouraged—to develop your skills by collaborating with colleagues within the lab. When beneficial to your project, you may also pursue collaborations outside the group. If I am your primary supervisor, I ask for transparency regarding any external partnerships or side initiatives. There are no strict arrival or departure times in our lab, and working remotely is certainly permitted. Nonetheless, we recommend that lab members spend at least three days a week on-site to foster community, collaboration, and spontaneous scientific exchange. Participation in lab meetings, seminars, journal clubs, and social events is encouraged. While we generally do not expect work to continue outside standard business hours or on weekends—unless approaching a major deadline—those who prefer working during off-hours are free to do so. However, it’s important to respect others’ boundaries and not expect immediate responses outside normal hours.

Work-life balance

I do not require lab members to come or leave work at a defined time each day. Working from home is possible. However, we encourage people to be at the lab to promote socialization and scientific collaboration between the lab members. We encourage all the members to take part in lab meetings, seminars, journal clubs, and other scientific or social events. You are not expected to work outside regular working hours or during the weekends (and the PI is not expected to do so either), unless we are trying to meet an important deadline (for example, for a paper or grant submission). Nevertheless, we do respect different values and backgrounds, so we think it’s also fine if some people like to work outside regular working hours. But it’s important to set up a boundary and get to know each other’s habits. For people working outside normal hours, it is not expected that they will get a response from other people outside working hours.

Professional development

Experienced lab members, such as senior PhD students and postdocs, are encouraged to lead tutorials on tools like OSF, GitHub, and other research platformsProfessional Development. When possible, we also support participation in external learning opportunities such as workshops, summer schools, and conferences.

Responsible and reproducible science

Our goal is to contribute to science in a way that supports its iterative and self-correcting nature. Open science plays a central role in this mission. I encourage everyone in the lab to explore and adopt transparent research practices. We currently use the Open Science Framework (OSF) to register study plans and hypotheses and to share data and code. That said, I understand that applying these practices may vary depending on the project’s nature, and we remain flexible as we integrate evolving standards in scientific rigor and reproducibility.