Tell me more ×
Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 13 down vote favorite
1

Some background information: I am a junior PhD student in electrical engineering and I need ideas about how to handle my mentor. Whenever I go to her with an idea she rejects it saying it is wrong or not interesting. But after a few months she comes back with a slightly modified version of my earlier idea and takes credit for the full idea. She asks me to do experiments with her version of my idea. Then when we have results, she publishes them in a conference (includes me as an author), but she gives the talk at the conference saying she came up with the idea and I only did experiments. Can you all suggest how to avoid this? I don't want to stop working with her because I have been working with her for two years and leaving will set me back by at least one and a half years.

share|improve this question
16  
Don't walk. Run. – JeffE Dec 10 '12 at 7:03
she might did this because she believe its actually her idea and its different from yours. Have you talked to her about how her idea is actually yours?.. I see nothing major in her behavior if all other things being good. Wait for another try and it will work most likely. – seteropere Dec 10 '12 at 7:13
9  
"nothing major" ? this is quite a problem. An advisor competing with their own student for idea ownership is a bad situation. – Suresh Dec 10 '12 at 8:05

4 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

I suspect the advisor is relative young and probably not fully even aware of the problem. Her perception of events may be completely different. She may feel that she contributed the essential part of the idea to make it valuable. She may not even remember that the idea came from you originally. But that does not mean that she shouldn't be corrected and give credit to you.

This can probably be solved by communicating with her, or by communicating with someone more senior, who could have a talk with her. Are there any annual progress meetings where this could be done?

Not dealing with the problem will only exacerbate it.

share|improve this answer
2  
Note the word "Whenever" OP used. It indicates to me that it happened more than once. If it happened only once, I would believe it was just an accident or bad memory. If more than once, I think it's delibrate and that's the problem I am having with this answer. Will communication work? Would she admit it? The admission could mean her career is finished. – scaaahu Dec 10 '12 at 13:16
1  
If she is unaware of the problem, then she may be unaware of it multiple times. Naturally, this will need to be handled delicately. It need not finish her career, just require her to make adaptations to her "working style". – Dave Clarke Dec 10 '12 at 13:21
1  
"I suspect the advisor is relative young" : +1, otherwise she probably wouldn't so eager to give the talk in the conferences. – Sylvain Peyronnet Dec 10 '12 at 14:35
2  
I would strongly recommend taking the "communicating with someone more senior" route. As others have stated, this needs to be handled very delicately, or else there will be hard feelings afterwards. I strongly suggest speaking with your department chair or knowledgeable, respected colleague and asking them to help moderate any discussoin. – eykanal♦ Dec 10 '12 at 15:12
6  
It is possible that what @Anonymous perceives as slightly modified, the supervisor perceives as an essential difference. – gerrit Dec 10 '12 at 19:55
show 1 more comment
up vote 5 down vote

It's a common psychological thing that people treat their own ideas, and others' ideas, on a different grounding. And even there is a strategy of convincing people to make them believe that they genuinely came with the idea. The thing is that in academia, it's not only about "making things work" but tracking who came with the idea first.

So:

  • I disagree with JeffE's "Don't walk. Run" (perhaps for the first time),
  • I would talk to her, especially referring to e-mails or something when you explicitly cam with this idea, but starting a discussion, not an attack.

Surely, there are chances that:

  • the idea was different (seemingly subtle differences are actually big), at least in her eyes,
  • she honestly forgot that she came with this idea (but it is also not that impossible, that she got rather inspired and not only you, but a number of guys),
  • she actively wants to get all/most of the credit (perhaps not that uncommon for a group leader, but definitely bad for you).
share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote

I would approach this the same way I would have done in any workplace:

  • In future, all proposals from you to her would be initiated by an email, with explicit copies to an external, personal email account of yours.
  • In the event of any offline conversations, write a summary of your discussion and send it to her (and yourself) in the form of an email - end the email on a note that this is a formal "notes of the meeting minutes", and that she should reply if there are any discrepancies in it.
  • In the extreme case, if all of the above do not work, write your idea in the form of a draft paper, submit it to arxiv, wait for it to get accepted (takes a couple of days I think), and then initiate the proposal (through an email, of course!)

To clarify, I wholeheartedly agree with JeffE - an adviser is your mentor for life, and if this is the foundation of your relationship, you should break it off ASAP (no matter how many years you lose - your peace of mind isn't worth it!). Also, note that while the above steps may stop her from plagiarizing your ideas, she would still be in a position of power and can screw you over in n different ways (your defense, recommendation letters, feedback on faculty hiring committees etc). So, use my suggestions in the short-term till you find a different mentor!

share|improve this answer
1  
She included the OP as a coauthor, so it is not plagiarism per se. She did give him credit! – Dave Clarke Dec 10 '12 at 18:18
2  
But as a co-author, not as the first author (as is my impression from the question. In CS (especially in TCS), I've been led to believe that the first author is the originator of the idea - I maybe wrong on that, but if not, then is that not plagiarism (perhaps on a different level)? – TCSGrad Dec 10 '12 at 18:27
I wouldn't call this plagiarism. Sure, it is not giving the credit that is due, but credit is given. And the reading of the order of authors depends on a lot of factors. It may not be the originator of the idea, but the one who did the work. Or the student. What about alphabetical order? – Dave Clarke Dec 10 '12 at 18:37
2  
@TCSGrad actually it is TCS in particular that author order is irrelevant, since we usually do alphabetical ordering. – Suresh Dec 10 '12 at 21:28
3  
@TCSGrad it varies greatly. Loosely speaking, the closer to TCS, the more likely you are to see alphabetical ordering. – Suresh Dec 11 '12 at 0:45
show 2 more comments
up vote 3 down vote

Continue working with her until the end without giving too much ideas. In the meantime, work on your own ideas, but wait the end of your PhD to publish them.

share|improve this answer
3  
Maybe it's not the same in all fields, but a PhD dissertation contains mostly joint work. The OP mentions that he co-authored the papers with his advisor, the only bad point is that the advisor is telling everybody that the ideas are her ideas, but 1) if the OP publishes a lot of his ideas after the PhD, that will not be a problem, and 2) generally, somebody with this behaviour has been exposed a long time ago (even if nobody is doing something about it). – Sylvain Peyronnet Dec 10 '12 at 14:23
3  
If the advisor goes around telling everyone that the ideas were hers, the OP won't get a job doing research, and won't get the chance to "publish a lot of ideas after Ph.D" – Suresh Dec 10 '12 at 16:30
2  
Actually I made no such assumption. It doesn't really matter whether the advisor is well-respected or not. – Suresh Dec 10 '12 at 21:25
1  
I saw the case that the OP presents here twice. In one case the advisor was known for this kind of behaviour and it did not preclude the PhD student to find a very good postdoc. In the other case, the problem was on the student side (he did not understand the difference between his ideas and the ones of his supervisor), and even with a bad letter from the supervisor, he found a pretty good research position. – Sylvain Peyronnet Dec 11 '12 at 7:37
1  
in the past, in 2 committees where I was, I saw the exact same situation : a student stating that his supervisor takes his ideas. In one case the problem was really the supervisor, in the other it was the student. In both cases the situation was harmless for the student. – Sylvain Peyronnet Dec 11 '12 at 12:10
show 4 more comments

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.