Research notes and essays
A running notebook, separate from the laboratory's research news. Technical notes explain the ideas behind our work; the other series reflect on the craft and life of research. Read them in any order.
Research Notes
Short technical essays on the causal ideas behind our work — from coordination and transport to the interface where electrochemistry happens.
Through the Thinkers
The research life seen through the eyes of ten philosophers, scientists, and teachers — from Jung to Confucius.
The Academic Shadow
On Jung's persona and the hidden psychological dimension of academic careers — how the identity built by past success can quietly limit future thought.
What Marcus Aurelius Might Say to a Researcher
A Stoic reflection for researchers: focus on what is within our control — honesty, rigor, and curiosity — and leave recognition to history.
What the Buddha Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection for researchers on non-attachment: caring more about the truth than about being right, and treating every hypothesis as an exercise in letting go of certainty.
What Karl Popper Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection for researchers on Karl Popper and falsifiability: the courage not to defend an idea, but to test it where it is most likely to fail.
What Richard Feynman Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection for researchers on Feynman's first principle — you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. On self-deception, confidence, and the discipline that guards against it.
What Thomas Kuhn Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection on Thomas Kuhn, paradigms, and anomalies: sometimes the greatest obstacle to discovery is not missing evidence, but the assumptions no one thinks to question.
What Socrates Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection on Socrates and intellectual honesty: the more we learn, the more clearly we see how much remains unknown — and why curiosity never becomes obsolete.
What Viktor Frankl Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection on Viktor Frankl and the search for meaning: why achievement and meaning are not the same, and what sustains research through the long days no one sees.
What Seneca Might Say to a Researcher
A reflection on Seneca and the shortness of life: the difference between busyness and contribution, and why sustained attention to what matters is a researcher's greatest resource.
What Confucius Might Say to a Professor
A reflection on Confucius and the teaching life: why a professor's most enduring work may be the people who grow because of them, not the papers left behind.
Beyond Metrics
First-person reflections on the parts of an academic life that publications, citations, and the H-index cannot measure.
Beyond H-index: The Next Milestone Is Not a Number
Metrics measure where research has been; frameworks shape where it goes next. On the transition from measuring impact to creating direction.
The Next Stage of Academic Growth
Publications, citations, and the H-index are not the destination but the foundation. On how a school of thought emerges from — not instead of — rigorous science.
Lessons from Science
Everyday laboratory phenomena — batteries, entropy, interfaces — read as quiet lessons for life.
Letters to My Younger Self
Notes sent back to the researcher I was twenty years ago.
The Craft of Research
Practical, evergreen guidance on the day-to-day craft — hypotheses, peer review, writing, figures, reproducibility, and integrity.