How An Engineering Grad Student Organizes Her Days
Weekly planning + Monday Misc. Morning + How not to let your notes disappear in a lab fire
Did you miss this week’s threads? They’re above-average excellent, particularly if you need an idea for a movie night with a kid this summer (and want to pick something ‘old’ that they’ll actually like) or want ideas on how to get into a hobby, area of study, sport, craft, whatever with a high barrier to entry. (The crossword advice is so good???)
Also, I’m feeling a burst of writing energy this month and have a bunch of ideas bonking around in my head — but I need stories/perspective from all of you. Story #1: If you have ideas about the rise of kids’ flag football, particularly the NFL-sponsored leagues, and how it’s changing how you/others think about the sport…I want to hear about it. Story #2: I want examples of emails, texts, social media posts, WHATEVER that you’ve asked some form of AI to help write for you. I’m trying to pinpoint something about AI’s ‘style’ for this type of writing, but I need more examples than the ones various programs are generating for me. [I would delete ALL identifying information if I quote from these, don’t worry]. Here’s the Google Form to submit your thoughts on either of these topics.
In response to my piece on how How I Write Culture Study, I asked readers if they’d want to participate in a series where people from various professions talk about their work lives, explaining how they organize their days and weeks, how they protect their time, when and how they do their work and how and when they attend to their inbox, etc. etc.
Our first entries in the series were from a freelance audiobook narrator and a gardening ceramacist. Today, you’ll hear about what it’s like to be an engineering grad student trying to build solutions to climate change in this moment. If you’d like to volunteer to talk about a day/week in your life for a potential interview — crucially, this work does not have to be for pay; I’d love to hear from caregivers — here’s the very simple sign-up.
Now, let’s hear from Shashwati Da Cunha about trying to figure out a new way to make chemicals, how to break up big and slow research projects, resisting the temptation to spend a ton of time doing the stuff that’s easiest to check off your to-do list, how she avoids losing all her research in a lab fire, and the ongoing effects of cuts to publically-funded labs. Shashwati is passionate about making engineers understandable to people who aren’t PhD students, so I promise you won’t get lost!
We met when I gave a talk to graduate students at the University of Texas, and I loved how evident it was that you were at once committed to your PhD work *and* trying to think holistically and contextually about the world around you. Can you talk a little about your specific research and why you’ve pursued it?
I wanted to build solutions to climate change, and to leverage the technical skills I already had. My undergraduate degree is in chemical engineering – chemical because I love the excitement of reactions and the physicality of materials, and engineering to learn how to Get Things Done. My PhD is in electrocatalysis, a technology that could revolutionize the way we manufacture chemicals.
Coming out of undergrad, I saw its potential to solve multiple climate problems, had some relevant experience in catalysis, and thought it was cool. My thesis focuses on asking the right questions to scale up this technology.
Before I began my PhD, I didn’t realize how many climate solutions already exist. The corollary that even fewer people may realize: so much effort in climate technologies is centered around lowering costs. We have so many options that already work, but aren’t the cheapest way to get something done. Sometimes high cost is reflective of resource scarcity or technical complexity. But many times, a technology hasn’t scaled because there’s no market at its price point — on a societal level, we just aren’t willing to pay a premium to protect the planet. This is why simulations suggest that a carbon tax may be the most powerful tool to address climate change.
If you look at climate-centric technologies that achieved scale, some were deliberately supported until the unit cost came down enough to create a market (e.g. solar panels). Others were marketed as premium products, with the corresponding pricing and audience (e.g. vegan meat substitutes). Yet others were subsidized through policy levers, with compliance or research paid for by taxpayers (e.g. catalytic converters in cars). As an engineer, I can work on improving technology to bring down its cost, but we need people who can move these other handles too.
But when it comes to my work — I specifically study carbon dioxide electrolysis (“CO2 reduction”), a process inspired by photosynthesis. Plants use solar energy to convert CO2 from the atmosphere into useful stuff like sugar, which they later eat, releasing CO2 back into the air. Our goal is similar: convert CO2 into useful stuff using renewable electricity, thereby creating a circular economy.
Humans urgently need to manage CO2 because we emit gigatons of it annually, mostly by burning fossil fuels. CO2 strengthens the natural greenhouse over the planet, driving anthropogenic climate change. On the flipside, we use gigatons of carbon-based materials annually, including fuels, plastics, resins, textiles, lubricants, medicines, cosmetics, cleaning products… But nearly all are made from crude oil and natural gas, often via high-temperature processes that are heated by burning gas.
Through CO2 electrolysis, we use CO2 to make building blocks for fossil-free carbon-based chemicals. This process is driven by electricity, rather than heat, so it can be coupled to renewable energy sources like solar panels or wind turbines. It’s currently too expensive to compete with petrochemicals, so I determine critical research directions to move forward. How do we tailor products to meet consumer demands? How should we operate electrolyzers in a real power grid, where renewable electricity is not continuously available? How should we structure electrolyzers to fit into existing plants?
