Working Scientist

Melanie Stefan leads a computational neurobiology lab at MSB Medical School Berlin. But as a postdoc 16 years ago, a failed fellowship application prompted her to write an article in Nature. In it, she called for researchers to keep a ‘CV of failures.’
Stefan says: “The idea would be that the successful people in science would actually open up about the failures that they had on their way, and how many jobs they didn’t get, how many positions they weren’t admitted to, how many grants they failed to receive, how many papers were rejected, things like that, so that younger scientists (like I was at the time) could actually take heart and see that this is actually a normal part of the process and that they’re not alone.
“So that was the idea. And since then, I’ve kind of become the poster child of failure a little bit.”
This is the second episode of a six-part podcast series about failure in science, pegged to a conference held in April at Imperial College London, in partnership with Nature.
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Experiments fail and careers plans can go awry, forcing us to pivot in a different direction. Organizations also make mistakes. But failure, at both an individual and institutional level, can be a useful teacher.

In the first episode of a six-part podcast series about failure in science, Nature editor-in-chief Magdalena Skipper says: “I find it surprising that we don’t talk more about failure, that we’re not more honest about the role that it plays. Nobody wants to talk about it. Hence, it’s a taboo.”

In April, the journal partnered with Imperial College London on a one-day conference looking at the role of failure in science. Some of the themes from that event will be covered in future episodes, including how Silicon Valley celebrates ​​​​​​​“failing fast” as an important learning tool which academia can learn from, and the importance of risk-taking in research.

Launching the conference alongside Stephen Webster, who leads Imperial's Good Science project, a programme that examines research culture, Skipper said the best career decision she ever made was stepping away from active research.

She tells the podcast: “To some who are wedded to the idea that the only true path for a researcher is to continue in active research, that was a sign of my failure. I failed to be a successful academic researcher.” She ends by quoting British statesman Sir Winston Churchill, who said: “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
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Theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander was 12 years old when his father bought him a saxophone at a garage sale near their home in the Bronx, New York. Soon after he heard Ornette Coleman, a pioneer of free jazz, on the radio. “There was this saxophone playing that was completely out there, completely wild,” he recalls. “You could just play whatever you want and make up whatever you want.”

Alexander, a jazz saxophonist who now directs the Brown University Center for Theoretical Physics and Innovation, in Providence, Rhode Island, says: “I would not be the physicist I am today if weren't for my practice as a musician, especially as an improvisational musician.” He credits it for making him “more fluid and flexible mentally in terms of approaching and attacking physics problems,” some of which he ponders while watching performances in New York jazz clubs.

In the final episode of Creativity in Science, a six-part podcast series, Alexander also lists his former high school physics teacher Daniel Kaplan as a key influence. He says that Kaplan, a professionally-trained jazz musician, taught him that “intuition is the lifeblood of a good physicist.”
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Frances Brodsky believes that writing her three mystery novels set in the world of bench science has improved her scientific writing. “I love making up titles for my books and chapters,” she says. “One of the best ways to train someone in the lab to focus on their project is for them to come up with the title of a paper that they want to write. That tells them where they're going. Also, when I interview people, I ask them: ‘What is the title of the thesis you plan to write?’​​​​​​​”

Brodsky, a cell biologist at University College London, writes under the pseudonym B. B. Jordan. Her books feature Celeste Braun, a virologist in San Francisco, California, who uses her scientific expertise to solve mysteries and fight crime. “Sitting down to write these novels, my scientific writing became markedly better,” she says. “The exercise of fiction writing helped me put my work into a narrative.​​​​​​​”

In the penultimate episode of this six-part podcast series on creativity in science, Brodsky says the discipline of writing a novel has also taught her perseverance, adding: “When you start a writing project, you have to stick with it to get it to the end. Sticking with something and having faith that it will work out is a really good quality to have.​​​​​​​”
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Brandon Brown “fell into farming” after tiring of city life during the COVID-19 pandemic and now tends more than 150 fruit trees alongside his research into HIV and public health ethics at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine. “I had to look at farming the same way that I look at my academic career, and to take it one day at a time with my eyes towards a goal,” he says.

Brown says it took him a while for the realization to dawn. “My PhD taught me that the work is never done, and there’s always a new research project to pursue, more students to collaborate with, more policies to work on,” he says. “And since research builds on research, the fun never ends.”

Mornings spent outdoors also gives him time to think about work priorities. “I have lots of free time to think as I do the farming, and many times I write down notes as I’m working, because ideas and kind of reminders and goals and deadlines pass through my mind,” he says.

There are other benefits. Brown says he now falls asleep to the “beautiful” sound of howling coyotes, alongside possums, racoons, skunks, squirrels, lizards and gophers.

This is the fourth episode in a six-part series about creativity in science. Previous episodes featured a researcher who draws parallels between her research and sewing, another whose pursuit of baking and fermentation revealed fresh career opportunities, and two researchers who follow the concept of “day and night science” to distinguish between routine tasks and reflection.
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