Don’t Meet Your Heroes

Academia entails its own, odd but powerful, brand of celebrity. I’m not talking about the Mary Beards, Brian Coxes or even the late and very great Stephen Hawking. I’m talking about the many writers of undergraduate textbooks and seminal papers who achieve A-list status in the eyes — or rather minds — of countless students. I say minds, because a key feature of this phenomenon is that you often just don’t know when you’re in the presence of greatness. I remember helping someone out at the coffee bar at a conference and, only as I poured her milk, realising it was Cathy Lord. CATHY LORD for goodness sake. *faints*

Professorial fame combines with the mantra of “networking” at academic conferences, where legions of PhD students feel impelled to make a connection with these boffin-heroes. Now, I am far from this league, but as the local C-lister the kind people at PhD and Stuff have invited me to write a guest post on how (not) to meet your heroes.

Step One: Don’t Meet Your Heroes

Instead of seeking out the bigwigs, think about networking with people closer to you in career stage. PhD students and newly-fledged post-docs are likely to know relatively few people, be keen to talk and share stories, and in the future they may become your collaborators. One of my most highly cited papers is a review I wrote with another PhD student who I met at a conference. And she became a great friend to boot.

Focusing your networking energies on people at the same professional stage is also an opportunity for peer support and problem-solving. Sadly academia is rife with poor management and even workplace bullying. The student-supervisor relationship is very vulnerable to this. Talking to other PhD students gives some valuable perspective and will be great for your mental health, even if it doesn’t lead to firm action.

Step Two: If you must meet your heroes, keep it snappy

I recall approaching a mega-Prof in my field once at a conference drinks reception, and being very put off, and not-a-little miffed that she spent much of the time scanning the room for, as I said to a fellow student later, “more important people to talk to”. I now feel considerably more sympathy for this Prof than I did then. There’s a big conference in my field which is an annual opportunity to catch up with some good friends — often the only time I’ll see them all year. I’ve found myself casting my eyes around the drinks reception, but not because there’s someone ‘more important’ to talk to — but simply because I’m looking for my buddies. It’s like playing Where’s Wally as you try to pick out the familiar faces from the crowd and say Hi.

So, if you want to go up and chat to some titan of the discipline, be kind to them and make it brief. You can build on that initial contact later (see Step Five) but for the time being stick to a quick “Hi, I’m Sue, I just wanted to say that I love what you wrote about such and such, it’s really influenced my work”. If they ask what you’re working on, give them the two line version and then, unless they’re clearly enraptured, move on politely.

Step Three: If you can’t keep it snappy, have a plan

If you’re keen to make a real connection with someone — you actively want to work with them, you have a specific question about a method you’re trying to replicate — you need to plan ahead. One option is to try to book in a meeting in advance. Email them, introduce yourself, cite their relevant work, and ask if they are going to such-and-such conference and whether they’d be willing to meet during a coffee break. Make your invitation extra-convincing by being clear about what you want to discuss and explaining why a face-to-face meeting would be beneficial.

If you do approach someone at the event, again, make sure you have a specific question ready. “I wanted to ask you how you think theory X applies to situation Y…” is so much more engaging than a vague “can you tell me more about this theory…” Bring something to the conversation — your own ideas and thinking will be enriching and intriguing to a good scientist in a way talking about their (possibly now quite old) theories is not.

Step Four: Why not invite your heroes to meet you

If you’re presenting at a conference and your work is closely linked to the work of some research colossus, why not grab life by the balls and invite them to see what you’ve done? Email in advance with details of when and where you are speaking / presenting a poster. Make sure that the link to their work is clear (and accurately referenced!) and say that you’d love to discuss your findings with them or one of their team. If the superstar themselves isn’t able to come along they might send a PhD student or post-doc over to say Hi and, in many ways, this will be as valuable as — and considerably less stressful than — meeting the Prof.

Step Five: Always follow up

What’s the point of meeting your heroes? Just so you can write a short anecdote about them at the start of future blog post? Nope. The point of meeting your heroes is to gain some insight and inspiration into your own work and career. The best networking connections result in collaborative working and new shared knowledge. You’re never going to build up this kind of relationship in a conference poster session, so always follow-up after the event. Send your Prof an email — at a bare minimum, it was so nice to meet them face to face, you hope to connect again soon, yada yada yada. If you can, attach a copy of your conference poster or slides, or a link to something you talked about that they can follow-up. If you ever need to reach out to that person again it will be so much easier when you can say “remember, we met last year at the conference in Berlin”.

Of course, following-up is much more likely to yield a reply — maybe even a conversation, a paper, a collaboration — if you are contacting another student. Which brings me full circle — don’t meet your heroes. Meet your peers, your colleagues, your friends.

Sincerely,

Sue

Her royal research highness (a nickname bestowed by Bérengère)