Lab meetings

Our lab has largely been operating in a hybrid mode of work (i.e., partially remote and partially in-person), and in recent years our meeting schedule and requirements have reflected this reality. Moving forward, we are now gradually starting to incorporate more in-person interactions and meetings to facilitate more spontaneous interactions, discussions, and collaborations.

Effective lab communication requires forums for communicating. We use Slack to facilitate non-in-person communications. We also encourage in-person interactions as often as possible—ideally several times a week for group projects.

We’ll have the following regularly scheduled meetings:

Important

Lab meetings. Starting in the fall, 2024 term to be held on Tuesdays from 1:30 - 2:30 PM (CST) in our main lab space.

If you are an active lab member, you are expected to attend our lab meetings unless you let Hemanth know that you have a conflict (e.g., a course that meets at the same time, another commitment that comes up, etc.). It is important to prioritize lab meeting attendance so that we can build and maintain a lab culture of collaboration and ongoing participation.

You are also expected to present at one lab meeting per term. Possible presentation topics include (but are not limited to):

• A half-baked idea you have
• An interesting paper you read
• An interesting tool or software package you learned about
• A tutorial
• A (brief) hackathon
• Something you’re confused about that you want help from other lab members
• A practice presentation (poster, talk, etc.) you’d like feedback on
• Lead a discussion about some topic you think would be of interest to the group

You can take up to an hour for your presentation or discussion, although taking less than an hour is great too. You can also share a meeting slot with one or more other lab members if you wish. (A presentation with another lab member can still “count” as a presentation for the given term.) Hemanth will send out a Google Sheets link where you can add yourself to the meeting schedule at the start of each term.

• Project meetings. Several of our collaborative projects involve regular coordination within the lab and/or with external lab members. These are organized on an ad-hoc basis for each project. Attendees: all project team members and any other interested active lab members.
• Hackathons. We occasionally organize hackathon style events whereby spontaneously organized groups work towards one or more very short term projects or goals. These are scheduled on an ad hoc basis. Attendees: all interested lab members, any interested member of the Dartmouth community, and external collaborators.
• Weekly snippets. Each week, all paid employees must fill out a “weekly snippet” with brief answers to the following questions:
  1. What did you work on over this past week?
  2. What are you planning to work on this coming week?
  3. What is impeding your progress (if anything)?
  4. Anything else you’d like to add?