To answer these questions, I conduct economic and emissions assessments on industrial-scale CO2 electrolysis, accounting for the complex physical and chemical relationships in an electrolyzer, and recommend design changes and performance metrics.
Now, tell me about how you organize your day — or your week. You can do it like I did (breaking down each day of the week) or you can just do a pretty typical day, whatever makes sense for you.
My work schedule is guided by what the project needs and structured by fixed meetings and my energy levels. Although it’s flexible, I try to work business hours in my office (close to 9 – 5). Depending on upcoming deadlines and my energy, I may work additional hours, preferably at home so they feel less like work. Extra work time is Sunday afternoons or weeknights after dinner. Given the flexibility, I can easily account for repairs or doctor’s appointments during the workday.
In my field, a PhD thesis is typically a series of academic papers, each a single research idea or project. Completing a project – presumably by answering a research question – takes months to years, with proportionate emotional breakdowns. My research process follows these stages, albeit nonlinearly:
Ideation: identifying needs; figuring out what’s been previously tried and why it failed; coming up with crazy ideas; eventually picking an initial idea or question; evaluating the strategy (e.g. Is this physically possible? If our hypothesis is right, would it even matter?)
Design: designing models, experiments, or techniques to answer a question; outlining derivative questions and supporting analyses that will be required; learning necessary skills
Execution: building the structure of the model; writing code, making spreadsheets, using industry packages; collecting data inputs; troubleshooting; sanity checks; reading and learning more methods
Analysis: extracting meaning; analyzing results, secondary and tertiary data processing; checking calculations; testing sensitivity to assumptions; contextualizing and comparing with prior work
Communication: making oral and poster presentations; writing academic papers; creating open-access tools
Retrospectively mapping out stages in my most recent project
An older student advised me early on that there’s always one more line of code you can write, one more experiment you can run — so you have to draw a line. Also, research is really hard and really slow. I try to set one to three daily or weekly goals, depending on the stage of the project. I can’t work effectively on multiple research projects, even prioritizing them. Instead, I try to split them across different days or even weeks.
I present an update to my advisor biweekly, which I use to reflect on progress and structure next steps. I also outline the journal paper early on and work towards filling in the blanks. It never turns out the way I planned, but I find this very effective for breaking down overwhelming projects and to prevent rabbit-holes from getting me off track. I also deliver major presentations my research group or externally every few months. Because of the range of timescales over which I need to aggregate information, I note what I do every single day in a few bullet points. This makes it easy to keep track of everything I need to consider in “the story so far”.
Early in my PhD, I found myself prioritizing admin and logistical tasks outside of the research workflow, because they are more defined and can be checked off in one shot. After battling with that tendency, I’ve accepted that the first half of Mondays is for miscellanea. Monday afternoons are when I get into the swing of research. I often work late on Mondays, since I have more energy early in the week but only build momentum late in the day.
The rest of the week, I often spend the first hour or so reading. This includes learning new methods or skills, keeping abreast with research developments, and reading lots of technical and non-technical writing. That open-ended time, for which I don’t set goals, has hugely shaped my knowledge of my field and structured my thinking.
I don’t want to spend too much time organizing information (or forget the color-coding scheme, or which journal was which…) Therefore, I keep a single to-do list for work and life, with a high priority and low priority section. When this gets out of hand, I’ll have an entry like “do experiments” to point me to an external, more detailed planning document. My notebook for day-to-day notes, seminars etc is in Microsoft OneNote. The downside is that I can’t draw or write math directly, so I scan in handwritten notes frequently because too many famous scientists have had labs burn down.
How do you organize your future? (Planning for future work, planning for time off, etc.)
I make lots of mind maps, because if I don’t write things down, they occupy brain space and stress me out. I have a giant mind map of sectors of my life in the present and future, on the basis of which I set goals each semester and year. Although I rarely achieve any professional ones (and maybe 30% of the personal ones), they focus my attention and prevent me from panicking about the infinite alternatives. I also write an annual reflection in December, and I usually go back to the list of goals and laugh.
I keep a huge running list and mind map of research ideas. I revisit these at decision points, but as I’ve progressed in my PhD, the next project has followed more naturally from the previous one. Research is very unpredictable, which makes traditional long-term project management tools like Gantt charts very difficult to follow. I check in every 3-6 months on my overall research progress and re-assess timelines for projects and graduation. Since I don’t plan to stay in academia in the short term, I also keep in touch with my industry network, attend professional events/ conferences, and read industry news. This helps me think about career directions while also steering my research to stay relevant.
How do you think about “coworkers?” (I’m particularly interested in this one because I know that some of the more existential/systemic issues in academia we discussed at my talk are not always easy to talk about within a cohort)
I’m very lucky to have an excellent group of lab mates, a large cohort, and a friendly and welcoming department – the people have been the best thing about graduate school. This group provides technical feedback, informal mentorship and motivation; we keep each other hanging in there. I’m also grateful for the diversity of the class, which has taught me many different perspectives on science and on life. Since we share the training to think about complex questions in a very organized way, we have great conversations even when we disagree.
