NAVIGATION
Lab meetings (~1 hour) are scheduled at the same time every week during the semester and are held in person. Lab meetings are usually the only time all of us are gathered in person, so it’s our weekly chance to connect with and learn from each other—and grow as a lab community. The start of weekly lab meetings is dedicated to time-sensitive study updates (general updates are given in the bimonthly Study Update Meetings).
Lab meeting topics may include new study ideas, journal articles, professional development, presentation practice, and anything else that would be helpful to get others’ feedback or perspective on. In the absence of a topical subject, lab members take turns to choose readings so that everyone has a chance to lead the discussion. Any reading related to lab research, even interdisciplinary articles, are fair game.
Any lab member can set the agenda, but every meeting needs an agenda. Typically, the person who sets the agenda will run the meeting, so everyone leads a lab meeting. Leading is like being the moderator in a conference talk. You don’t have to create content, but you’re in charge of making sure the meeting is instructive. Meeting agendas should be posted on Notion at least 5 days ahead of the meeting time so lab members can prepare appropriately.
Once every 2 months, we do a status update on all lab projects. In this meeting, the lead of each project should list their team members, then briefly describe the (a) study rationale, (b) research questions, and (c) current status (e.g., 50% through with data collection). This is a great time for study members to ask for help on a project (e.g., ideas for recruitment, getting a coder on a systematic review) or troubleshoot specific problems (e.g., IRB feedback). It’s also a chance for lab members to learn more about what’s going on in the lab and join studies they find interesting.
Stand-up meetings may be scheduled for specific projects as needed (e.g., updates go beyond Status Update Meetings). The purpose of these meetings is to review the status of the project, identify new tasks or problems that need to be addressed, and assign people to them. During the meeting, each person briefly (~1 minute) summarizes (1) what they have completed since the last meeting, (2) what they need from other people to make progress on their tasks, and (3) what they will do before the next meeting. Thus, please come to stand-up meetings prepared to speak about your progress clearly and succinctly. At the end of the meeting, everyone should know what they need to work on before the next meeting.