Being both students and employees of the university puts us in a strange no man’s land between colleagues and students. On the one hand, we have a more personal connection, but on the other, we are not protected by a strict organizational structure, which can cause problems with conflict management.
How do you think about funding and future economic realities, particularly in our current climate? What’s changed over the last year? (If you’re comfortable, I think people would appreciate knowing details about stipends, loans, etc.)
A PhD PROGRAM PAYS STUDENTS. I am NOT paying for school – the school is paying me as a researcher. Some circumstances around funding are more complex (e.g. if research grants are unavailable, you need to teach a class to be paid as a teaching assistant), but students should still be paid. At an R1 engineering program, I am paid enough to live (as an able-bodied non-parent), which is not the case across programs and disciplines. The line between employee and student is tenuous. For instance, a student’s stipend could list them working for 20 hours/week, but they actually work 60 hours/week to meet graduation expectations. Since it would be too difficult to work a second job, they’d be earning only ⅓ of the corresponding hourly pay.
In my field within the US, a student’s funding typically covers (1) tuition for being enrolled at the university and (2) a living stipend. Since I attend a public university, state residents (defined here to include grad students) are eligible for subsidized tuition. Universities and departments may have some budget for graduate stipends, often through donations, maybe for 1 year (out of 4-6). The bulk of scientific research is funded by research grants, which vary in source. In my field, they come mostly from (1) federal agencies (e.g. National Science Foundation, Department of Energy), (2) independent organizations (e.g. American Chemical Society, donor foundations), or (3) industry (e.g. oil and gas majors, pharmaceutical manufacturers). The breakdown between these sources depends on the research topic, legal requirements like who owns the intellectual property, and so on. However, the majority of research in American universities is funded through federal agencies.
Federal funding cuts are affecting many agencies, and therefore the graduate students working on their grants. (These students are highly trained professionals who could have high-paying jobs. Instead, they’re working on very difficult research problems that are important enough to spend tax money on.) A system already existed to prioritize research that’s critical enough to be funded by taxpayers: agencies convert legislative priorities into calls for research proposals, then award grants through a highly competitive process. There is not much clarity or certainty on how this is changing, probably by design. Funding cuts may make it impossible for research labs to buy consumables (like gloves), pay electricity bills, or keep administrative staff. Students are being pushed to graduate early, or universities are recruiting fewer PhD students. This change will also probably push academics to solicit and accept more grants from the private sector, deprioritizing research that does not benefit a corporate bottom line, and introducing bias into the types of questions that researchers can afford to ask.
There’s a phrase I think about a lot that’s generally attributed to a German infantryman in World War II: “With us it was always ‘sweat saves blood’, but with [the Allies] it was ‘equipment saves men’.” (italics mine) This soldier saw the consequences of an enormous effort, particularly in the US, to develop an advanced, highly organized research and development program. Technology was built to respond to the existential conflict of the time. Whether the next existential threat comes from ecosystem collapse, broken weather systems, or devastating illnesses, we need scientists and engineers to be trained and ready.
For every “Day in the Life” interview like this we publish on Culture Study, I’m donating $500 to a non-profit organization of the author’s choice. What organization are we supporting with this interview, and why does their work matter to you?
I would like to support Project Drawdown, a non-partisan organization focused on scientific research on climate solutions and storytelling for a general audience. Their catalog of climate solutions has rekindled my hope many times. They also classify the financial costs and societal impacts of each solution, which is the kind of intersectional work I want to see more scientists and engineers doing. Most importantly, non-partisan storytelling on climate is desperately needed right now. The Culture Study community might also be interested in their efforts to train people so that “every job is a climate job”.
Shashwati da Cunha is a PhD Candidate in Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. She models electrolyzers that convert CO2 into chemicals, researching the intersection of climate solutions, energy infrastructure, and the chemicals industry. She is passionate about broadening engagement with research, and has previously led the university’s Chemical Engineering Women organization and served as the graduate representative on its Presidential Sustainability Steering Committee.
Now….what questions do you have for Shashwati? This can be a space for some engineering nerdery (Shashwati’s a subscriber, she’s here and would love to answer questions!) or we can talk about how you’ve figured out how to balance and organize massive, slow-moving projects in your own worklife.
And if you liked that, if it made you understand something you didn’t before, if you want to keep the paywall off stuff like this….consider becoming a paid subscriber:
You’ll get all the good subscriber-only stuff, like all the personal essays I put behind the paywall, the super-useful classifieds and advice and job fair threads, plus the more philosophical stuff like The Smallest Hill You’d Die On. Plus, you’d get the weekly Things I Read and Loved (see below!) including the Just Trust Me. All for less than a coffee or a beer or like half a glass a wine a month. Come join us!